Alan Hopgood – February 4 2018

World Cancer Day – February 4

Alan is a playwright, screenwriter, documentary writer and actor. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education from Melbourne University. Alan’s first play, Marcus, was produced at Melbourne University while he was working as a school teacher prior to taking up writing and acting full-time. His other plays include And the Big Men Fly and Private Yuk Objects, the first play in the world about the Vietnam War. Alan’s best known screenplay is Alvin Purple. He collaborated with composer Michael Easton to produce the children’s opera Little Redinka and Petrov – The Musical, as well as the musiographies Oh Mr Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Callas – The Woman and, with Michael Harrison, The Mario Lanzer Story. Alan started his acting career as a child and went on to act with the Melbourne Theatre Company for a decade. His television credits include Bellbird, Neighbours and Prisoner, for which he scripted many episodes. His cinema credits include My Brilliant Career, The Blue Lagoon and The Man from Snowy River II. Alan is a prostate cancer survivor. He documented his experience in his book Surviving Prostate Cancer – One Man’s Journey, which he later adapted as a comedy, For Better, For Worse. Amongst his recent plays addressing health issues such as diabetes and geriatric sex, his one man show, The Carer, has been highly praised for its sensitive treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Alan was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005 for his services to the performing arts as an actor, playwright and producer, and to the community through raising awareness of men’s health issues.

The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women
Heinemann Educational Australia, 1979; BSB 0858591944
3 acts; 7 female, 2 male

When the cleaning women take over the world! A group of cleaning women are about to be replaced by contract cleaning. With their jobs threatened and management refusing to reconsider their decision, the future seems very gloomy indeed. That is until Lotte, one of the cleaning women and a natural entrepreneur, comes up with a brilliant idea …. The cleaning women use rubbish from the office wastepaper baskets to supply them with information with which to run the world. A perfect play for young actors – lots of fun to perform and plenty of room for innovation.

 

Weary – the War Diaries of Sir Edward Dunlop
Australian Script Centre; 2015
90 minutes; 0 female 3 male (1 old & 1 young ‘Weary’; 1 versatile actor capable of many roles)

Adapted from the War diaries of Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop, Alan uses Weary’s own rich language and the audience’s imagination to transport them to the Burma -Thailand Railway. Focusing on the period of incarceration by the Japanese as a Prisoner of War from 1942 to 1945, Weary portrays Dunlop’s heroism, when he not only led his men through years of intense privation and cruelty, but performed ‘miracles’ of surgery with makeshift equipment.