Tom Holloway – April 22 2018

In commemoration of the Port Arthur Massacre – April 28-29 1996

Tom is an award-winning playwright, currently based in Melbourne. After attending University in Tasmania, he studied playwriting at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2001, as well as at London’s Royal Court Theatre International Playwriting Studio in 2006. Tom’s plays have been performed across Australia and internationally and include Don’t Say the Words, inspired by Aeschylus’ Agamemnon; Love Me Tender, inspired by Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis; and a stage adaptation of Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy. In Red Sky Morning Tom confronts the impact of depression and isolation in regional Australia and his 100 Reasons for War is a funny, angry, provocative but ultimately optimistic response to a century of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’, 100 years after Gallipoli.

Beyond the Neck
Playlab, 2007; ISBN 9780908156924
Full length play; 2 female, 2 male
An old man falls into his wife’s arms and cries. A young mother drops a pile of washing on the floor. A teenage girl as a child tells her mother the news. A boy walks home in silence. He feels the blood run down his cheek. The four strangers are bound by a shared moment – the Port Arthur Massacre. Ten years on, the aftershocks of the event still ripple. Based on in-depth interviews, Beyond the Neck is set ten years after the event and deals with the grief and recovery of the 1996 tragedy.

And No More Shall We Part
Currency Press, 2011; ISBN 9780868199047
Full length play; 1 female, 1 male
After a long and successful marriage, Pam and Don are still very much in love. But Pam is ill and has to make a heartbreaking decision that will transform both their lives. She does so in the only way she knows how – quickly, pragmatically, and resolutely. Don behaves in the only way he knows how – struggling to keep up but desperate not to lose touch. And No More Shall We Part follows Pam and Don’s halting, humorous and devastating attempt at the impossible – to begin to say goodbye to each other after a lifetime together.