Damien Millar

Playwright  ·  Dramaturge

Two performers in a small wooden boat surrounded by low fog, one standing and pointing out past the audience, from the Melbourne Theatre Company and Arena Theatre Company production of Marlin.
Marlin — Melbourne Theatre Company & Arena Theatre Company, 2014. Photograph by Pia Johnson.
Theatre that dares to mean something. Alison Croggon

About

Damien Millar is an Australian playwright and dramaturge, born in Papua New Guinea. Five of his plays have been produced by the country's major companies, among them Melbourne Theatre Company, Griffin Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company. His work has been published by Currency Press and has toured Sweden in translation with their national company Riksteatern.

He began in arts-activism, performing through the late eighties and early nineties at fundraisers and actions for ACT-UP Melbourne, and afterwards at the Performance Space and cLUB bENT in Sydney.

Alongside his own writing he has spent thirty years as a dramaturge and mentor for companies including Griffin, Belvoir, Sydney Theatre Company, John Frost, ILBIJERRI, Urban Theatre Projects, The Performance Space and Playwriting Australia. He has also taught playwriting at NIDA, La Trobe University, and the University of Wollongong. He is currently developing a new play with the help of Australian Plays Transform.

The first play he ever saw was in Pentridge.

Studio portrait of Damien Millar against a grey background, close-cropped hair and a red beard, wearing a black shirt.
Photograph by Steve Scalone

Plays

Marlin

Melbourne Theatre Company and Arena Theatre Company, 2014, directed by Christian Leavesley. Toured with Arena to the Bleach* Festival, Gold Coast, 2015. Translated and adapted by Ninna Tersman as Svärdfisken and toured across Sweden by Riksteatern, the national touring theatre.

  • AWGIE Award, Theatre for Young Audiences, 2015
  • Drama Victoria Award, Best Performance by a Theatre Company for Primary Students, 2014
  • Nominated, Helpmann Awards and Green Room Awards, 2014

"magical and uncondescending"Cameron Woodhead, The Age

"a thrilling sea journey for both children and grandparents"Michael Cathcart, ABC

The Modern International Dead

Griffin Theatre Company with Riverside Theatres Parramatta, 2008, directed by Chris Mead. Deckchair Theatre, Fremantle, 2011. Act-O-Matic 3000, Brunswick, 2012. Published by Currency Press. Written after a year of research in and around contemporary war zones.

  • Western Australian Premier's Book Award, 2008
  • Sydney Theatre Award, Best New Australian Work, 2008
  • WA Guild Equity Award, 2008
  • Performing Arts WA Award, 2011
  • Shortlisted for the Queensland, Victorian and NSW Premier's Literary Awards

"funny, irreverent, passionate and provocative"Mark Hopkins, The Sydney Morning Herald

a "landmark production"Jason Cartlett, Time Out

"extremely, awfully, irresistibly, face-achingly hilarious"Diana Simmonds, Stage Noise

Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures)

Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2, 2006, directed by Chris Mead. Adapted from the memoir by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson. Optioned by Miramax.

  • The Griffin Award, 2007

"a powerful conclusion to their first year"John McCallum, The Australian

Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime

Melbourne Workers Theatre, 2010, the company's final production. Written with Raimondo Cortese and Roanna Gonsalves, from interviews conducted after the racial violence against Indian students in Melbourne.

  • AWGIE Award, Community and Youth Theatre, 2010

Cop Stories

Readings for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 2001, and the Griffin Searchlight season, 2005.

  • Mardi Gras Award, 2001
  • Shortlisted, The Griffin Award, 2006

A new work

In development, with the assistance of Australian Plays Transform.

Directing

Mother Courage and Her Children

Bertolt Brecht. La Mama Courthouse, Carlton, 2022, live and digital.

a "powerful indictment"Patricia Di Risio, Stage Whispers

La Trobe University Theatre Department

Bundoora, Bendigo and online, 2015 to 2022. Productions included Coriolanus, Antigone, Agamemnon, Medea, Far Away, Love and Information, Mad Forest, Cabaret, Shakespeare's Rogues and Who's Afraid of the Working Class?, alongside group-devised and site-specific work.

BlackWrights Showcase

Melbourne Festival with ILBIJERRI Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre, The Lawler, 2019. Directed the public showcase of new work by Monica Jasmine Karo, Nazaree Dickerson and Blayne Welsh.

The Tempest

William Shakespeare. Harlos Productions, Bondi Pavilion, 2007.

The Man Who

Peter Brook. The New Theatre with National Science Week, Newtown, 2006. Also set, costume and sound design.

"emotionally cool, rigorously simple, visually interesting"Jason Blake, The Sydney Morning Herald

The Illusion

Pierre Corneille, adapted by Tony Kushner. Darlinghurst Theatre, 2006.

"the diamond in the rough of independent theatre"Skye Crawford, Aussietheatre

"both a burlesque of the classics and an affectionately crafted homage"Colin Rose, The Sun-Herald

Cloud 9

Caryl Churchill. Darlinghurst Theatre with The Relaxed & Comfortable Group, 2004. A box-office record for the venue.

NIDA

Productions from 2002 to 2009, including a series of Brecht's learning plays and a programme of Beckett's short works.

Dramaturgy

Thirty years of development work on other people's plays, for most of the companies in the country.

  • BlackWrights, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, 2018–20, including the showcase at Melbourne Festival
  • Next Stage and Cybec Electric, Melbourne Theatre Company
  • Lotus, the Asian-Australian playwrights programme, Playwriting Australia
  • The Patrick White Playwrights' Award readings, Sydney Theatre Company
  • Melbourne Workers Theatre; Tamarama Rock Surfers; Playworks; Urban Theatre Projects
  • Acting Artistic Director, Tantrum Theatre Company, Newcastle
  • Gallipoli, Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Festival; Doctor Zhivago, John Frost and The Really Useful Group
  • Writing workshops in the New South Wales prison system

Teaching

  • La Trobe University, 2015–24, in the Theatre Department and then in English
  • NIDA, 2003–10: directing, theatre history and the Playwrights' Studio
  • University of Wollongong, 2003–06, where he designed the playwriting programme
  • University of Technology Sydney, 1997–2000

Other writing

Poetry in Meanjin and The Saturday Paper. Fiction in Westerly, Outrage and the Vintage anthology Blur. Criticism in Campaign, where he was books editor, and The Big Issue. Scholarly work in About Performance.

He also records music, having joined John Blake as DJ Soup on Creative Vibes, Invada and MGM.

Contact

damienmillar@gmail.com

Wyndham Vale, Victoria, Australia. Enquiries about scripts, commissions, dramaturgy and teaching are all welcome.

The photographer's own shadow cast across dry cracked earth, with the silhouette of a small bird perched on his shoulder. Taken on a farm at Macorna, Victoria.