Editorial to 'Dialogue - a Tribute to Nick Enright'

Abstract

In August-September this year the Sydney Theatre Company staged Nick Enright and Terence Clarke's magnificent musical, 'Summer Rain', at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay. The day after the premiere a group of playwrights, actors, directors, theatre enthusiasts and scholars met in the Richard Wherrett Studio to consider the achievements of Nick Enright, who died of cancer in 2003. The rationale for the conference was to move beyond the tribute and discuss how we might produce a book about Enright's contribution to theatre - a book that would be useful for theatre practitioners, teachers and scholars. In spite of many reviews and some work by Bruce Parr, May-Brit Akerholt and Veronica Kelly on Enright there is not much academic commentary on this significant playwright. In this issue of 'Dialogue' we feature some of the highlights of three of the papers presented at the conference: Peter Kingston's 'Directing Nick Enright', Susan Lever's 'Vengeful Bodies: Nick Enright's Screenplays' and Julian Louis's 'Nick Enright and Ensemble Theatre - State of Play'.