Nick Enright OAM 1950-2003

In 1992 Enright’s screenplay for the George Miller film Lorenzo’s Oil earned him an Academy
Award nomination. He toyed with other Hollywood film projects, but eventually decided that he preferred a less frenzied working environment, where he could explore themes involving Australian ideas and characters and continue his work with young people.

In 1992 Enright wrote A Property of the Clan, a powerful retelling of the rape and murder of a Newcastle schoolgirl, for that city’s Freewheels Theatre-in-Education Company. It was subsequently reworked as Blackrock, first as a multi award winning play, and then as a film produced by David Elfick. Also widely performed was Good Works (1994), which chronicled two Australian Catholic families over five decades. Enright and Justin Monjo’s monumental stage adaptation of Tim Winton’s sprawling novel Cloudstreet was first produced by Company B Belvoir for the 1998 Sydney and Perth Festivals. This 102-scene three-part five-hour masterpiece won the 2002 Helpmann Award for Best Play. It travelled widely, and was seen in London and New York.

From 1998 Enright was Adjunct Professor at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at the Edith Cowan University. His students adored him, and several of his later productions emerged from the dynamic workshops he conducted there, the musical Mary Bryant, for instance.

Enright’s last triumph was The Boy from Oz, a large scale musicalisation of the life of Australian singer–songwriter Peter Allen. Produced by Ben Gannon and Robert Fox and with Todd McKenney as Allen, the show opened at Her Majesty’s in Sydney on 5 March 1998. For the next two years it played for 766 performances, was seen by more than 1.2 million patrons, grossed more than $60 million and won numerous awards, including the 2001 Helpmann Award for Best Musical. The record-breaking Broadway production in October 2003 was a Tony-winning triumph for its star, Hugh Jackman, who later repeated the role in a hugely successful arena production that toured Australia in 2006. The show has also been staged in Tokyo.

In 1999 Enright was artistic supervisor for a widespread tour of Wesley Enoch’s innovative Bell Shakespeare production of Romeo and Juliet; this started in Sydney, and played through New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, concluding in Alice Springs.