Justin Fleming

Justin Fleming (born 3 January 1953) is an Australian playwright, librettist and author. He has written for theatre, music theatre, opera, television and cinema and his works have been produced and published in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Poland and France. Fleming has been a barrister and vice president of the Australian Writers' Guild and a board member of the Australian National Playwrights' Centre. He is a member of the Honorable Society of King’s Inns, Dublin.

Early life, education and career

Born in Sydney in 1953, Fleming is one of the six children of Drs Justin Fleming and Gwen Fleming of Sydney, Australia. His father Justin Fleming Snr, was a pioneer vascular surgeon who served with the RAAF during World War Two. Mother Gwen Fleming (née Lusby), also a doctor, had served as one of the first women majors in the Australian Army Medical Corps during the War. The couple met while serving at Concord Military Hospital, and married soon after the war, going on to have six children - Margaret, Paul, Justin, Judith, James and Peter.

Fleming attended high school at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, a Jesuit college in Sydney. Here he was taught english literature by Joseph Castley and Charles MacDonald, S.J., and the classics by Charles Fraser, S.J. Near contemporaries at the college included writers Gerard Windsor, Nick Enright, Brian A Williams and composer Stewart D'Arrietta. He was taught music by Lorraine Henderson, Julienne Horn and Tessa Birnie. After graduating High School, Fleming enrolled in Arts at the University of New South Wales, and attended part time acting classes with Hayes Gordon and Zika Nester at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney. In 1972, he joined Gemini Productions working in television and contributed scripts for The Godfathers, The True Blue Show (ATN 7), The Spoiler and The Young Doctors. Fleming wrote his first plays in the late 1970s, while still working in the law. He completed the manuscript for Hammer in 1978 and Doubted his Empire in 1979.

Other plays include adaptations of Émile Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames (The Department Store) at Old Fitzroy and D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, 27 August 2003.

Fleming has been librettist and lyricist on Crystal Balls (Compact Opera/UK tour/Sadler's Wells, London), The Ninth Wonder (Sydney Theatre Company), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Savoy Theatre, London and UK tour), Accidental Miracles (WAAPA/Sydney Theatre Company/Cameron Macintosh), Satango (Griffin Theatre Company/Riverside Theatres/Vegas Theater Company), Ripper (Ensemble Theatre), Laid in Earth (Queensland Music Festival), The Merry Widow for Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia, and Whiteley for Opera Australia. Whiteley was nominated by the Writers' Guild for an AWGIE award for Music Theatre 2020 and an International Opera Award for Best New Work 2020. Fleming is creator and librettist on a new opera, Helpmann on Sir Robert Helpmann, and wrote a new English libretto for Die Fledermaus. He wrote script and lyrics for Goblin the Musical with composer Thos Hodgson.

In 2006, Fleming was made Writer-in-Residence by the Dr Robert and Lina Thyll-Dur Foundation at La Casa Zia Lina, Elba in Italy, where he translated Molière's Tartuffe (titled as The Hypocrite) from the original French into English. In 2007 he was awarded the Writer's Residency at Arthur Boyd's Bundanon, where he wrote Origin, a play on the subject of Charles Darwin, commissioned by the Melbourne Theatre Company. He was granted a residency at the Don Bank Museum, North Sydney and awarded the Tasmanian Writers' Centre Residency in 2008, where he wrote His Mother's Voice. Scripts The Nonsense Boy Junction The Cobra Burnt Piano – published by Phoenix Education Hammer Kangaroo Coup d'etat & Other Plays Indian Summer The Department Store Laid in Earth, (Queensland Music Festival 2009 – music by Damian Barbeler) Satango Harold in Italy The Myth of the Passive Citizen The Starry Messenger The Cobra Her Holiness – with Melvyn Morrow Tartuffe (The Hypocrite) The School for Wives His Mother's Voice A Molière Anthology Stagelines: Writing Scripts for the Theatre Screenplays Lord Devil The Shedding The Tree House Caroline Dead Men Running Nellie