Michael Gow is an Australian playwright and director most famed for his 1986 work Away.
Early life
As a student at Sydney University, Gow acted and directed with the Dramatic Society from 1973-1976. After graduation, Gow went on to act professionally with Nimrod, Thalia and Sydney Theatre Companies.
Career
After Gow received notice as a playwright for The Kid in 1983, his play Away (first performed in 1986 by Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company) established him as a major Australian playwright. Away is the story of three Australian families who go on holiday "up the coast" for Christmas 1967 as a remedy to personal crises, whose story threads eventually interconnect. The families cross the class and social divides: one is in a smart hotel, another is at the local caravan park; another is in the throes of possible divorce. These factors are woven into a story of love and loss that allows a young boy and girl to taste first love and the pain of death while their parents cope, more or less, with the consequences. Away received multiple productions in Australia and internationally, and remains a landmark of Australian contemporary drama and the best of Gow's earlier work.
Other plays of the late 1980s and early 1990s include Europe, an intriguing work as a young man and a European actress of uncertain age meet in her dressing room, Furious and Sweet Phoebe.
