A Celebration of the Life and Work of Tom Stoppard

Professor Glyn Davis AC is Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is a political scientist who served as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Melbourne. His books include The Australian Idea of a University, The Republic of Learning and On Life's Lottery. 

Dame Hermione Lee has written biographies of Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Penelope Fitzgerald (winner of the James Tait Black Prize), Willa Cather, Elizabeth Bowen and Philip Roth. Her latest biography is Tom Stoppard: A Life. 

Suzie Miller is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and novelist whose plays have been produced in 40 productions around the world. Her play Prima Facie is currently the highest grossing NTLive production screened in the UK and will transfer to Broadway NYC in 2023. Her latest play, RGB: Of Many, One recently opened with Sydney Theatre Company. She is currently working on a slate of major screen works, in addition to upcoming novels in Australia and the UK.

Simon Phillips was Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia from 1990-94 and Artistic Director of Melbourne Theatre Company from 2000-11. His directing credits range from contemporary and Shakespearean classics to musicals to opera. He has also directed the premieres of many new works by leading Australian writers. He has had a long association with Tom Stoppard’s work, having directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Arcadia, Rock’n’Roll, The Real Thing and the stage version of Shakespeare in Love.

Sir Tom Stoppard began his working life in 1954 as a junior reporter on the Western Daily Press. In 1967, his first full-length play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, was staged by the National Theatre. This play was followed by other award-winning works, including Jumpers, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with Andre Previn), Travesties, Night and Day, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock’n’Roll, The Hard Problem and Leopoldstadt. His many stage adaptations and translations include Undiscovered Country (Schnitzler), On the Razzle (Nestroy), Rough Crossing (Molnar), The Seagull (Chekhov), Henry IV (Pirandello), Heroes (Sibleyras), Ivanov (Chekhov) and The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov). Sir Tom has written for radio, television and film, with screen credits including Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Enigma and Shakespeare in Love, winner of an Academy Award for best original screenplay. He also directed his own screenplay of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.