TOMMY MURPHY is a playwright and screenwriter. Murphy wrote and was an associate producer on the feature film Holding the Man (Goalpost Films) directed by Neil Armfield which premiered at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival. Murphy's long association with Tim Conigrave's memoir Holding the Man began with his 2006 stage adaptation for Griffin Theatre Company. This very successful production returned in 2007 to Griffin, then onto the Sydney Opera House, Company B Belvoir, Brisbane Powerhouse and Melbourne Theatre Company presentations. There have been separate productions on the West End (Trafalgar Studios), San Francisco, Auckland and Los Angeles. Murphy's adaptation won the NSW Premier's Literary Award and Australian Writers' Guild award for Best Play. Murphy's other screenwriting credits include writing for the award winning television series Devil's Playground (Matchbox Pictures/ Foxtel), Offspring, and Spirited (both for Southern Star Entertainment). Murphy's other stage works include: Peter Pan (Belvoir Street, including Broadway presentation at New Victory Theatre); Gwen in Purgatory (Belvoir Street and La Boite, directed by Neil Armfield); Saturn's Return (Sydney Theatre Company); Blood Wedding (Adaptation of Lorca's play for Royal and Derngate Northampton Theatre, UK); Strangers in Between (Griffin, Winner NSW Premier's Award); and Troy's House (ATYP). His new play Mark Colvin’s Kidney premiered at Belvoir Street in February, 2017. Murphy is currently developing plays for the Sydney Theatre Company, writing episodes of new dramas for Goalpost Pictures and Matchbox Pictures (both for Foxtel) and he has created a new television series for Goalpost Pictures and SBS.

Tim Conigrave (1959 – 1994) was an actor, writer and activist. He grew up in Melbourne, graduated from Monash University and worked as a performer with St Martin's Youth Arts Centre and later with the Australian Performing Group (APG) at The Pram Factory. He wrote his first play,The Blitz Kids in 1981. Conigrave went on to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), graduating in 1984. He joined the Board of Griffin Theatre and was instrumental in initiating the acclaimed Soft Targets (1986) project. He also appeared in a number of plays and musical cabarets. As a playwright he produced two more works Thieving Boy and Like Stars in your Hands. His major work, the autobiographical Holding the Man, is the story of his 15-year love affair with John Caleo who he met in high school. They were both diagnosed with HIV in 1985. Caleo later succumbed to cancer and Conigrave nursed him while fighting his own illness. John Caleo died in 1992, aged 31. Conigrave finished Holding the Man shortly before dying of an AIDS-related illness in October 1994, aged 34. The book was published by Penguin in 1995 and won the United Nations Award for Non-Fiction that year. Holding the Man has been adapted into a multi-award-winning stage play by Tommy Murphy and a 2015 film directed by Neil Armfield. A documentary based on the lives of Tim Conigrave and John Caleo, Remembering the Man, premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2015.