image of person or book cover 2966927435175767892.jpeg
This image has been sourced from Wikipedia.
George Landen Dann George Landen Dann i(A17625 works by)
Also writes as: Nindherry ; Richard Landen ; Ariel ; Mootwingee ; Yootha ; Eromanga ; John Crane ; Sophodes ; Rirolf
Born: Established: 1 Jan 1904 Sandgate, Bracken Ridge - Brighton - Sandgate area, Brisbane - North East, Brisbane, Queensland, ; Died: Ceased: 6 Jun 1977 Eumundi, Eumundi - Pomona - Cooroy area, Sunshine Coast Hinterland, South East Queensland, Queensland,
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Queensland playwright and radio/television script-writer. He worked professionally as a draftsman for Brisbane City Council throughout his playwriting career.

Born and raised in the Sandgate area of Brisbane, Dann was educated at Brisbane Grammar School, and began training as a draftsman at the age of sixteen. He began writing not long afterwards, noting in an early interview that he had written his first play, a one-act comedy, when he was eighteen ('New Playwright').

George Landen Dann began writing with plays for the local amateur dramatics society. One of these works, Beauty It Is Kept Secret, won the Brisbane Repertory Society's Prize in 1931, which brought the then twenty-six-year-old Dann some measure of attention and some notoriety, as a small flurry of complaints arose around the play's depiction of a love affair between a white Australian girl and a fisherman described by the play as 'half-caste' ('Why Prize Play Was Cut'). He returned to the question of Aboriginal-white relations in Fountains Beyond (1942) and Rainbows Die at Sunset (1975).

Dann's work won a number of prizes during this career, both at repertory level and beyond: his radio plays were well represented in ABC radio competitions during the 1940s, and Fountains Beyond even won a Welsh eisteddfod, when performed by a Cardiff-based repertory company. Although he was never as prolific a writer as some of his contemporaries, his success has led him to be called Queensland's first significant playwright.

For further reading, see the Wikipedia entry compiled by University of Queensland students from primary sources in 2012.

Sources:

'New Playwright', Telegraph, 16 May 1931, p.9.

'Why Prize Play Was Cut', Telegraph, 14 July 1931, p.1.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Papers held at the Fryer Library, UQ. (UQFL65). Playscripts as per LAW location.

  • Additional works:

    • 'Oh, the Brave Music!': submitted to the Brisbane Repertory Society in 1932, as part of a competition to find a new Australia play. One of five plays to reach final consideration, it was ultimately rejected in favour of Dorothy Tobin's Margaret Ann of Cherry Acres. No subsequent production or manuscript holding of 'Oh, the Brave Music!' has been traced.
  • An annual George Landen Dann award of $5000 is made to a Queensland playwright. See recipients on AustLit here.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets 1945 1946 (Manuscript version)9520824 Z850772 1945 single work drama
1946 equal first Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition Shared the prize with Lynn Foster's 'And the Moon Will Shine'.
Last amended 29 Apr 2016 15:35:20
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X