Anthony Hill’s Newsletter
Summer 2026
Dear friends
Welcome to my Summer 2026 Newsletter. In this edition:
• Soldier Boy play in schools
• Sydney Playwrights' Conference
• Melbourne International Film Festival
• Young Digger play new draft
Soldier Boy Play in schools
Belated best wishes to everyone for a happy and successful New Year. May it bring all that you hope for and see every resolution fulfilled. Apologies for the delay in bringing out this newsletter, but I’ve been dealing with a few health issues – and, more importantly, waiting to confirm some exciting news.
Beaconhills College publicity banner
As mentioned in a recent Facebook post, my play Soldier Boy is to be performed by Beaconhills College senior school at the Berwick (Victoria) campus next month. It’s the first school to take up the play since its successful debut at Theatre Works last June, and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with the teachers and students at rehearsal soon after school resumed this term. See further below.
Since then I’ve received word that Gleeson College in Adelaide also wish to produce the play, and a performance is scheduled for May.
These are both extremely encouraging developments – indications that Soldier Boy is beginning to grow some legs, as they say, and travel. Indeed, I have hopes more schools will pick up the work as the year goes by and word spreads.
Playwrights Conference
In late August I had the good fortune to attend a playwrights’ conference in Sydney organised by the arts publisher Currency Press. It was an excellent weekend, with sessions covering such topics as • What is an Australian play? • Adapting plays from novels (of particular interest to me) • Stagecraft • An interview with playwright Joanna Murray-Smith • And a valuable session with the Australian Society of Authors and others on the effect of AI on playwrights, their copyright and income.
Currency Press sales table, Sydney conference
Artificial Intelligence: This is a topic that concerns all creators. For writers, the fact that so many of our books and other literary works have been taken wholesale by the AI industry to train their computers, without copyright payment, has become a live issue.
In some cases the industry has recompensed authors, but mostly it is an ongoing fight. The Australian Government’s recent decision to rule out a Text and Data Mining (TDM) exemption to protect creative rights is much to be welcomed. But for many of us, whose books have been gobbled up by the AI industry, the struggle to get some recompense is a continuing David-v-Goliath campaign.
Kristen Doherty: That said, one of the highlights of the conference for me was meeting the Adelaide playwright and drama teacher Kristen Doherty. We got on well, found we had much in common, and Kristen has been enormously helpful to me in promoting my play to the schools. Her own works have been very successful among schools internationally, especially Queens, a dramatisation of Henry VIII in hell, answering for his behaviour to his six wives
More particularly, Kristen gave me excellent advice on which websites to place information about my work, and suggested I offer to send “perusal“ copies of the play to school drama teachers without charge, to be followed by a proper commercial agreement if they chose to select it for performance.
I took this route and was very gratified that more than 40 schools in different parts of Australia asked for the Soldier Boy perusal Scripts. Since then, as I said, two schools have taken up the work. I’m hoping more will come on board.
Beaconhills College
As mentioned, I spent several hours at Beaconhills College Berwick campus in early February, where Soldier Boy was in rehearsal. It was a real pleasure to spend time with producer Stephanie French, director Gemma Valastro and senior students in the first school to perform the play.
Gemma Valastro (left), Stephanie French and Beaconhills drama students
I spoke to them about the background to the novel from which I adapted the play, aspects of last year‘s Theatre Works production, and especially Jim Martin’s story and home life. This was of particular interest to the students, for at 14 Jim was around their age when he lied, enlisted in the army and lasted all of seven weeks on Gallipoli before dying of disease.
I live not far from the school and was able to take my large portfolio of research materials, including copies of Jim’s letters, photographs, entries from the family Bible, birth certificates, extracts from the official records and so on.
I left it at the school to let them copy which elements they found useful, for this is all part of developing their understanding and hence portrayal of the characters and the times in which Jim Martin moved.
A different world to theirs on the outside – but internally I think not so very different to the emotions of a 14-year-old boy in 1914-15.
Beaconhills College Soldier Boy poster
Incidentally, I also lent them the foyer displays of photos and letters we made for the Theatre Works production. They’re welcome to use it for their own performances.
What I find so fascinating as a writer is to see how the work is interpreted by different people. In the three scenes Beaconhills College rehearsed while I was there, they showed varying approaches to the staging than last year’s production. I thought it marvellous, and am looking forward to seeing it as the play goes into the final dress rehearsals and performances to which the school has kindly invited me and my wife, Jill.
Gleeson College: Unfortunately, Gleeson College in Adelaide is probably too far for me to visit or send the research file. But I’ve told drama teacher Chantel Mayes that I’ll put together a digital file of photos. letters and other material which may be useful for character development and historical background for their production.
Indeed, I’m hoping it will also be helpful to other schools who take up the work and which I’m unable to visit personally. And in any event, I’m always ready to answer any questions the teachers or cast members might have about the show, or do an online Q&A.
Melbourne International Film Festival
In what has been a very busy year, I was lucky enough to get a place at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) writers’ day. only a few weeks after Soldier Boy closed at Theatre Works. It was pretty rushed, meeting eight film and television producers/directors in the course of a morning – but immensely stimulating.
Among those I met was Jo Austin of Camden films, Dani Hayek of Orange Entertainment and a friend of a Beng Oh who directed Soldier Boy, and Riley Sugars, a Melbourne filmmaker who, among other projects, has made a very funny short film called Hatchback, which he is hoping to turn into a full-length feature film.
I also met representatives of the major production company Fremantle Media, and Sally Aitkin, a Sydney independent producer and director. Among Sally‘s work is the television series Pacific: in the wake of Captain Cook (2018) with Sam Neill, and a recent very beautiful documentary called Every Little Thing about hummingbirds.
The cinematography was extraordinary, capturing the flight of these tiny birds whose wings can beat at 50 to 80 times and more per second, to tell a story of these little creatures that in fact was a much deeper meditation on the beauty and fragility of life as a whole.
MIFF, ready for business
All of the directors I met were interested in my recent plays Soldier Boy and. Young Digger, as well as the novel For Love of Country, about the generations of the two World Wars, and I sent out a number of scripts and the books.
Of course, anything in the world of film can take years to come to fruition, and while it’s too early to expect any callbacks yet on the work, you never know where the seed of an idea for a film or television series may be planted.
Young Digger the play
The scripts of Young Digger that I gave out at MIFF were the third draft of the play, adapted from my novel about the French war orphan who was smuggled back to Australia at the end of the First World War. It contained a fairly full subplot about what was happening at the home-town of Jandowae, in central Queensland, while the airmen were bringing the boy back – including a visitation by the Spanish Flu epidemic.
Since then I have completed a fourth draft of the play, working closely in collaboration with the dramaturge Jessica Fallico, who was the assistant director of Soldier Boy.
It was a highly productive experience, during which Jess encouraged me to concentrate on making the piece more theatrical and to shift the entire focus onto the boy and his adventure.
Young Digger and Ted Tovell, 1919
In the end I turned the play completely inside out, developing the idea of a Shadow chorus who represent Digger’s memories and become everything – French refugees, airmen, English artillerymen, incidental characters in the story, the sea, a train and Jandowae neighbours welcoming them home.
The play is now almost entirely an ensemble piece, with different songs triggering different recollections: Frère Jacques for Digger’s trauma of losing his mother, Mademoiselle from Armentières for his time with the British, Waltzing Matilda for his Australian memories and so on.
It’s another play that I hope will be accessible and appealing to the schools, for the characters' ages range pretty much from kindergarten to adulthood.
I’ve almost finished keying in the last of the changes and hope to submit it to Theatre Works shortly for consideration in next years’ VCE drama syllabus, as Soldier Boy was last year. We’ll see what happens, but I know that Jess is impressed with how it has developed.
I’ll let you know of progress in my next newsletter. I hope it will come out mid-year as usual: but as mentioned earlier, I’ve been facing a few issues with Hamlet’s “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”, and may have to leave the next edition until later in the year. But we’ll see how it goes. Things are much too interesting to stop now.
Books in print:
Personally signed books still in print can be ordered through the website here.
• Animal Heroes ($33 plus $10.50 postage) print on demand.
• The Burnt Stick ($17.00 plus $5.50 postage).
• Captain Cook’s Apprentice ($33 plus $10.50 postage) print on demand.
• The Investigators ($33 plus $10.50 postage).
• The Last Convict ($33 plus $10.50 postage).
• The Story of Billy Young ($23 plus $10.50 postage) print on demand.
• Soldier Boy ($20 plus postage $5.50).
• Soldier Boy The Play ($15 plus postage $5.50)
• Young Digger ($30 plus postage $10.50).
I will refund any excess postage if multiple books are purchased.
Books out of print:
I have a very few copies left of some of my older titles that are now out of print. They include Antique Furniture in Australia; Growing Up & Other Stories; River Boy; and a couple of Harriet and Spindrift. If readers are interested in any of them, please contact me directly at anthony@anthonyhillbooks.com and I’ll let you know prices, postage and payment.
With best wishes
Anthony
Photo credits:
Banner and poster courtesy Beaconhills College; Currency Press, Beaconhills rehearsal, MIFF table, author; Queens book cover courtesy Kristen Doherty; Young Digger and Ted Tovell courtesy the late David Daws.
www.anthonyhillbooks.com
