JOHN MISTO
John Misto has been writing plays since 1992. His play, The Shoe-Horn Sonata has been reprinted nineteen times and sold more than sixty thousand copies. The Shoe-Horn Sonata also won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Best Play and the Australia Remembers National Playwriting Prize.
Misto's other works include Dark Voyager about the turbulent relationship between Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe. Misto also wrote the hugely successful play, Harp on the Willow which won the Rodney Seaborn Award for Best Play. John Misto is co-writer of Peace Train: The Cat Stevens Story which has enjoyed several successful national tours of Australia.
Misto’s play, Lip Service had a sell-out season at London’s Park Theatre in 2017 (under the title Madame Rubinstein) and a successful season at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre and at the Lawler Theatre in Melbourne. Lip Service has had successful seasons in Prague (in Czech translation) and in Ekaterinburg (in Russian translation) also under the title Madame Rubinstein. It is the first play by an Australian playwright to be performed in Russia.
John Misto is also an established scriptwriter and his telemovies and scripts have won many awards including the Queensland Premier's Literary Award, three Australian Film Institute Awards, three Australian Writers' Guild Awards and a Gold Plaque at the Chicago Television Awards.
John Misto has degrees in Arts and Law from the University of New South Wales.
Misto's other works include Dark Voyager about the turbulent relationship between Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe. Misto also wrote the hugely successful play, Harp on the Willow which won the Rodney Seaborn Award for Best Play. John Misto is co-writer of Peace Train: The Cat Stevens Story which has enjoyed several successful national tours of Australia.
Misto’s play, Lip Service had a sell-out season at London’s Park Theatre in 2017 (under the title Madame Rubinstein) and a successful season at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre and at the Lawler Theatre in Melbourne. Lip Service has had successful seasons in Prague (in Czech translation) and in Ekaterinburg (in Russian translation) also under the title Madame Rubinstein. It is the first play by an Australian playwright to be performed in Russia.
John Misto is also an established scriptwriter and his telemovies and scripts have won many awards including the Queensland Premier's Literary Award, three Australian Film Institute Awards, three Australian Writers' Guild Awards and a Gold Plaque at the Chicago Television Awards.
John Misto has degrees in Arts and Law from the University of New South Wales.
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"Older actresses are always complaining that there are no good roles for women over 50", says John.
"I am here to answer their prayers." "I have written four plays specifically for older actresses between 50 – 80 years of age. All four plays have been performed professionally, two have been published and they have all been successful at the box-office." |
John Misto plays
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THE SHOE-HORN SONATA
Full Length Play, Drama, 1990s 2F In 1945, Sheila and Bridie were freed from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Now, after a half-century separation, the filming of a television documentary forces them to relive the past. "War-time reminiscences don't come any more affecting and moving than this. John Misto's playwriting combines an acutely sensitive humanity with an imagination that's out of the ordinary and a mischievous sense of humour." - The Sun-Herald |
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DARK VOYAGER
Full Length Play, Dark Comedy, 1960s 1M, 4F You are cordially invited to join legendary ladies, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe and Hedda Hopper, for the ultimate show-biz meal. It has a menu with something to appeal to everyone: singing, dancing, party-games... and just a bit of murder. "John Misto taps into something pretty much universal, the passion, more to the point obsession that people have with everything to do with celebrity." - Sydney Arts Guide |
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HARP ON THE WILLOW
Full Length Play, Drama 2M, 3F John Misto's play, Harp on the Willow, is the incredible true story of Mary O'Hara, the internationally famous Irish singer and harpist who entered an enclosed order of nuns after the death of her husband. "Beautifully written...inspirational...spiked with Misto's demonically wicked good humour." - Melbourne Stage |
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LIP SERVICE
Full Length Play, Drama, 1960s, 1950s 1M, 2F In John Misto's hilarious new play, Lip Service, Australian cosmetics tycoon, Helena Rubinstein, is locked in a power struggle with rivals Elizabeth Arden and Revlon. When Helena hires a battle-hardened war-veteran as a personal assistant, her life is turned upside down. "Gloriously entertaining play... a comic tour-de-force." - What'sOnStage (U.K.) "Lip Service is a hilarious new play by John Misto... The audience laughed at every joke, often to the point where actors had to pause...The buzz will spread fast." - The Music Read more reviews and watch rehearsal footage from the UK production of 'Lip Service' (previously titled 'Madame Rubenstein'), starring Miriam Margolyes, Frances Barber and Jonathan Forbes. Click here. |
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GOSSAMER
Full Length Play, Drama, 1910s / WWI, 1970s 4M, 3F It began as an innocent game. In 1917, two young British girls experiment with a camera and capture images of themselves with dancing fairies. They are playing a joke – but no one is laughing. Their photographs attract the attention of the two most famous men in the world – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. Now the girls, Elsie and Frances, find that their joke has backfired with terrifying consequences. Conan Doyle elevates them to the status of living saints while Harry Houdini is grimly determined to expose them as frauds. Soon all four are entangled in a fairy-spun web of gossamer, a web from which there is no escape. "Gossamer unfolds like a mystery drama. Like the best mysteries it doesn't answer every question." - Mark Stoyich "Misto is a master craftsman. he sustains his story's mystery and promise until the final blackout." - Sun Herald |
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