DAVID MEGARRITY
Dr David Megarrity is a writer, composer, musician and performer creating at the intersection of music, performance and projected image. He was also the recipient of a Lord Mayor’s Performing Arts Fellowship in 1998; his performance inventions include Backseat Drivers (QT’s first overseas tour), Ukulele Mekulele (La Boite), Show (QTC), The Empty City and Bear with Me for Metro Arts and Windmill. His works have played at the Sydney Opera House, around Australia and abroad. Publications include plays for young people, such as Gate 38 and the anthology Destinations (Playlab).
He’s been a finalist in the George Landen Dann Award (2000), Inscriptions Edward Albee Scholarship (2012), Queensland Premier’s Drama Award (2012) and Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award (2016).
Created with Jonathon Oxlade, the picture book The Empty City (Hachette) was selected by the Children’s Book Council of Australia as a Picture Book of the Year ‘Notable Book’ (2008). His stage adaptation was a finalist in the 2012 Queensland Theatre Company’s Queensland Premier’s Drama Award (QPDA) and premiered at the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2013. David won the QPDA in 2018 for his play The Holidays.
Having played in many bands and composed songs and soundtracks for stage, screen, and radio, David has released 13 albums of original music in various audio incarnations. Recent music-driven performances include faux folk duo Warmwaters, “the surprise hit of the Queensland Cabaret Festival” (Brisbane Times 2014), and Tyrone and Lesley (Twice finalist in the Queensland Music Awards), whose 2017 album Optimism was dubbed Ukulele Record of the Year by Ukulelehunt. David’s short film collaborations won several awards and nominations, including Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival 2000.
A full-time artist and part-time Senior Lecturer in Drama at the Queensland University of Technology, he received the 2008 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence (Innovative and Creative Practice) and completed his PhD in 2015.
‘as close as Brisbane has to a Renaissance Man’ Rave Magazine
David blogs about music in performance at https://lifeinthelongtail.wordpress.com/