Timothy Conigrave

Conigrave was born in Melbourne, and attended the Jesuit-run Xavier College, and later Monash University, where he appeared in Bertolt Brecht's ''A Man's a Man'' and Ariane Mnouchkine's 1789. Following graduation, he worked with St Martin's Youth Arts Centre. Under the direction of Helmut Bakaitis, Alison Richards, and Val Levkowicz he performed in the touring productions of The Zig & Zag Follies, ''Cain's Hand and Quick-Eze Cafe''. In July 1981 he performed in the Australian Performing Group's (APG) production of Bold Tales at The Pram Factory, under the direction of Peter King. Also in 1981 he worked on Edward Bond's Saved for the Guild Theatre Company and completed his first play, The Blitz Kids, which was performed at the La Mama Theatre (Adelaide) in August that year. Conigrave later moved to Sydney to study at National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), graduating in 1984. Two years later he was instrumental in initiating the acclaimed Soft Targets (1986) project at Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company, where for a period he served on the board of directors. He appeared in such plays as Brighton Beach Memoirs, As Is, and On Top of the World. He was also a playwright, producing works including Thieving Boy, Like Stars in My Hands and The Blitz Kids. He was a member of The Globos, a musical comedy cabaret group, performing at Sydney's Kinselas nightclub in the mid-1980s. And in the late 1980s and early 1990s he was a Peer Education Officer with the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON), running the Fun and Esteem project. ==Memoir==