Vale Michael Gurr

Melbourne-born playwright, author and screen writer Michael Gurr has died at the age of fifty-five after a short illness. Gurr directed the plays Crazy Brave (2000) and Sex Diary of an Infidel (1992). He was speechwriter for Steve Bracks in the campaign that returned the ALP to power in Victoria in 1999, and he wrote the memoir Days Like These (2006, MUP).

In her tribute to Gurr in Daily Review, actor and writer Elly Varrenti described him as ‘something out of the box ... so wicked, so old-young, so singular, so confident without swagger, so unwittingly beautiful.’

A public memorial for Michael Gurr will be held at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre on Monday 15 May at 6.30 pm.