Drew Forsythe

Biography

Since Drew Forsythe graduated from NIDA in 1969 he has appeared in over 90 major stage productions in roles that range from Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet to Mortimer in Arsenic and Old Lace, from Mozart in Amadeus to both Twins in The Venetian Twins (written for him by Nick Enright and Terence Clarke), from the Servant in The Servant of Two Masters to Tesman in Hedda Gabler, from Stan Laurel in Gone With Hardy to Kostia in The Seagull. In musicals he was the King in Big River, The major General in Pirates of Penzance, Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore, won a Green Room best actor award for his performance as Koko in The Mikado and co-wrote and appeared as the mad scientist, Dr Furtwangler, in The Republic of Myopia (which opened the new Sydney Theatre in 2004). David Williamson wrote the play Flatfoot for Drew in which he played eleven different characters and a parrot. David said, "It was written, in a sense, as a homage to a great Roman comic, Plautus, and a great Australian comic actor, and I think if Plautus were watching from some Roman afterlife he'd feel that Drew is a true inheritor of his comic genius." Some of the films Drew has appeared in are Stone, Caddie (for which he won an AFI best supporting actor award), Newsfront, Annie's Coming Out, Ginger Meggs, Burke and Wills, Traveling North, Billy's Holiday and Ned, a feature film written and directed by his son, Abe. On TV he has been in The Dingo Principle, The Party Machine, GP, All Saints, Packed To The Rafters, The Miraculous Mellops and won a best actor award for his role in Whose Baby. He was the voice and drove the body and mind of the animated talk show host, David Tench, in the Andrew Denton/Animal Logic TV show, David Tench Tonight. He joined Richard Tognetti and Michael Leunig in a production of Michael's version of Saint-Saens Carnival Of The Humans for the ACO. Acting out all the humans in a Leunig inspired costume. Drew was a co-creator, writer and performer of Three Men And A Baby Grand which began at the Tilbury Hotel in Woolloomooloo played throughout the country, the Edinburgh Festival, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and as a series on ABC/TV. The same team of Drew, Jonathan Biggins and Phillip Scott have gone on to create the Wharf Revue for the Sydney Theatre Co and later this year will go on to write the next revue for what will be their tenth year and 16th show and follow it up in 2010 with a national tour.