Peter Joseph Kenna was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n playwright, radio actor and screenwriter.

Born in Balmain, New South Wales

Balmain, New South Wales

Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....

, Kenna left school at fourteen and took up various jobs. He started working in the theatre by participating in concert parties at the camps in Sydney during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Kenna's first play was written when he was twenty-one.

Kenna died in Sydney on 27 November 1987 after a long illness.

Career

In 1959 the play The Slaughter of St Teresa’s Day was produced in Sydney, based on the life of Tilly Devine

Tilly Devine

Matilda 'Tilly' Devine was an English-born prominent Sydney crime syndicate gangs member figure, involved in a wide range of activities, including sly-grog and razor gangs, but most notable as a madam.-Early life:...

. The play was turned into a television drama in 1960.

Kenna wrote the screen play for the film, The Good Wife produced in 1987, a WW11 drama about a man, his wife and his brother. The film starred Bryan Brown

Bryan Brown

Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...

, Rachel Ward

Rachel Ward

Rachel Claire Ward, AM is a British actress, columnist, film director, and screenwriter who has primarily pursued her career in Australia.-Early life:...

 and Sam Neill

Sam Neill

Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....

. Rachel Ward won the Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...

 award for best actress for the film, and Jennie Tate the Australian Film Institute

Australian Film Institute

The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...

 award for Best Achievement in Costume Design.

Plays

• Animal Grab
• An Eager Hope
• The Fair Sister
• The Landladies
• Muriel's Virtues
• The Slaughter Of St. Teresa's Day (1972, Currency Press)
• A Hard God (1974, Currency Press) ReviewCritical essayReviews
• Listen Closely (1977, Currency Press)
• Mates (1977, Currency Press)
• Talk to the Moon (1977, Currency Press)
• Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted (1977, Currency Press)
• Furtive Love (1980, Currency Press)

Television writing

• The Slaughter of St Theresa's Day (1960) (adapted for TV)
• Dust or Polish (1972) (TV, adaptation of a novel by Norman Lindsay
  Norman Lindsay
  Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
  
  )
• The Emigrants (1976) (BBC TV)
• A Hard God (1981) (adapted for TV)

Film

• The Good Wife (1987) Review