Wright created the theatre company Black Lung, also known as The Black Lung Theatre and Whaling Firm,[2] in 2006, with fellow writer and director Thomas Henning. Their first production, Avast, was called "Insanely fast-paced, artfully arrhythmic, meta-theatrical - a breathtaking combination of precision and chaos" by Chris Kohn, writing for Realtime.[3] Under the Black Lung banner, Wright created productions with Adelaide Festival and Darwin Festival, Belvoir, Malthouse Theatre, and Queensland Theatre Co. and Brisbane Festival.[2] Black Lung were hailed as one of the most influential theatre companies of the decade.[4][5]
Wright was the director, co-writer and production designer of Doku Rai,[6] a production created over four and a half years, with a three-month rehearsal process on the remote island of Atauro Island, East Timor. Doku Rai came about after Wright formed a close relationship with Michael Stone, then Chief Military Advisor to the President of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta. Stone facilitated Wright flying in and out of the country over a number of years. Doku Rai was created with a group of independent Timorese artists, a number of them former resistance fighters. The film sequences in Doku Rai were co-directed by Wright with director Amiel Courtin-Wilson.[7][8]
He appeared as cult-figure Steven Linder in the 2013 US adaptation of The Bridge. Executive Producer Elwood Reid said of Wright’s audition for the series: "...it was the best audition I have ever seen. He walked in and the temperature of the room changed".[14]
In 2015, Wright played the guide Mike Groom in the feature film Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm.[15] He also played the murdered journalist Brian Peters in Balibo (2009), and Thomas Bodenham in Van Diemen's Land.[16]
In 2017 Wright was the subject of an Archibald Prize finalist portrait by Marcus Wills, Antagonist, Protagonist (Thomas M. Wright), with a scene set up to look like a crime drama, with Wright as protagonist.[20]
He co-wrote, directed and produced the feature film Acute Misfortune, released in 2019, based on Sydney journalist Erik Jensen's award-winning biography of Australian artist Adam Cullen, Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen. The film received The Age Critics' Prize at Melbourne International Film Festival, where it premiered. It received a five star review in The Guardian,[22] and was named one of The Guardian's "10 Best Australian Films of the decade 2010-2020"[23] and the best Australian film of 2019.[24] It was given a "Notable mention" (along with Sweet Country) in The Monthly Awards 2018,[25] and Screen Daily called it an "Overlooked gem" in their list of the year's best films.[26][27][28][29][30] The film was nominated for the 2019 AACTA Award for Best Independent Film.[31] The score, by Evelyn Ida Morris, was nominated for best soundtrack at the 2018 ARIA Music Awards.[32]The Hollywood Reporter called Acute Misfortune "one of the year's most striking and accomplished directorial debuts".[33] Wright is nominated in the Best Director (Feature Film) category for the 2020 Australian Director's Guild Awards.[34]
