Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy tells a tumultuous 15-year love story

It resonated when they first encountered it as young queer men, in the early stages of exploring their sexuality, and they're now excited and proud to be bringing it to the stage as director and actor respectively.

The posthumously published 1995 memoir was adapted into a 2006 play by Queanbeyan-bred playwright Tommy Murphy.

Both the book and play - which Murphy adapted again for the 2015 film version - tell the story of the relationship between Tim (played by Horwood) and John (Lewis McDonald), who met at a Melbourne Catholic boys' school in the 1970s.

John was captain of the football team, and he and Tim were drawn to each other and fell in love.

Over the next 15 years they went through highs and lows, temptations, separations, pressures, and jealousies - and then one final, insurmountable problem.

West saw the stage version on World AIDS Day in 2006 with a friend.

They weren't prepared for the effect it would have on them.

"I don't think we knew just exactly how powerful it was going to be," West says.

"We had planned to go out after that but we just got really drunk."

West, an actor, director and producer, "fell in love" with Holding the Man - it was the first play he'd seen that he was still thinking about a month later.

"I thought, I have to do this."

It took many years - the challenges included obtaining the rights, casting problems and COVID - but West is finally able to mount the show in 2023 at ACT HUB for his company Everyman Theatre.

Horwood's first experience with Conigrave's story came when he was 21 and studying at Monash University.

While he was acting in a student production of King Lear, the director gave him a copy of Conigrave's book.

"The director was further along in his journey as a gay man," Horwood says.

Perhaps he saw something familiar in the young actor.

"He said, 'If you think you're gay, read this.'"

It struck a chord - a very loud one.

"I read it in days ... I devoured the book."

Horwood says that growing up in the 1990s, when the world was still very much emerging from the worst of the AIDS crisis, was challenging and he hadn't met many young queer people, so the book had a special resonance for him, particularly in its emotional impact.

"It was written as a love letter to John ... It's stayed with me ever since."

In this production, Horwood and McDonald play Tim and John - from adolescence to manhood - throughout, with the four other actors playing various other people in the story.

West says Murphy's adaptation is "very theatrical" - with devices like actors directly addressing the audience - and he has decided to heighten this.

He stripped the production back, using a black box theatre design and black costumes with items of clothing being used at appropriate moments to highlight changes.

Both West and Horwood have other theatrical ventures planned for later in 2023.

After Holding the Man, West will direct Marry Me A Little, a two-character show using songs by Stephen Sondheim.

Horwood will direct Noel Coward's Hay Fever and later, in what almost seems like fate given his history, a production of William Shakespeare's King Lear.

Holding the Man is on at ACT HUB, various dates and times from March 22 to April 1, 2023. See: acthub.com.au.