“I did my training, did a show in London, went back to Amsterdam where I was having a lot of fun too and to see family. I was having an exploration of creativity and life. I was away for 2 years and I remember flying home and thinking, Great, I’ve left this jack of all trades, teacher, director, performer and I’m now returning as an Actor. I touched down and started living in Bondi. I got an Agent, kept going for auditions for ads or TV scripts. It was so different to Philippe Gaulier which was about masks, Greek theatre and comedy and all this other juicy stuff and here I was sitting in a Casting room waiting area with a bunch of models and actors and I’m thinking I don’t think this is me. After a year I started Directing again. I was teaching adults at the Acting Centre. I was teaching Opera singers how to perform and movement at the Sydney Conservatorium. I was still going out and doing the regional stints which I loved. One show was in the Pilbara where I lived for 3 months directing a big show for a youth circus company.
I then got engaged and I was accepted into the Director’s course at NIDA. The night before I started at NIDA, I thought I need to go into the lions den, serious theatre work because I’d been on the fringes so the night before I started my course I asked Meg to marry me because I knew I was going into a school environment with lots of Actors. I just thought it’s a lot safer if I pin myself down (laughs). We’d been together for 4 years at this stage. We lived in Bondi for that year I was at Nida then I got a job in WA where I made a show in Albany.
Just before I did the Nida course I came back and started working with Neil Armfield and I worked on a production called The Underpants. The Underpants is a Steve Martin play and it was very funny. I was the Associate Director for the tour in Sydney and then we took it on the road. I found myself in Lismore with The Underpants. This was 2004 and 2 or 3 years before I started here as the Artistic Director. I met Liz Terracini and some of the team the night we came through with the play and they remembered me because 2 years later through the same Agent they said, this company wants you to apply for the Artistic Director’s job. I thought, how bizarre, I couldn’t imagine having a venue and a bar and a season of work. I was used to freelancing, getting in my car, 6 days a week either teaching or directing and running my own company. The idea of having one space, one focus, it was time to do that. I applied and got the job. I agreed to a 2 year contract initially and in 2007 I began as the Artistic Director of NORPA.
Meg and I have 2 kids, Tobhiyah and Reuben. Tobhiyah our daughter was conceived in Sydney but when we driving up she was well and truly growing. On the opening night of my first show here at NORPA which was ‘Not like Beckett,’ Tobhiyah was born on the same day. She was a Caesarean baby and I was there for the birth and then I made the opening night as well. We moved up and rented and we saw a house we could afford to buy. We bought a house in Lismore Heights. I do love Lismore. We had 6 years here when the kids were little. It was a lot. I was running a company which when I started was not in tip top shape. When I said yes to the job I then got a call from the General Manager at the time. I was still in Bondi and he said we have this application due to the State Government in about 4 weeks. We’ll pay you to program the season of the year of 2007 before I even got here. I had to think about-What do I want to put on and what do I want to bring? I’d never done programming so I sort of got thrown in the deep end. I was pretty green to be absolutely honest. I was so green I didn’t even ask about the financial state of the company or where things were at with the Board, all the things I would ask now. I just said Yeah Ok and threw myself into it.
So suddenly there’s this new guy in charge. I’d never run anything with walls or with staff, in fact I’d never had a desk. I was always in a studio. There’s a story I do like to share and I don’t mind sharing it but I asked the Marketing person at the time – How many subscribers do we have? They said..Oh I couldn’t tell you, but Joycey can tell you. I said – Who’s Joycey? Joycey was a volunteer and she was 85 plus, a wonderful volunteer, an incredible, passionate woman. I said – Hi Joycey, can you tell me how many we have? She went off for an hour and she wrote down 93 names. I thought Wow! We are programming a full season for 93 subscribers. That is not a lot of people. We were running 2 venues, Star Court Theatre and Lismore City Hall, 2 venues, 2 lots of programming. One small team doing the best they could with what they had, financial strain, operating deficits and less than a hundred subscribers. That’s how I inherited NORPA.
We’ve come a long way with a great team and great staff who’ve contributed, all the General Managers that have come since. It’s been a big mission and we’re proud of it, but the big thing I’m most proud of is the body of work that I’ve managed to make here. That first show…Not Like Beckett was actually about colonisation. I wanted to acknowledge that I was going to a regional area that I didn’t know very well and I wanted to acknowledge that. Not Like Beckett is about a Bilby and a Rabbit, and the Rabbit is caught in a trap on the top of a mountain and he’s in love with the Bilby who’s a native. After that I did The Bloody Bride and I did a couple of things at the Star Court because I was very drawn to that space. It’s atmospheric but not accessible to people in wheelchairs which is problematic. I realised though that I was making these shows for 900 people. We spent a lot of time, effort and money so it wasn’t enough.”