Background
He was born on 10 February 1935, educated at Shore and the University of Sydney (resident South Paul"s College), graduating Bachelor with first class honours in Music.
He was born on 10 February 1935, educated at Shore and the University of Sydney (resident South Paul"s College), graduating Bachelor with first class honours in Music.
His career has swung between the poles of music and theatre, on the one hand, and teaching on the other. He taught at All Saints" College, Bathurst (where he had received his primary schooling) and Cranbrook School, Sydney, where he became head of mathematics and in charge of drama. While abroad in 1959-1960 he had acted at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury.
In 1970 he left schoolteaching to return to theatre and music, at first acting and Doctor of Medicine-ing for Nimrod Theatre.
His appointments have included: Associate Director of Perth"s National Theatre Company (the then state theatre company), where he also acted. Founding Artistic Director of the Hunter Valley Theatre Company, Australia"s first professional regional theatre company.
Artistic Director of the Australian National Playwrights Conference. And Head of Directing at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (National Institute on Drug Abuse), where he continues to do some teaching.
He directed the world premieres of A Happy and Holy Occasion (John O"Donoghue) and Backyard (Janis Balodis).
He has taught at the West Australian Institute of Technology, the University of Newcastle, and the University of New South Wales, where he held a demi-lectureship for a year. His other compositions include: a ballad opera, Flash Jim Vaux (book and lyrics, Ron Blair. Blair later dropped "Vaux" from the title).
Five plays with music - Catspaw and Jarrabin (both Dorothy Hewett), Lysistrata (John Croyston), Henry and Peter and Henry and Maine (George Hutchinson), and Gone with Hardy (David Allen).
Incidental music; and song-settings.
He wrote three musicals to book and lyrics by the late Nick Enright: The Venetian Twins (cast album, Folkways Records), produced by all state theatre companies, and toured. Variations (Winner of the Play Award, New South Wales Premier"s Literary Awards, 1983), not seen since its original Nimrod Theatre production in 1982. And Summer Rain, commissioned by National Institute on Drug Abuse for the graduating class of 1984 and directed by Gale Edwards, later revised three times for productions at the Sydney and Queensland Theatre Companies. In 2007 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to the performing arts as a director, actor, writer, composer, and educator".
