The royal New Wave: Aubrey Mellor and Queensland Theatre Company, 1988-1993

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Author(s)
Hands, Karen
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2015
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When Aubrey Mellor returned to Brisbane in 1988 to become the second artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company (QTC), the company had been under the direction of a British-born and trained director since its formation in 1969. QTC was part of the national state theatre company network established as a result of postwar cultural planning. The network was charged with promoting national drama and producing theatre to a high artistic standard, but this objective imposed very specific constraints around the companies' programming. This was particularly observable at QTC: the company had been culturally and geographically ...
View more >When Aubrey Mellor returned to Brisbane in 1988 to become the second artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company (QTC), the company had been under the direction of a British-born and trained director since its formation in 1969. QTC was part of the national state theatre company network established as a result of postwar cultural planning. The network was charged with promoting national drama and producing theatre to a high artistic standard, but this objective imposed very specific constraints around the companies' programming. This was particularly observable at QTC: the company had been culturally and geographically distant from the New Wave movement that emerged in Sydney and Melbourne between 1968 and 1981. Mellor brought his experience of working in key institutions during this movement to QTC where he pursued a personal mission to develop Australian playwriting. During his five-year leadership he transitioned the artistic identity of the company to a more contemporary artistic framework.
View less >
View more >When Aubrey Mellor returned to Brisbane in 1988 to become the second artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company (QTC), the company had been under the direction of a British-born and trained director since its formation in 1969. QTC was part of the national state theatre company network established as a result of postwar cultural planning. The network was charged with promoting national drama and producing theatre to a high artistic standard, but this objective imposed very specific constraints around the companies' programming. This was particularly observable at QTC: the company had been culturally and geographically distant from the New Wave movement that emerged in Sydney and Melbourne between 1968 and 1981. Mellor brought his experience of working in key institutions during this movement to QTC where he pursued a personal mission to develop Australian playwriting. During his five-year leadership he transitioned the artistic identity of the company to a more contemporary artistic framework.
View less >
Journal Title
Queensland Review
Volume
22
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2015. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/) which permits unrestricted distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Subject
Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History)
Historical Studies
Other History and Archaeology
History and Philosophy of Specific Fields