Before the flood, success was everything. As in, we wanted everything – full houses to our seasons, creating and presenting sell-out homegrown original works, a significant First Nations program of new works, innovative schools touring shows, an artist development program, associate artists… Success was multi-year funding across three tiers of government and the sense that we were nationally significant, while locally relevant.
I was on a personal mission to prove that small towns have big creative hubs – that living and working regionally was not a second-tier creative life, but actually a rich, stimulating and fertile environment to create new distinctly Australian theatre. And interestingly, during the pandemic, the rest of Australia has been exploring this notion too: accelerating the pressures and opportunities for the regions and its arts communities.
