Outback Theatre for Young People helping to up-skill drama teachers

You have had a hugely successful and career, you are highly qualified, and your passion seems to be about teaching drama and theatre to young people. Why do you, personally, believe the arts, and theatre particularly, are important to them?

Thank you! I knew the moment I visited Polka Theatre in Wimbledon, UK in 2001, that I wanted to make theatre for young people my career. Since then I've worked in mostly in Regional NSW, introducing young people to theatre and watching them develop through the arts.

I believe creative expression is so important to young people - they are such natural players and so imaginative anyway, and through gentle structure and skill building, the arts can allow them to develop social skills, confidence, team building skills, creative thinking and reasoning skills, all while allowing them to express themselves and have fun!

I've seen shy and doubtful young people transform into grounded performers over the course of an afternoon, and even after all these years, that change and the power of their development in the arts still inspires me and blows me away. 

Can you give me a general overview of Outback Theatre for Young People – when it was set up and why?

Outback Theatre for Young People began in 1989 as a project of our Regional Arts Board, South West Arts. Initially it was one person with gear in the back of a ute, traveling all around south west NSW and introducing theatre and arts projects to young people along the way.

Not much has really changed! We were incorporated in 2008, and while I no longer have a ute sadly, a lot of my job is on the road, getting to all the small towns and communities in our 26,000 kilometre radius. We are located in a largely agricultural area, with no real permanent arts infrastructure, so the "why" is about making sure that just because you are a young person living in a remote area, doesn't mean your story isn't important, and you should be given the same opportunities to work with arts professionals as your city friends. 

What exactly does the theatre do and how? What are your objectives?

We plan and deliver large scale, community driven arts projects in the towns we service. Outback Theatre for Young People (OTYP) is dedicated to creating innovative, participant-owned youth theatre. We engage young people, aged of four to 26 years, from throughout the Riverina region of NSW and Northern Victoria, in collaborative, generative theatre projects that celebrate their lives and their aspirations.

OTYP works with an Artistic Directorate model where a small group of artistic directors work across our region, supported by a creative producer. Each project is designed for and shaped by the participants, with two stages over two years in order to develop sustainable arts practice in our communities

.Our main objectives are:

• To develop relevant, innovative theatre which reflects and connects our people, our cultural traditions, diversity and our place
• To develop skills through working collaboratively with professional theatre artists
• To link strategically with other organisations and form partnerships to deliver youth theatre projects

Government or private funding?

Mostly government. We have been supported on a federal level by The Australia Council for the Arts up until this year, and on a state level by Arts NSW. We also get funding from philanthropic sources and trusts and foundations, however not as regularly as our governement funders.

Funding is on everyone's minds in the youth arts sector at the moment - last year there were 13 federally funded youth arts organisations Australia wide (us being one of them), and this year there are only four. There is a strong lobbying campaign to make sure youth arts does not get forgotten, which we are a part of, and in particular, I am passionate about making sure the regional voice is heard loud and clear in these discussions. 

Do you enjoy good support from schools in the Riverina and northern Victoria regions?

Absolutely. We have a really strong relationship with the schools in our region, and we love working within the education department. I am also a qualified drama teacher, so I find it helpful that I also 'speak the language' and understand what we can do to help teachers.

Drama is often a tricky subject area for a lot of teachers who aren't specialists in it, and I understand that it can be quite confronting and overwhelming to know where to start with drama programming. I love working in the classroom to help introduce drama across other subjects, and helping teachers up-skill in simple ways to make drama not feel so scary!

Drama is a subject that is sometimes not run in high schools is our region too, so it is useful we are in the area to run after school programs or holidays workshops if there are young people who are keen. 

What have been a few of your big successes as an organisation so far?

I think the fact that we are thriving in a rural area is a huge success - especially in this current arts funding crisis. To have a 25 year history in a rural area is something I am incredibly proud of for OTYP, and we're still going strong. In the past, we've done projects that unite Shires in crippling drought, and give them something to celebrate.

We've presented rural stories on main stages in the cities, and given country kids endless opportunities to work with professionals in the field. We've covered hundreds of thousands of kilometres to reach young people who have never experienced drama before. We've also been recognised nationally and supported from both state and federal government for many years. 

What about you, personally, what have been some highlights – and what really drives you?

Working in regional and rural Australia drives me. I am a country kid myself (I grew up in Griffith, Broken Hill and Bathurst) and I wasn't really exposed to anything like Outback Theatre offers. I love being able to live regionally and connect this area with the professional theatre world, and give young people out here their first taste of something that might inspire the rest of their lives. It's pretty powerful.

I think some highlights for me (apart from the last 13 months at the head of this wonderful company!) have been running a creative arts mini-school with students from the Bourke and Walgett School of the Air in Walgett, Wanaaring, and Hungerford, QLD. Travelling so far to be greeted with a huge bunch of smiling faces who are so happy to see you, to be involved with the creative arts, and are so welcoming and generous was a definite highlight for me.

I've also really enjoyed my time in Condobolin and Lake Cargellico, working with young people and through them the wider community. Really, anywhere regional or rural (the more remote the better!) working with kids is bound to be a highlight for me!  

What about this year – what have you got going on at the moment and later this year?

This year we have already kicked off our project The Echo in Our Walls in Hay - a site specific work developed at The Bishop's Lodge that aims to unite the community of Hay through their shared history. It's performing at the Lodge on the first weekend in April. Following that, we have Bordertowns, which is staged in the Berrigan Shire.

Bordertowns will explore the female lines of lineage through the Shire, and what unites those four towns on the border. It will be a large-scale verbatim musical, and a very ambitious project for us! Finally this year, we are launching While You Were Sleeping in Deniliquin, which is a pop-up street art project that explores environment art and the notion of art as a gift to community.

Young people in Deni will become renegade artists, installing large sculptures made from recyclable materials overnight, then be on hand to collect responses when locals see them the next day. We also have lots of smaller projects like workshops and developments that are keeping us busy.