|
|
NIDA BOX SEAT | OCT 2008
STAGE RIGHT
|
|
This month we chat with Tom Healey, who recently directed Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love as part of the NIDA graduation productions.
Most memorable NIDA experience?
There are many of them - my 2 unsuccessful auditions as an actor 25 years ago were the beginning of my journey with NIDA. Also some amazing shows I have seen here like Jim Sharman's production of The Screens by Genet which opened the Parade Playhouse. I'm still working on Remains so it hasn't settled into the memory bank yet but I will never forget the opening night of the first show I directed for NIDA which was a graduation play in 2006, The Laramie Project. It was one of those rare openings where everything came together and what I had wanted to achieve came to life
If your life were a theatre act what would it be called?
Waiting For Money
What’s the drama in your life?
I love drama and I have many dramatic friends who provide me with debacles and messes - relationships, work crises, addictions of all kinds. I've come to accept that I seek out those friends to keep me afloat. In myself, I am mostly pretty calm and balanced - insofar as that is possible.
Favourite spot for pre-theatre dinner?
Mamma Theresa's in Anzac Parade. Being a Melburnian I love an old fashioned trattoria and you can't go past it. I also recommend the steamed dumplings at The Golden Kingdom (Anzac Parade the other way).
Most treasured theatrical moment?
Many of them and too hard to split. Robyn Nevin in Neil Armfield's transcendant production of Diving For Pearls, all of The Lost Echo, Benedict Andrews' Season at Sarsparilla and most recently, Scorched at Company B.
What prompts you to direct?
I trained as an actor and although I love acting, I became frustrated with having to serve someone else's vision of the play. I'm more at peace (and more interested) now in the discipline and the challenge of that. Some of my raging ego has vanished with my youth. But I have always felt the power of the theatre, the collection of humans in a dark and shared space, the ritual power of sharing and I love to play an active role in such a rich environment. Most of the big philosophical and political ideas I live by have been introduced to me via the theatre. It's a place of great power to me.
Ever been upstaged?
Many times. It's an occupational hazard
Advice for all budding directors?
Learn about acting - it's the centre of everything. I have always been inspired by Peter Brooke's advice that he gives in his seminal book, The Empty Space. In it he describes his frustration with young directors asking how they might become directors. He says words to the effect of: choose a play, hire a space, find some actors and do the play. Then you are a director. Simple, but very effective advice. It inspired me to do my first play.
|
|