Rob Brookman AM is a leading Australian theatre producer, festival director, cultural programmer and arts administrator. In a 50 year career, he has held leadership positions in a number of the Australasia’s foremost festivals and performing arts organisations including the Adelaide Festival (Administrator, Associate Director, Artistic Director, Executive Director), Adelaide Festival Centre (Programming Director, Producer, Artistic Director), National Festival of Australian Theatre (Artistic Director), New Zealand International Festival of Arts (Artistic Director), Arts Projects Australia (Founding Co-Director), Sydney Theatre Company (General Manager) and State Theatre Company South Australia (Executive Director). In 1992 he co-founded Australia’s leading world music festival WOMADelaide and remained as Artistic Director and/or Artistic Advisor for 15 years.

Rob runs his own cultural consultancy Sweet Reason Pty Ltd offering consulting services to major productions and festivals and undertaking feasibility studies and project development work for a wide range of clients including festivals, commercial developers and local government agencies. He currently works regularly as an Executive Producer for GWB Entertainment on various productions, most recently Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Death of a Salesman, Groundhog Day, Girl From The North Country and An American in Paris.
Rob is currently Chair of UKARIA Cultural Centre, Chair of Art Museum Kangaroo Island and Deputy Chair of Adelaide Festival. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from both Flinders University and the University of Adelaide along with the 2017 Ruby Award for Lifetime Achievement (shared with Ulrike Klein) and the 2017 Helpmann Awards’ Sue Nattrass Award for exceptional service to the Australian live performance industry.
Rob is an amateur environmental activist and has attempted, with varying degrees of success, to weave modest practical solutions to the crisis facing our planet and species into his personal and professional life with the most notable achievements being the ground-breaking Greening the Wharf project at Sydney Theatre Company, WOMAD Earth Station and WOMADelaide’s The Planet Talks series, and making the Adelaide Festival the first fully accredited carbon-neutral major arts festival in the country.