ERROL BRAY

Errol Bray has worked in theatre for over 30 years in a range of roles - playwright; director; arts administrator; festival director; youth arts worker; lecturer/tutor. He was founding Artistic Director of Shopfront Theatre for Young People, Sydney (1976); of Australian National Young Playwrights Weekend (1978); of World Interplay festival for young playwrights (1984); of Switchboard Arts Co-op Ltd (1987); and of the Emerge Project for development of new playwrights at Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane (2005). He has run major community theatre projects including being Director of the West Gippsland Arts Centre for 3 years and of the 2002 Desert Uplands Festival in Central Queensland (covering 75,000 sq km). He was commissioned to write and direct “Playing Federation” in 2001, a history of Thuringowa in Northern Queensland, with a cast of over 300 local people. He has supervised the MA (Research) Playwriting at QUT (Brisbane) for the past 6 years.

His play “The Choir” was produced widely in Australia in the 1980s and it has been done in London (2009), Ljubljana (1985) and Washington DC (1981). Other plays have been produced mostly by youth, community and independent companies. His book on group-creation with young people – “Playbuilding” (Currency Press, 1994) is used nationally as a text for drama teachers. In 2001, he was awarded a PhD for his thesis on international projects in new play development.