StageWRite

Tony Brooks

Tony started his career as a teacher, tutor and lecturer. He taught for some years in high school, having studied French at the Institut Britannique and the Sorbonne in Paris, and was also a primary school teacher and principal. Migrating to Australia in 1971, Tony taught for ten years at all levels of primary school and as tutor/lecturer at Murray Park CAE. His degree is in Educational Drama and he has worked as actor, director, and stage manager in both professional and community theatre productions. 

Tony also confesses to writing dozens of poems that he sometimes performs in public, and which have helped unlock the flow of words over the years. A long term member of S.A. Writers' Theatre and S.A. Writers' Centre, Tony's scrips have been performed and presented on stage, radio, film and T.V., both here and in the USA. 

                         Tony at the S.A. Writers' Festival in the Southern Vales

Tony has written six novels and sold some thousands of copies, mostly by his own efforts. One good sales outlet has proven to be the book stall at the S.A. Writers' Festival in the Southern Vales.

His play, ‘Games’, has been produced by Shoestring Theatre Company, University of Chicago, Theatre Guild and the Centre for the Performing Arts, and received the Adelaide Advertiser award as the best new play of the year in 1994. 

Another much performed play, Ice, based on the love letters of Douglas and Paquita Mawson, was produced by S.A. Writers' Theatre and the Centre for the Performing Arts, before being selected by OPUS Performing Arts Community to launch their company's activities at the Noarlunga College Theatre (now the Hopgood Theatre), in 2002.  OPUS went on to perform the play at the Queen's Theatre in Adelaide .

           Ice  Programme 2002               Scene from Honest John   (Photo: Meg Roberts)

Tony’s short play, Honest John, is another of his works which has been performed and adapted frequently. The play is set during the great drivers’ strike of 1910, and examines the crisis faced by the first Socialist Premier of South Australia, John Verran. As well as being performed at the S.A. Writers' Theatre and by Shoestring Theatre Company, it was adapted for radio and performed at Coast FM. OPUS Performing Arts Community performance of the play, during the 2005 South Australian Hills Drama Festival, won first prize.

Since arriving in South Australia, Tony has written 'masses of material' much of which examines the political and social development of his adopted state. His one act play, Water, which confronts many of these issue, is set aboard the H.M.S. Buffalo on the first Proclamation Day, in 1836.

                        Scene from Water   (Photo: Meg Roberts)

Along with his interest in the political and social development of South Australia, Tony is also fascinated by the transposition of the ancient Cornish culture across the world and it's recreation along the South Australian coastline of Yorke Peninsula, in the region known as 'Little Cornwell' or 'The Cornish Triangle' which is made up of the townships of Kadina, Moonta & Wallaroo.

This fascination has led to one of Tony's most notable works, Curve Of The Earth, which had it's world premier in 1993 at La Mama Theatre, presented by the Shoestring Theatre Company. It has also been adapted as a film script, funded by AFC & SAFIAC and produced by Associated Film Enterprises. As a trilogy of novels that follows the sixty years of the great mines, Curve Of The Earth was first published in 2004, and republished in 2005 and 2007.

                             Curve Of The Earth Programme 1993

Tony is a widely respected writer, actor, producer and director and for many years has continuously promoted the performance arts, in both the Southern Vales and the greater Adelaide area, with amazing drive and passion.