Set designer back from Australia

Press, 21 December 1981, Page 11

Set designer back from Australia

Simon Allison has spent the last six months as a “guinea pig” for the Traps Tasman Theatre Foundation. The young Court Theatre set designer is the first New Zealander to make use of the foundation, which was set up to create an exchange across the Tasman of actors, designers, and any interested theatre people.. “I had just received , an Arts. Council grant to help me check the set design field in Australia, when, through correspondence, I was put on to the foundation scheme as well,” Mr Allison said. “The foundation came at the right time, as you don’t make, any money in the theatre, and so these kind of things are the only way to get over there.’’ Mr Allison’s first job was with Sydney’s Nimrod

Theatre, which will be familiar to Court Theatre audienpes of a few years ago. ; fl expected the Nimrod to W something totally big, totally different from the Court but really it is virtually the same, except for financing,” he said. “It has - tie same system and the . sine problems, but its budget is greater.” ; After a few months with Nimrod, Mr Allison joined the touring Court Theatre production, “Blood of the Lamb,” when it arrived in Australia. But unfortunately for the Christchurch company, the only theatre available in Sydney was not suitable. “It was a very long building, more like a movie theatre than a stage. The play just did not work there. Its whole, intimate, storytale

atmosphere was destroyed. Most of the company got fairly depressed, and morale was at a low ebb.”

Apart from his work with the Court and Nimrod theatre, Mr Allison also designed for the non-profes-sional Griffin Theatre and the Sydney Gay Group.

“I worked on two plays for the group, including one called ’Hormones.’ Both were performed in a Sydney nightclub.”' Mr Allison says that from a technical point of view he did not learn a great deal. From a comparable theatre level, Australia was not any further ahead of New Zealand, he said. “But one thing my trip to Australia did give me was a great deal of respect for New Zealand theatre.”