David Branson
File:Branson.jpgDavid Branson (Born February 1963 died 11 December 2001) was an Australian theatre director, actor, and writer.
David Branson's father John was an Antarctic scientist, and his mother Margaret a school librarian. Branson attended Hackett Primary School, Watson High, and Dickson College. He was regular church goer and a member of several youth and theatre groups.
In 1985 Branson, Ross Cameron, John Utans, and Patrick Troy founded Splinters Theatre of Spectacle which had its origins in mediaevalist antics in Canberra's inner north. Based in Canberra, Australia, Splinters staged several large productions, sometimes involving hundreds of people, fire sculptures, giant puppets, & large moving metal sculptures.
Early Splinters performances were at a now-demolished weatherboard cottage in Downer, and the Causeway Hall at Kingston, as well as backyards in the inner north. Splinters made good use of crowd manipulation.[1] Branson remained with Splinters until 1996 when he became the Artistic Director of Culturally Innovative Arts, which he founded with Louise Morris.
During his time with Splinters he was involved in more than 20 productions including Cry Stinking Fish (1987) as part of the Melbourne Spoleto Festival, Gumboot Full of Blood (1988), Cathedral of Flesh (1992) (winner Best Promenade Theatre Performance Award in the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Guardians of the Concourse (1993, National Festival of Australian Theatre, Canberra), Utopia/Distopia (1995, Springbank Island, Canberra), and Faust - The Heat of Knowledge (1996, 50th Anniversary Celebrations of the Australian National University).
After theatre studies in Melbourne, Branson worked as an actor with many different companies including La Mama Theatre. As a director he staged The Threepenny Opera and Handel's Ariodante His Ribbons of Steel used a mix of archival material, interpretive art, sculpture and photographic exhibits, to mark the closure of Newcastle's BHP Steelworks. Under the pseudonym 'Senor Handsome' he was a founding member, and violinist, of the cabaret group Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen.[2] He also directed works by Daniel Keene, Grahame Henderson, Alison Croggon and Christos Tsiolkas.
Branson remained a Canberra identity, and divided his time largely between Canberra and Melbourne. In Canberra he hosted the "Terrace Sessions" at the Terrace Bar, the Gypsy Bar and the Street Theatre, where many avant-garde performances were staged. Branson often accompanying spoken pieces with impromptu violin or off-the-cuff poesy.
He died in a car accident in 2001. An extraordinary eight hundred people attended his funeral at St Margaret's Anglican Church in Hackett, the inner-north suburb of Canberra where he grew up.
Footnotes
- ^ Geoffrey Milne, Theatre Australia (Un)limited ISBN 90-420-0930-6. page 371
- ^ Review of Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen CD by Jonathan Marshall
External links
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