Author Archives
Rob’s interest in theatre began in the mid-1970’s, when he taught English and Drama at a small multicultural high school in northern New Zealand, where he produced Taniwha, a play for students on the history of Maori-European relations. When he returned to Australia he took up a position as a director with the Shopfront Theatre, Sydney, working mainly with young people and unemployed youth. He subsequently pursued this role as a freelance director, producing experiential plays with unemployed, Indigenous and other disadvantaged groups throughout NSW. He has directed and produced prize-winning plays in the TAFE and school environments, and as a Community Arts Officer, helped to develop a strong performing arts base in Orange. One of his short plays, Why Ronald McDonald Must Die, featured in the inaugural Short and Sweet drama festival. Rob now lives in the Bellingen area, where he continues his interest in performing arts. His latest creation, Power Play, combines his love of music and theatre into a musical parody set around the events of Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership.
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The Story of my Life Part 7: The art of the possible.
When I left New Zealand, early in 1971, I’d had very little exposure to radical politics. My first brush with anything remotely ‘left-of-centre’ was at high school, where I’d participated in an abortive protest by sixth form students demanding the… Read More ›
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The Story of my Life Part 6: Drug History
My younger brother Al was always the black sheep of the family; always in trouble with our parents, the school, the law and anyone else in authority. As kids, he and I were always fighting – not just arguing, but… Read More ›
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The Story of My Life Part 5: Down and Out in Sydney and Melbourne
Sydney, Australia in mid-summer: paradise for someone young, single and out for a good time! Or at least if not paradise, the nearest I’d ever come to it. I’d stretched my relationship with a friend of a friend to put… Read More ›
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The Story of My Life Part 4: Flight of Fancy
The latter days of my schooling and the greater part of the university years that followed are something of a blur, the way that details of periods of extended boredom and mediocrity are a blur. When I was about sixteen,… Read More ›
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The Story of My Life Part 3: Rude awakenings
Early in my adolescence a phenomenon occurred that affected most of the members of my cohort simultaneously: the sudden awareness that females were different, and there was something interesting about them. I wasn’t sure what it was, but whatever it… Read More ›
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The Story of My Life Part 2: Almost a burial
Risks were a part of everyday life for kids in our kind of environment; but we learned early how to assess them, and most of us got through the early part of our childhood with nothing more than a few… Read More ›
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The Man on the Moon: Part 2
2. Grimes’ death was a shock to Harvey, but any implications beyond the immediate had to be put aside when the Minister’s office rang the following morning to advise him that, until Grimes could be formally replaced as manager, Harvey… Read More ›
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The Man on the Moon: Part 1
1. Harvey Jennings went to the window and peered across at the dish, its huge crescent of steel glowing beneath a chunky, shadowed moon. He again paid tribute, as he habitually did, to the planners and engineers who’d built the… Read More ›
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Welcome
I want to tell you a story. It’s my story. It began a long time ago, longer ago than I can remember. It goes back to the roots of myself, to the heroes and heroines of my family’s collective memory. You’ll… Read More ›
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The Story of My Life Part 1: Fire Damage
A friend of mine said to me not so long ago, after we’d been reflecting on things we’d done throughout our lives, that my history would make interesting reading. I don’t know about that; all I can do is put… Read More ›
Rob Simpson's Writing 