Spotlight on Equity member Terence Crawford

Terence Crawford in STCSA's production of Andrew Bovell's Speaking in Tongues in 2011. Photo by Shane Reid

Terence is an actor, acting teacher, author and playwright. He is currently Head of Acting at Adelaide College of the Arts and is running as a South Australian senate candidate in the federal election for The Arts Party. Terence has been a member of Equity since 1980.

When did you join Equity and why?

I joined Equity in October, 1980. It was a very exciting moment because Aarne Neeme had just cast me in my first professional show, with the Hunter Valley Theatre Co, so there was something proudly ritualistic about getting on the train from Newcastle down to Sydney (I don't know why it couldn't be done by mail!), then finding my way to the Actors Equity office--which seemed to be no more than a nook under a stairwell in the foyer of an old theatre in Kings Cross--then heading straight back to Central, and back on the train home to Newcastle, A PROFESSIONAL ACTOR! It was a wonderful feeling, and I remain deeply proud of being a professional Australian actor.

What do you consider a highlight of your career as a performer?

I mentioned this to my old friend, Jonathan Biggins, a few years ago. We were terribly spoiled as young actors because in 1981 we were in the premiere production of John O'Donaghue's Essington Lewis: I Am Work, a show written for Newcastle's company, acted by locals, about the local community. Audiences stood and cheered, EVERY NIGHT. Then of course the show had great success all over the country. But it strikes me--and I didn't necessarily realise this at the time--that theatre doesn't get better than that. Theatre of the deepest integrity, of crucial locality. The other great moments have also been in new Australian plays, like Stephen Sewell's Dreams in an Empty City, or Debra Oswald's Gary's House. For me, doing Australian work is the 'premiere league' - everything else is Reserve Grade. It continues to frustrate me that most of our theatre companies spend most of their time in Reserve Grade fixtures.

Can you tell us a little about the two books you have published about acting?

The first, Trade Secrets, came out of my observation that Australian actors didn't submit to acting guru-ism very comfortably. The premise was that good actors made up their own theories and practices more or less as they went along, and scratched together whatever shards of extant theory helped them. So I took that question to thirteen extraordinary actors (let me just mention the three of them that graced the book but are, sadly, no longer with us - 'Bud' Tingwell, Bille Brown, and Wendy Hughes) and chewed the fat with them around this question, and allowed those conversations to go where they did.

In the second book, Dimensions of Acting, I more or less gave my own answers to the questions about how, why and when actors engage with theory. I am chiefly interested in reconciling an ethos of eclecticism with a fear of nay-saying and a recognition that young actors need something to hold onto. So the result is my 'model of eclecticism', my Dimensions, which finally constitutes a navigational tool for acting - a means of identifying the challenges of a given role, and navigating through the work required to achieve the role. I have been enormously gratified by the great responses I've had from students, actors and acting teachers about the value they have found in the books.

And you have a strong interest in the works of Shakespeare?

I've directed 14 of them; acted in about a dozen of them; and read all of them numerous times. I teach the verse work, every year, refining how to do it as I read the subtle generational shifts in student groups, and reflect on my own growing understanding; I've taught it to students from China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, and many other countries; scenework is before me for support on an almost weekly basis; I read, see, act, or cite Shakespeare pretty much every day of my life.

What does your work as the head of acting at Adelaide College of the Arts involve? Do you have some common advice/ ideas your share with your students about the process or the craft of acting?

It has been a great privilege to assume Head of Acting duties at four different institutions, here and overseas, over the past 21 years. At its core, it's about trying to strengthen people: not just as actors; and not just the students. It's about the artistic growth of a faculty (particularly the casual staff that are coming regularly in from the profession). I'm very proud of the experiences I've offered great professionals in Adelaide over the last decade: the graduates of ACArts that I have identified as great pedagogical talent (like Matilda Bailey and Josephine Were); the directors whose careers and whose art have grown substantially within the experimental walls of the school (such as Corey McMahon and Elena Carapetis); and the top-line pros who have come to us to experiment, to stretch their own practices (as have Chris Drummond, Geordie Brookman, and Paulo Castro).

The advice I share with students about acting - day in, day out - would take me a couple of books to fill. Hang on, it DID take me a couple of books to fill! Those readers who have not 'suffered' me as a teacher can begin by reading them.

Finally, I want to say that the overarching thing I try to instil in students and colleagues is that theatre is a phenomenon that grows out of our generosity to each other, and our quenchless fascination with our species.

Why have you decided to get involved in politics and what are you hoping to achieve?

I'm running as a South Australian senate candidate in the federal election for The Arts Party, and the party is fielding candidates in all states, as well as in selected Lower House seats. I'm doing this mainly because of a concern for how far from the centre of Australian political consciousness and concern art has drifted.

It is about the funding crises of the moment, and it is about the arts industry, yes. But it is about stuff way beyond and far beneath the funding crises of the moment and the professional arts industry. It is about education and social cohesion through and with art. It is about the political culture that allows such crises to develop, unchecked, by successive governments. So it is not about politicising the arts so much as it is about artifying politics.

We need to make it NOT OK to diss the arts. And we need to make it OK to talk about a massive investment in the country's future via a massive investment in the arts. We need to recognise that funding for the arts should not be seen as a thing that might flow as a result of economic good times, but to see that equation in reverse: that economic buoyancy may come from investment in the arts.

This cultural change must occur within the halls of power, literally. It must happen IN THE BUILDING of parliament. Our 'visiting advocacy' tradition has not worked. Advocacy has not worked. That is not because of a lack of quality in the advocacy itself, but because those to whom we are advocating are culturally disinclined to care very much, or do very much. This is a twenty-year project in cultural change... toward art.

I want to go to Canberra and have 10,000 conversations about art. I want to be the best buddy and bulldog at the heels of the Arts Minister, encouraging him or her to greater boldness, and greater connectivity to our industries. I want to make our arts minister a national hero to the sector, not a burning effigy. I think I can help.