Arts leader John Clark, who helped shape NIDA and the Sydney Theatre Company, dies aged 93
John Clark, the visionary arts leader who led the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) for 35 years and transformed it into the powerful institution it is today, has died at the age of 93.
Born in Hobart on 30 October 1932, Clark was educated at the University of Tasmania. His obituary on the NIDA website tellsHe became involved with the Old Nick Theater and eventually continued his education at the Bristol Old Vic Theater School in the United Kingdom.
There he designed the sets for the first production of Harold Pinter’s first play. Room. He also met his future wife, Henrietta Hartley, who worked for ABC Television and would become a TV producer. Play School.
Clark returned to Hobart with Henrietta in 1959 and directed the Hobart Repertory Theater Company production of Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman – a job that would change their lives forever.
The play made such a splash that the ABC, the Melbourne Theater Company and the interests of NIDA, which was founded in 1958 and began recruiting students the following year, tried to recruit him. Clark accepted the offer of Robert Quentin, one of the founders of the new institution, and his path was set.
Clark would later recall that the institution was initially met with some skepticism:“There was a lot of opposition – why was there training for an industry that didn’t exist?”
He spent the next decade teaching and directing at NIDA’s newly formed professional theater company, the Old Tote Theater Company, the predecessor of the Sydney Theater Company. The building in which it is located was once part of Kensington Racecourse and housed the aggregator betting machine (which displayed on-course odds and other race information). Among the plays Clark staged was Edward Albee’s first Australian production. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
In 1969, Clark became director of NIDA and soon appointed Elizabeth Butcher as bursar, a position that evolved into executive director. The duo worked together for 35 years. in one piece Published on the NIDA website this weekButcher said he knew nothing about theater when he accepted the job and had not even been to the Old Tote.
“John taught me everything I know. From the beginning, he guided me and showed me what to do. That was John. He taught by doing and trusted people to fit their roles,” she wrote.
“Very early on, just a month after I was there, he went to England and sent me a note asking me to help come up with a play. These scripts—I had never read a play before—included vulgarities and foul language. Don’s Partylong before anyone knew what it would be. “It was John who was always thinking ahead and shaping what Australian theater could be.”
When the Old Tote closed in November 1978Then NSW premier Neville Wran approached Butcher – the man then appointed from NIDA to direct the Old Tote – was appointed to establish a new state theater company to mount works at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre. The Sydney Theater Company was born when Clark joined Butcher as artistic consultant for the programming of the first season in 1979.
“His vision extended far beyond NIDA and helped shape the cultural life of this city,” Butcher said.
Meanwhile, the duo had their sights set on improving facilities at NIDA, at which point, according to an obituary on the agency’s website: “A collection of former army huts and racetrack buildings under constant threat of demolition.”
However, Clark and Butcher managed to persuade then opposition leader Malcolm Fraser to enter the 1980 election with a pledge to give NIDA a new home. It took several years, but in 1987 NIDA moved to the campus where it is still located today.
Available courses were also expanding over the decades. NIDA’s first group of 23 students graduated with an acting degree in 1960. A year later, a two-year production course was added, followed by a three-year design course and a one-year directing master’s course in 1972, followed by countless other theater arts courses over the decades. The campus expanded accordingly, and in 2002 a new complex was opened, housing an educational theater and TV studio. The jewel in the new complex’s crown, the 730-seat Parade Theatre, was opened in 2002 by NIDA alumnus Mel Gibson.
In 2004, Clark directed his final show for NIDA, based on John Steinbeck’s novel. Grapes of Wraththen he retired. He returned to Hobart in 2009 and made a full comeback, directing a production. hamlet For old Nick.
Clark was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1981 for services to theatre, and received the Helpmann Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He published a memoir in 2022: A Look at Talent: A Life at NIDA. Accordingly, it was structured around quotes from William Shakespeare saying: twelfth night after christmasThe last film Clark directed was in 2003 at NIDA.
Clark is widely seen as having significantly influenced and shaped the thriving theater culture that now exports our work to the global stage.
“John’s legacy is everywhere,” Butcher wrote in a tribute on the NIDA website. “Thousands of graduates from the fields of acting, design, producing and directing who studied under his leadership live here.
“He lives on in the international careers of Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrmann and many others. Above all, he lives by his uncompromising principle that students come first and that excellence in education creates excellence in art itself.”
Clark is survived by his wife, Henrietta, and three children, Kate, David and Jo; his five grandchildren, Jack, Hetty, Owen, Amanda and Alex; and great-granddaughter Pip.
NIDA will host a commemoration of Clark’s life on May 29.
Chris Hook is Sydney Cultural News Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
