‘Art and Working Life’: Australian Trade Unions and the Theatre

Abstract

In the feature on Australian theatre in NTQ5 (1986). Peter Fitzpatrick pointed to a burgeoning community theatre movement, made possible by the shifts in arts funding which were the subject of Graham Ley's interview with Malcolm Blaylock in the same issue – while Tom Burvill's article on Sidetrack Theatre described one of the emergent companies. His concentration on Sidetrack's workplace shows, and on Loco in particular, highlighted an area in which the community theatre movement had made some strides in the construction of a popular political theatre. These have been achieved since the Australia Council – the antipodean equivalent of the Arts Council of Great Britain – introduced its Art and Working Life Incentive Programme, designed to foster arts activities within the trade union movement, in 1982. David Watt, who teaches Drama at Newcastle University, here offers a report on a developing relationship between theatre companies and the union movement, with particular reference to two companies which have been most closely associated with the programme, and places their work in the industrial contexts of state patronage and the trade union movement.