Robert Chuter

Robert Chuter is an Australian theatre director, film director and producer.

Personal life

Chuter is the only son of British immigrant Harry Chuter and Rita May Spalding. He grew up in Williamstown in Melbourne and studied at St. Martin's Theatre School and the Melbourne Theatre Company Youth Theatre. In 1976, he studied with the Lindsay Kemp touring company and cites the experience as one of his inspirations for becoming involved in theatre direction. His interest in film direction originated while he was working in a bookstore during school holidays, when he was encouraged to create some material using Super 8 film by the silent screen and stage actress Agnes Dobson. He subsequently attended the Victorian College of Arts - Drama School and in 1983 graduated from the Swinburne Film and Television School winning the AAV Australia award for his short film The Mortal Coil.

He founded the Performing Arts Projects in Melbourne in the late 1980s with playwright Daniel Lillford. In 1990, he won the Best Production award at the Green Room Awards for the critically acclaimed production of Sam Sejavaka's In Angel Gear. He has directed over 200 plays both in Australia and internationally and between 2005-2008, Chuter worked in London's West End. In 1999, he was Artistic Director for StyleAid - Transit 99 for the Victorian AIDS Council.

Stage actor

• Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (Monash, 1976)
• The Seagull (Guild Theatre, 1976)
• The Polish Girl (Playbox Theatre, 1977)
• Plague Island (La Mama Theatre, 1986)

Stage Director

• Curtains" (Grant Street Theatre, 1977)
• Esther" (Guild Theatre, 1978)
• The Spalding Family Album (Playbox Theatre, 1979)
• Two Tigers" (La Mama Theatre, 1979)
• Upside Down at the Bottom of the World (Queensland Theatre Company, 1981)
• Nijinsky (Universal Theatre, 1981)
• The Murderer's Song(La Mama Theatre, 1981)
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Grant Street Theatre, 1983)
• Rebel Without A Cause" (Union Theatre, 1985)
• The Seagull" (New Theatre, 1985)
• Isadora" (Universal Theatre, 1986)
• Quintessence" (La Mama Theatre, 1987)
• The Music of Orpheus and Other Short Pieces" ( La Mama Theatre, 1987)
• Shipwreck" (La Mama Theatre, 1988)
• Sal" (La mama Theatre, 1988)
• Restoring the Picture of Dorian Gray" (La Mama Theatre, 1988)
• The Death of Peter Pan (La Mama Theatre, 1989)
• Kisses for Vera" (La Mama Theatre, 1989)
• The Hive (La Mama Theatre, 1989)
• Loving Friends (Rippon Lea, 1990)
• In Angel Gear" (St. Martin's Theatre, 1990)
• Figures in Glass" (St. Martin's Theatre, 1990)
• I Danced With A Girl Who Danced With the Prince of Wales" (Rippon Lea Ballroom, 1991)
• Heights (La Mama Theatre, 1992)
• The Miracle of the Rose (Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, 1993)
• An Indian Summer" (Rippon Lea, 1994)
• Stage Door(St. Martin's Theatre, 1993)
• Good Morning, Midnight!" (La Mama Theatre, 1993)
• Sunset Children" (La Mama Theatre, 1994)
• Little Lord Fauntleroy" (Rippon Lea, 1994)
• Les Pecherurs de Perles (Victorian State Opera, 1994)
• Perks" (Mietta's, 1995)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover (Rippon Lea, 1995)
• The Yellow Book" (Mietta's, 1995)
• Anne of Green Gables (Rippon Lea, 1996)
• The Great Gatsby (Rippon Lea, 1997)
• Seven Little Australians (Rippon Lea 1997)
• The White Rose and the Blue (Council Chambers, Melbourne Town Hall, 1997)
• Turn of the Screw" (Rippon Lea, 1998)
• Miles Franklin and the Rainbow's End" (Theatreworks, 1999)
• Homme Fatale" (Theatreworks, 1999)
• Women in Love (Rippon Lea, 2002)
• The Singing Forest' (Theatreworks, 2001)
• The Murderer's Barbecue" (La Mama Theatre on site, 2003)
• Five Minute Call (The Butterfly Club, 2004)
• The Lost" (Chapel Off Chapel, 2004)
• A Thousand and One Night Stands" (Theatreworks, 2004)
• Falling So Slowly.." (St. Martin's Theatre, 2005)
• Fresh Pleasures (Pleasance Theatre, London, 2005)
• Homme Fatale (Pleasance Theatre, London, 2005)
• Shakin' the Blues Away" (The Butterfly Club, 2005)
• Oblomov's Dream (Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2006)
• Life As A Springer Show (Fairfax Studio, 2006)
• The Object of Desire (La Mama Theatre, 2007)
• Almost (Fairfax Studio, 2007)
• Dimboola (La Mama Theatre, 2008)
• Tipping Point" (Fairfax Studio, 2008)
• The Needle and the Damage Done" (La Mama Courthouse, 2008)
• Thieving Boy/Like Stars in My Hands (La Mama Courthouse, 2008)
• The Dream Children" (La Mama Courthouse, 2009)
• Half A Person: My Life as Told by the Smiths (Chapel Off Chapel, 2010)
• The Choir (Brightspace Gallery, 2010)
• All That I Will Ever Be (Chapel Off Chapel, 2012)
• November Spawned A Monster (Old Fitzroy Theatre, Sydney, 2014)
• Teleny (Chapel Off Chapel, 2014)
• The Fastest Clock in the Universe (Chapel Off Chapel, 2015)

Stage producer

Heeding advice given to him by the British film director Ken Russell, Chuter has been diverse in his stage productions:

I direct family shows, like the sell-out seasons of Anne of Green Gables and the children’s classic: Seven Little Australians, to plays about gay porn icons, drug culture, the Bloomsbury group, the Brontes, IVF, flamboyant artists, feminist writers and serial killers. Diversity is the name of the game and I love work which is challenging to the imagination. Can you imagine directing an opera when you don’t speak French and can’t remember music? Yep, I’ve done it - not sure if I was successful or not.

Among the productions as producer have been:

• Trybe: An Opera in Paint (Chapel Off Chapel, 2012)
• The Polish Girl (Playbox Theatre, 1977)
• Stravanganaza (Napier Street Theatre, 1992)
• No Room for Dreamers (La Mama Theatre/Spoleto Fringe Festival, 1986)
• Life (Randall Theatre, St. Martins Theatre, 1991)
• The Secret Garden (Rippon Lea, 1994)
• Homme Fatale (Pleasance Theatre, London, 2005)

Film

The 2015 feature film release The Dream Children was directed and co-produced by Chuter. He had previously directed a stage version, written by Julia Britton, for Fly-On-The-Wall Theatre at the La Mama Courthouse in 2009.

References

• Jones, Liz with Burstall, Betty & Garner, Helen – La Mama: The Story of a Theatre, McPhee Gribble/Penguin Books, 1988 p. 11, 78, 79, 80, 87, 100, 104, 107, 108
• Steel, Brett (editor) – Melborn08’s Playspotting, Melbourne Writers Theatre/Ligare, 2008 p. 4, 5, 9, 14, 59
• Breslin, Anthony – Frantic Bloom, Melbourne Books, 2010 p. 5, 227
• Martinetti, Ron – The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975 p. 177
• Radic, Leonard - Contemporary Australian Drama, Brandal and Schlesinger, 2006 p. 285
• Buckrich, Judith - The Village of Ripponlea, Lauranton Books, 2015 p. 64, 65
• Paterson, Barbara - Renegades - Australia's First Film School from Swinburne to VCA, The Helicon Press, 1996 p. 184
• Milne, Geoffrey – Theatre Australian (un)listed: Australian Theatre Since the 1950s, Rotopi, 2004 p. 304
• Jones, Liz (editor) – The La Mama Collection: Six Plays for the 1990s, Currency Press, 1997 p. viii, 3

External links

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1970146/bio