Carrie Tennant was an actor, director, and dramatist. She studied elocution with Barbara Sisley in Brisbane from 1925-1926, and performed in 'Snapshots of 1926', a vaudeville show at Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane in 1927. Tennant then moved to Sydney, where in 1929 she founded the Community Playhouse, the first theatre in New South Wales devoted to producing Australian drama, and also the Play Society in 1931. She also edited The Community Magazine : official magazine of the Community Play-house from 1930 to 1931.
Tennant subsequently became a social anthropologist after post-graduate studies at University of Sydney and wrote numerous reports on non-British migrants in Australia. She also undertook anthropological work on Aboriginal issues during the late 1930s and '40s. A collection of her papers is held at the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland. It contains newspaper cuttings, photos, and other material relating to Aboriginal people and communities in Queensland and NSW.
