Cirrus@Austlit

Tony Strachan grew up in Papua New Guinea, a country which later became the setting for his play The Eyes of the Whites. He went on to write several other stage and radio plays including State Of Shock, about Aboriginal violence on reserves in Queensland. This appeared at Belvoir and Playbox under Neil Armfield's direction, while a later production was mounted by Noel Tovey in 2000. Initially he trained as an artist at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney (1969-70), the London School of Contemporary Dance (1972-1974), and the Merce Cunningham Studio, New York (1974). He was a dancer and choreographer with Australian Dance Theatre through 1975, worked as a dancer/street/circus performer from 1976 to 1978 and resident actor with the South Australian Theatre Company 1978-1980. He founded the performance trio Chrome which travelled to festivals around the globe through the eighties and nineties. In 1999 he became Artistic Director of Australian Theatre Of The Deaf. In 2002 he was awarded an Asialink Fellowship to work with Hong Kong's Theatre Of Silence producing a work for 6 deaf actors titled Untie The Boat From The Ugly Wharf.