Tell us about your role at Patch.

A Creative Producer makes things happen; we sit between the creative process and the operational process in a project, we orchestrate ideas, resources, people and participants, to turn the seed of an idea into reality.

It’s a brilliantly diverse role that changes hugely from day to day depending on what is in front of us.

My day can be anything from sitting at a laptop all day smashing through a grant application, report or budget, being a part of the development of a new work, brainstorming an idea with our brilliant Artistic Director Geoff Cobham, visiting a school and watching an intimate performance in a classroom, to networking & selling our work at an arts market or meeting with local, national & international festival directors.

Tell us about your career highlights.

There are loads! I have been so blessed to work across South Australia, the country and the world producing so many amazing projects and work with such a diversity of artists. I’ll try and pick a few highlights…

Working with Wan Smolbag Theatre (in Vanuatu) across many years, and helping to program and produce three International Theatre Festivals (2009, 2014 and 2019) has definitely been a highlight. Touring artists from Australia, NZ, South Africa and the UK to the tiny Island nation for them to perform to local audiences and in turn for those artists to experience the unique brilliance of the work Wan Smolbag does across, theatre, film and community development has definitely been a career highlight.

Another would be my time at Adelaide Fringe as Creative Producer (2019–2014). This was a brilliant time when the festival was producing a huge number of large-scale free events for the artist and community. I worked my butt off but had an absolute blast of heading up a dream team of producing and production legends. I produced many large-scale projects, but a few favourites were the opening night Parade, Opening Night concert, the outdoor Fringe Club which became the much-loved artists playground home away from home, the Fringe in the Mall Caravan artist showcase stage, The Fringe Sirens, and a project that is very dear to my heart – Desert Fringe, that was produced annually in Port Augusta.

After my love of large-scale outdoor events was born across my years at Adelaide Fringe, it was a total gift to be able bring this together with my love for Vanuatu when I was appointed as the Executive Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremony of the mini–Pacific Games held in Vanuatu in 2017. I had certainly done big events, but nothing of this scale and never for a live multi-channel TV broadcast! It was a brilliant learning experience and the ‘cast’ of 2,000 athletes and over 500 local performers, cultural dance groups and dignitaries and speakers for the Opening Ceremony, was certainly the largest I’ve ever had to wrangle.