Never Leaving the Rehearsal Room
Our Marketing Coordinator tells us about his longstanding relationship with State Theatre Company of South Australia
We asked Anthony Nocera, our marketing content coordinator, if we could film him telling us this story. As he edits and makes all of our video, he was ardently against this idea.
We settled for a text-based post instead. Here he tells us how participating in our work experience program changed the course of his life and career.
I did work experience at State Theatre Company when I was in Year 11 (in 2010). I remember this one particularly incredible day I had during that week I spent with the company.
I asked my mum the other day what I was like back then and she rolled her eyes and said, “Somehow more annoying than you are now.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know… you thought you were some sort of thespian. Wanted to be an actor. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that you didn’t have the face for it.”
But I agree… about the face and me being annoying. I think I was an anxious and unpleasant kid… probably because I didn’t know where I fit.
We started the morning by heading into the rehearsal room to see them work on The Price by Arthur Miller. We got to meet the actors and sit on the edge of where the stage was marked. Adelaide actor Carmel Johnson spoke with us, learned all of our names and laughed with everyone and then, suddenly, director Adam Cook said ‘alright let’s get started’ and Carmel snapped into character and started crying on the spot. It was this really intense scene… and I got the sense I was seeing something that I probably shouldn’t be seeing. That I was being let in on a secret. I didn’t know this play, or this character, or this actor. But I felt for them, with them, through them. I, maybe for the first time, found a place where I felt like I fit. Or, at least, excited me.
Later that day we had a one-on-one directing workshop with Geordie Brookman, who was the company’s Associate Director at the time. One of the other work experience kids asked, ‘how do you get a job here or anywhere in theatre in Adelaide?’ and without missing a beat Geordie said, ‘look it’s hard. You might not get a full-time job. That’s the reality of it. It’s a tough industry.’
I decided then that reality was painfully boring and that I wasn’t going to let a theatre director tell me about what was real and what wasn’t (my mum was right - I was awful).
I can safely say that proving Geordie wrong has been one of the greatest professional pleasures of my life. In fact, sticking it to Geordie is one of my favourite things I’ve ever done, but only because it gave me the opportunity to call myself his colleague throughout 2018.
My time in the rehearsal room taught me that stories are important and also that spite is a great motivator. If you’re doing something for spite, it probably means that you care enough about it to pursue it at all costs… even for reasons that make you seem, well, unpleasant.
Without my experience with State Theatre Company and the education program, I probably wouldn’t have been chasing that feeling. So, yeah, theatre (particularly State Theatre Company of South Australia) changed my life.
Last year, I ran a work experience session for a group of school students and they asked me the same question, “How do we get a job?”
And I said the same thing that Geordie did.
I can’t wait to watch them prove me wrong.
