Obituary: Toby Schmitz Remembers The Rock Surfers Theatre Co.

By Dan Hutton on February 5, 2016 in

Pictured: Leland Keane
Photo: Tama Rock Surfers

As of December 17, 2015, the Rock Surfers Theatre Company officially ceased trading. Founded in 1996 as Tamarama Rock Surfers, and established at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in 1997, Rock Surfers soon became an institution in Sydney theatre. The Company moved to Bondi Pavillion in 2011, where it continued to grow and develop new programs for aspiring thespians and writers. Here, Australian actor and playwright Toby Schmitz pays homage to a game-changing playhouse…

I wanted them to change their name. Leland Kean was rebranding the theatre company a few years ago; this was good news. Tamarama Rock Surfers, no matter how true to the saline pursuits of, I think, all of its artistic directors, always conjured up a puppetry troupe for me, the kind that mounted drug awareness shows for regional schools.

They went with TRS, which reminded me of one of those departments they were always trying to beg funding from.

I doubt my push for a breakthrough in nomenclature, nor any of my suggestions (Theatre Rat Theatre? Anyone?) would have saved the company. Perhaps the Australian acronym addiction helped them kick on.

Was expanding to the Bondi venue part of the difficulty? Maybe. But it had real legs that idea – sexy location, cashed-up locals. My play, ‘I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard’, had a cracking season in that theatre. Up on the Bondi Pavilion terrace, wonderful, irreplaceable conversations took place, under the stars. Try that in the back streets of Woolloomooloo and knives can come out.

It was terrifically hard running that company. Just ensuring it stayed in Sydney’s tarty eye was challenge enough. Curating seasons and attracting talent breaks people who are paid to do it. Up against actual poverty yet remaining important was one of the company’s awesome victories.

TRS was important for reasons that are not news to any theatre rat crawling this part of the world. They did new stuff, they did old stuff, but most crucially, they did stuff.

They were important to me, not just because they were the first company to have me, and have me back, but because they refused to go dark.

I’ll surrender one memory from a fat file: I was filling in as spotlight operator for a show we had created for TRS called ‘This Blasted Earth’, which meant standing on the backs of the people in the back row, sweating torrents. There were punters standing next to me, holding the lighting rig for support, actually hanging from the rafters.

TRS straddled a very fertile period in Sydney theatre – the steady re-emergence of a professional fringe – because they sat right in the engine room; without them it wouldn’t have happened.

I caught that wave because they let me in, as an actor, writer, and director. As a drinker.

Tamarama Rock Surfers may always be relaunched under another guise. Theatre rats cluster, then they get things up; that’s what they do, they can’t do much else. Get your name suggestions ready.