Hats off to Bille

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Tags: Arts, awards and prizes, centenary-edition, performing arts

When Bille Brown was honoured at the Helpmann Awards at the Sydney Opera House last year he was in fine company.

Bille Brown at the opening ceremony of the VIII World Shakespeare Congress, hosted by UQ

The theatre veteran and UQ Professor in Drama received the Best Actor in a Musical gong for his star turn in Monty Python’s Spamalot, joining the who’s who of the Australian performing arts industry.

Like the Tony Awards on Broadway and the Olivier Awards on London’s West End, the Helpmanns recognise excellence across the performing arts in Australia.

First held in 2001, the awards are named for Robert Helpmann, the legendary Australian dancer, choreographer and theatre performer whose birth centenary was last year and whose achievements are celebrated in a new biography released by the University of Queensland Press.

Professor Brown appeared at Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre in the Australian premiere season of Spamalot, in the role of King Arthur.

He has received a number of awards throughout his career including an Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen’s New Year Honours List for his services to the Australian arts.

Born in Biloela in Central Queensland, Professor Brown completed a Bachelor of Arts at UQ and a Postgraduate Diploma of Education in the early seventies.

In 2001, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University.

During his student days at St Lucia, Professor Brown acted with the student drama company Dramsoc and made his professional debut with the Queensland Theatre Company in 1971.

It was during his time at UQ that Professor Brown also developed a long and significant professional relationship with fellow alumnus Geoffrey Rush.

Professor Brown’s career took him abroad to Britain where he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and was the first Australian commissioned by the RSC to write and perform in their play The Swan Down Gloves.

Professor Brown made his Broadway debut as a playwright with A Christmas Carol in 1984 and as an actor in Michael Frayn’s Wild Honey in 1986.

He was also an Artist-in-Residence at the State University of New York in 1982.

In 2007, UQ awarded Professor Brown a joint UQ-Arts Queensland fellowship to develop the new play The School of Arts, which recently completed a premiere season in Brisbane.

The play follows the story of the “College Players” troupe who toured Shakespeare through Queensland in the late 60s.

By Tara Young

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