Robert Chuter

Robert Chuter is an Australian theatre director, film director and producer.

Personal life

In 1976, Robert Chuter worked with a touring company led by Lindsay Kemp and cites the experience as one of his inspirations for becoming involved in theatre direction. His interest in film direction originated while he was working in a bookstore during school holidays, when he was encouraged to create some material using Super 8 media by Agnes Dobson, an old silent screen actress. He subsequently attended the Victorian College of Arts - Drama School and in 1983 graduated from the Swinburne Film and Television School.

He founded the Performing Arts Projects theatre company in Melbourne in the late 1980s.

Between 2005-2008, Chuter worked in London's West End.

Stage actor

• Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (Monash)
• The Seagull (Guild Theatre, 1976)
• The Polish Girl (Playbox Theatre, 1977)
• Plague Island (La Mama Theatre, 1986)

Stage producer

Heeding advice given to him by the film-maker Ken Russell, Chuter has been diverse in his stage productions:

I direct family shows, like the sell-out seasons of Anne of Green Gables and the children’s classic: Seven Little Australians, to plays about gay porn icons, drug culture, the Bloomsbury group, the Brontes, IVF, flamboyant artists, feminist writers and serial killers. Diversity is the name of the game and I love work which is challenging to the imagination. Can you imagine directing an opera when you don’t speak French and can’t remember music? Yep, I’ve done it - not sure if I was successful or not.

Among the productions have been:

• The Polish Girl (Playbox Theatre, 1977)
• Stravanganaza (Napier Street Theatre, 1992)
• No Room for Dreamers (La Mama Theatre/Spoleto Fringe Festival, 1986)
• Life (Randall Theatre, St. Martins Theatre, 1991)
• The Secret Garden (Rippon Lea, 1994)
• Anne of Green Gables (Rippon Lea, 1996)
• Fresh Pleasures (Pleasance Theatre, London, 2005)
• Homme Fatale (Pleasance Theatre, London, 2005)

• Cook, Mark (23 June 2005). "Humour Triumphs over the Unkindest Cut of All". The Evening Standard. Retrieved 2014-11-09 – via Questia. (subscription required (help)). 

Film

The 2014 film release The Dream Children was directed and co-produced by Chuter. He had previously directed a stage version, written by Julia Britton, for Fly-On-The-Wall Theatre in 2009.