Review of Not Wrong - Just Different: Observations on the Rise of Contemporary Australian Theatre, by Katharine Brisbane

Abstract

Throughout a long and distinguished career, Katharine Brisbane has been deeply and passionately involved in the performing arts in Australia. She has also been a vigorous advocate and exerted considerable influence upon their development. Brisbane was a highly insightful theatre critic for twenty-one years, first for the West Australian newspaper and then—when she and husband Phillip Parsons relocated to Sydney—for the newly-founded Australian from 1967 until 1974. She still wrote occasional reviews for various newspapers until about 1985. In 1971 she and Parsons founded Currency Press, the principal publisher of Australian drama and scholarly works about the performing arts. Brisbane was also on the original organising committee of the Australian National Playwrights Conference in 1973, and twice served as its chair. Since 'retiring', she has run a new publisher, Currency House, which publishes the provocative Platform Papers on aspects of performing arts policy.