We have a pretty big announcement…
After 11 years as founding Co-CEOs of Rebus Theatre Artistic Director Robin Davidson, and Creative Producer Ben Drysdale will be stepping aside from CEO roles by June 30 of 2025 at the latest. Having carried so much of the administrative and strategic load for so long they are eager to get back to spending more time on creative work themselves in their mutual desire to change the world through art. A new position of General Manager/CEO will be advertised in the next few days. The successful applicant will continue to work the current staff to find innovative ways to use theatre and other arts to achieve Rebus’ vision of a sustainable and ethical society that is inclusive, creative, compassionate and accessible to everyone.
The decision has not come lightly to either of them and each has some thoughts they wish to share with the Rebus family.
“The last 11 years of Rebus has changed my life profoundly.
Before Rebus began, I had worked with Robin on a number of disability and mental health theatre projects, including 3 theatre shows funded by the Mental Health Foundation ACT, a theatre performance for IDay, and an unsuccessful attempt to create a massive disability community theatre show.
When he asked if I wanted to join a small volunteer project to develop some theatre-based workplace inclusion training, I had no idea it would go on to shape so much of my life over the following decade.
Since then we have gone from a handful of volunteers meeting up on my deck to brainstorm and strategise, to a small team meeting once a week at Tuggeranong Arts Centre (where we achieved our disability variety show in 2016 with All In), through a range of other iterations to what you see today, an organisation with nearly $1million turnover for the past two years, 10 part time staff, a bunch of casuals and hundreds of Rebus family members who have taken part in our programs.
We have created real change in workplaces with our Forum Theatre inclusion training, we have changed the hearts and minds of our community with our creative projects about disability, mental health, trauma, climate change, systemic issues around equity, inclusion and human rights.
Throughout most of this journey I considered myself an ‘ally’ who experienced ‘the normal amount of depression and anxiety’. Over time I came to realise that the normal amount of these things is none, and I was actually someone with lived experience myself receiving and ADHD diagnosis in Rebus’ 10th year.
The experiences I’ve shared with the Rebus family over the years have taught me a lot about the world and myself, they have moved me to tears and made me laugh like a fool. They have inspired me to reflect on how we can all keep striving to do better, and work harder to create a world that is accessible and inclusive to everyone. There is a long way to go, and Rebus has now grown to a point where we are no longer the right people to keep steering the ship.
I have always viewed my work as a musician and my theatre work in Rebus as two completely different parts of myself and my work. My own journey of diagnosis has taught me that they are not so different, they are inherent to who I am and why I have always done what I have done. At the moment I’m still unsure as to whether I will stay on in some smaller capacity after June 30. Either way I’m excited to create a bit more space in my life to pour myself into music both as a practicing artist and in the social change space creating programs to work with different communities using songwriting, rather than theatre, as a vehicle to share their stories.
I’d like to thank everyone who has ever supported us, funded our programs, been on our Board, worked with us or trusted us enough to share part of themselves and their story with us through our work. But most of all I’d like to thank both of my founding Co-CEOs Cara Matthews and Robin Davidson. Cara worked tirelessly with Robin and I to build Rebus up from the ground as a phenomenal actor, project and program manager, also deftly managing our finances as we seemed to keep doubling in size every year. I’d like to thank Robin himself for his vision for what we might achieve and mentorship to us all, for his wild and whacky ideas on how to make the world a better place and his innate ability to arrange the English language in such a way that funding bodies can see the truth, that the arts is one of the most powerful tools to creating change in the world. You are both strange and beautiful humans and I thank you for your friendship and partnership in this amazing journey we’ve been on.
I look forward to seeing what the next decade of Rebus brings.”
Ben Drysdale – Creative Producer of Rebus Theatre Inc.
“Rebus Theatre has been an extraordinary vehicle for creating work that is important in the world, and dear to my heart. Our best work has perfectly combined a passionate desire to change the world with theatrical skill and creative spirit. Rebus was at first a small, part-time, concern in my life, it rapidly grew to be my defining passion, my source of meaning and identity, and the thing that took almost all of my time and energy.
Over eleven years we have found different ways to use theatre to address social issues, and made a difference to many lives. I have made enduring friendships, been witness to extraordinary stories, laughed, cried, felt overwhelmed, collapsed, got up and did it all again. We have created an experimental multi-disciplinary performance about the inner world of climate scientists, worked with injured service people, brought hope to bushfire-affected artists and communities, brought disability advocacy into the offices of public servants and lawyers, worked in schools to build bridges across conflicts, won awards, and taken performances to Brisbane, Geelong, Hobart, Sydney, the NSW south coast and East Gippsland.
I am tired, and Rebus has grown to a point where it needs leadership with different skills to mine. It is time for Rebus to discover what it is without Ben and I at the helm, and for me to remember who I am when my life is not centred around being a CEO of Rebus. It is also a time for me to return to being more of a creative artist and activist, and less of a manager. Like Ben, it is not my intention to leave the company completely, but I do not yet know what my future involvement will look like.
Rebus was founded on a one-off $15,000 grant, for a project that involved eleven people. Several of those eleven assisted the company in becoming incorporated, and to continue. It eventually came to three of us who had the skills, time and passion to build the company, Ben, myself and Cara Matthews. Cara was an integral part of the vision of the company, and stayed with the company until 2019, when she moved to Melbourne to build a career as an actor. At this time of stepping aside, I’d like to acknowledge Cara’s hard work. I’d also like to acknowledge everyone who has enabled Rebus to survive and grow, including our volunteer Board members, past and present, our paid staff, casual and core, those who have given us financial support – generous individuals and funding bodies – and everyone who has come to our shows, joined in our workshops or been part of the journey in any way over the last eleven years.
Thank you more than I can say.”
Robin Davidson – Artistic Director of Rebus Theatre Inc.
