Check Out Peter Blackburn’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Blackburn.

Hi Peter, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up in a very small town in rural Australia – about 7 hours from the coast and about 10 hours to Sydney – left me with a great deal of time to read, explore, watch films (usually many times over if I loved them) and get used to living in my imagination. I wasn’t built for agriculture, though being raised so far from the noise of modernity was certainly an ingredient to the type of artist I have become.

I went to boarding school in Sydney, on scholarship partially – a recurring theme in my academic career – where I was lifted into a wider world of not only experience but books and theater and people. I found school musicals and then plays, and eventually found my way, on scholarship, to the Australian Theatre for Young People when I was 15. Not only did this expose me to the rigors of what true actor training and performing looked like in a professional sense – with many leading artists at the time conducting sessions, classes, and seminars – it also got me out of compulsory rugby games on Saturday afternoons. Win/win.

A setback on my path to what seemed at the time to be a certainty that included training at NIDA and onward to an early and illustrious career as an actor (as I was young and naive enough to believe awaited me) was actually the beginning of the most important way back to my craft I have experienced. I had a severe accident in my final year of high school, at just 16. I broke my jaw, all but one tooth, and my coccyx in a farming accident – agriculture really hammering home my lack of place in its niche. This truly horrific event was the ‘butterfly flap’ of destiny that forced a new way. I took much longer to graduate, my face was a mess for years, and I had significant, if unacknowledged, trauma more than likely affecting who I was in general, let alone as an artist.

I eventually returned to study, having been ever the bridesmaid and never the bride for the auditions and institutions I so longed to be a part of, and focused on my other loves; literature, film and history, while I waited until NIDA eventually saw the error of their ways and I was placed back on the path I had always envisioned. Spoiler alert: that never happened. Thankfully. Because what I received in those three years was the education that made it possible for me to enter back into our very competitive industry with a perspective of the world that was nuanced and deep, I could articulate and express through multiple disciplines, and it led me (as degrees in Literature often do) to my second great passion and vocation in life – to teaching.

Having taught at a school for at-risk students in Sydney’s inner west and then in a large secondary college in the UK for two years, focusing on English, Media, and History and savouring theatre and acting for my ‘other’ life with my friends who remained firm in their path while I meandered, I returned to this craft I love so much by happy accident – my best friend opened an acting school in Melbourne and needed someone who just so happened to have the skills I possessed – a love of acting and knowledge of its craft, skills of analysis, business acumen, teaching experience, and on it goes. Impossible, except that it all happened.

From this glitch in the matrix, I made sure I took every opportunity to learn, to be of service, and to be present to how ordinary miracles can be. I worked with some of the best theatre, film, acting, and making minds and hearts in the world, and I made as much from each experience as I could. From here, I taught my first acting class as an assistant with one of Australia’s most lauded actors, a Hall of Famer, Ms. Noni Hazlehurst. I was asked six months after leaving the studio to collaborate with one of the master teachers they had hosted for (at that time) five master classes, Mr. Larry Moss. I was accepted into Drama School, finally, but as a Director, and at the Victorian equivalent of my cherished NIDA, the VCA, though NIDA would eventually come into my life when I taught there over a three year period following my graduation from my Master’s course.

Through all of this, I never doubted that I was an artist; even in the desert-like eternities, it felt I was studying and not doing or teaching and not doing. I was actually putting in my 10 thousand hours, directing at least a production a year since 2010, leaving high school teaching full time, and restarting my life with a wish and a prayer by moving to Melbourne and beginning at the bottom of an acting studio and working tirelessly to become who I was always meant to become. I took a longer, more intricate, and ultimately interesting path, but it led me to where I’ve always been headed.

I am a director of over 40 productions and an acting teacher of countless students over a decade’s practice. I don’t see my two vocations as mutually exclusive, in fact they serve each other impossibly well. I am always at work in my craft, as good teaching is as important and high-stakes as directing a production for opening night or “action” to me. There is little difference in intensity or investment from one to the other – the only difference is outcome.

I love my jobs. I love that they have been constant companions as careers as well as vocations. Anything interesting about me is a reflection of what I can contribute to the world by being excellent at these two services. In one, I get to connect people to story and therefore to each other. And in the other, I help artists connect to themselves and the work in all its magnificence and dynamism. It’s not a bad way to live a life. Indeed it is the best life I could imagine, though the way here was nothing at all like I wanted or expected. Which has made all the difference and leaves me ever excited for the next adventure – now happening in Hollywood, where I am so happy to be able to pass along the love of craft and storytelling to a whole new set of artists. It is a privilege to which I never become complacent.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As mentioned above, because they are integral to the successes that materialize. Without tension, there is no flight. Without obstacles, what is life but a series of colorless events meeting every expectation before it’s even formed as a desire.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an acting teacher who is also a working director. Or perhaps I am a director who also happens to teach acting. Either or, as they are both equally important to me, and from my experience in the industry, it is a rarity. I offer students industry-standard practice because I am a part of that industry. As a director, I am able to communicate efficiently and without animosity or undue tension because I have spent my entire adult life communicating complex ideas to a variety of different humans, from young to young at heart, from professionals to school refusers. I have learned that collaboration is inevitable if success is to be achieved in either field of my dual vocation, and I have acquired knowledge from some of the world’s leading institutions and gained experience with some of the best practitioners at their craft. I am at my best leading equals.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love that each neighborhood has a distinct feeling and aesthetic. I love walking for hours in the abundant nature amid the world-class metropolis that surrounds me. I love the people. I love the “Yes and” attitude of artists here – who are excited to meet a fellow dreamer and who are looking, as I am, for ways of playing in the sand together, building castles, or digging holes, or making mermen. It is beautiful but challenging. This is a city that keeps you real, but not exclusively – you can fly here if you want.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.peterblackburnstudio.com
• Instagram: @peterblackburnstudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterBlackburnStudio/