Matt Scholten

Matt Scholten is an Australian theatre and film director, producer, writer and teacher. He is the Artistic Director & Creative Producer of independent theatre company If Theatre which was established in 2006.[1]

Matt Scholten
Born
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
  • Director
  • Producer
  • Writer
  • Teacher
  • Film Maker
Websitemattscholten.com

Career

Scholten studied Drama and English Literature at the University of Melbourne performing in student theatre productions and earning a Bachelor of Education in 1992.[2][3] He went on to study directing and writing at the Australian Nouveau (Antill) Theatre [4][5] and a career as a Drama Teacher.

In 2006 he was accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts[6][7] where he studied directing under the tutelage of Richard Murphet,[8] Jenny Kemp [9] and then Head of the School of Drama Lindy Davies.[10]

In 2007, If Theatre's debut production was A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter [11][12] and was followed later that year by Three Short Plays by Jack Hibberd produced for the 40th Birthday La Mama Theatre.[13][14]

Beginning in 2008, Scholten collaborated with playwright Daniel Keene [15] on a theatre practice based primarily in Melbourne's western suburbs,[16] launching The Dog Theatre [17] in Footscray with a production of Keene's Half & Half.[18][19]

In 2009, The Cove (eight short plays including four world premieres) [20][21][22] was directed by Scholten and had three Green Room Award nominations for actors Majid Shokor, Jan Freidl and Bruce Myles.[23] The Cove [24] featured the following plays: Cafe Table, Somewhere in the Middle of the Night, To Whom It May Concern, A Glass of Twilight, The Morning After, A Death, Two Shanks and The First Train.[15]

Scholten's production of Daniel Keene's The Nightwatchman starring Roger Oakley was part of Theatreworks' Selected Works programme in 2010 [25][26][27][28] and also that year he was Assistant Director to Peter Evans at the Melbourne Theatre Company on Keene's debut there, Life Without Me.[29]

If Theatre has commissioned and co-produced two further works written by Daniel Keene and directed by Scholten:

  • 2011 Boxman [30][31] (commissioned by Big West Festival 2011 [32] and then presented by Regional Arts Victoria on a Victorian and NSW tour in 2013).[33] Boxman was shortlisted for the Louis Esson Prize for Drama in the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.[34][35][36]
  • 2015 Mother [37] a one-woman play written for Noni Hazlehurst which began a national tour at the Gasworks Theatre and was published by Currency Press.[38][39][40]

For the Melbourne Theatre Company, Scholten has directed The Heretic [41][42] written by Richard Bean featuring Noni Hazlehurst & Andrew McFarlane and directed readings of Rejkavijk by Paul Galloway [43] and Daniel Keene's The Curtain [44] with Helen Morse and Alex Menglet.[45][46] He was Assistant Director to Julian Meyrick for the 2007 Hard Lines Play Readings season.[47]

Other directorial works include:

Along with his extensive work directing plays by Keene, other new Australian work Scholten has directed includes:

Scholten is also a teacher of acting and directing, working at the Victorian College of the Arts from 2007–2014 as a Teaching Artist and Director and was Head of Acting and Head of Theatre Arts at Goulburn Ovens TAFE in Benalla from 2010–2014.[71][72]

For television, in 2013 he completed a Directorial Attachment with Channel Seven on the television drama A Place to Call Home and in 2017 was Acting Coach on Magpie Pictures' Grace Beside Me.[73]

In 2013, Scholten programmed the theatre season for Benalla Performing Arts Centre and in 2014 he was appointed as resident Artistic Director there,[74] launching the theatre seasons in 2014 and 2015.[75] At BPACC, Scholten wrote and directed the play The Drums of Time,[76] developed an Australia Council for the Arts funded workshop programme for female regional playwrights [75] and hosted the Victorian College of the Arts first FRISK! Festival.[77]

In 2015, Scholten toured with the production of Mother throughout Victoria and Tasmania and then relocated to South East Queensland taking up a position lecturing and directing at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. At USQ his work included his adaptation of Lysistrata,[78][79][80] Tartuffe by Moliere adapted by Justin Fleming,[81][82] Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind adapted by Jonathan Franzen[83][84] and The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca.[85][86][87][88][89][90]

In 2016, Mother toured New South Wales and Queensland and was nominated for two Helpmann Awards for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Play and Best Regional Touring Production.[91][92][93][94]

Scholten was one of the keynote speakers at the 2016 Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) [95] Conference.[96][97]

Mother was presented at Belvoir Street Theatre in early 2018 [98][99][100] and was presented at QPAC in August 2018.[101] Noni Hazlehurst won the 2019 Matilda Award for Best Female Actor in a Leading Role for Mother for the QPAC season.[102][103]

The Campaign by Campion Decent,[104] a verbatim play that dramatised the fight for gay law reform in Tasmania [105] was produced and directed by Scholten [106] premiering at Salamanca Arts Centre in October 2018 co-produced by If Theatre, Tasmanian Theatre Company[107] & Blue Cow Theatre,[108] winning the 2019 Best New Writing Award at the Tasmanian Theatre Awards.[109] The development of The Campaign was supported by a Playwriting Australia grant.[110]

Scholten is currently lecturing in acting and is a guest director at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University [111] and at Queensland University of Technology.[112]

His debut film as writer/director,[113] a short documentary supported by Screen Australia[114] and Network Ten called Belonging [115] had its world premiere at the 2020 Queer Screen Film Festival as part of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras and will be screened on TenPlay [116] later in 2020.[117]

Belonging screened at the 2020 Melbourne Queer Film Festival and won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short.

Mother was presented at Home of the Arts, Gold Coast [118][119] and in an encore season at QPAC.[118][120]

gollark: Probably fairly often?
gollark: Consider the popularity of laptops with touchscreens.
gollark: That's:- wrong- client-side JS
gollark: You have to scroll, which is aaeae.
gollark: Okay, so I made this terrible in different ways.

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