Alan Burke (director)

Alan Burke (18 November 1923 -2007) was an Australian writer and director. His credits include the musical Lola Montez.

Burke was interested in theatre from a young age and began writing plays. One of them Follow Suit debuted in 1941. According to The Argus "Alan is aged only 17 years, but has been turning out plays so prolifically for the past 4 or 5 years that he must now be reckoned a veteran playwright. Most surprising of all is that there's nothing "youthful" in his writings. Most of his efforts have had all the sophistication and wit of a Coward."

He served in the army from 1941 until 1946. He did a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne where he was heavily involved in the dramatic society. In 1948 he became a member of the Old Vic Company when they were touring Australia.

He worked with the Melbourne Little Theatre, notably with Frank Thring, and toured Victoria with several shows. He moved to Sydney where he produced plays for the Metropolitan Theatre and Sydney University.

In December 1951 he was appointed as producer-manager of the Canberra Repertory Society, which he did for two years. Burke went overseas for three years on a UNSECO fellowship, in England, Europe and the USA. On his travels he met Thornton Wilder.

In 1954 in England in attended a two-month BBC television training course run by Royston Morley. He directed six plays in England. He returned to Australia in 1956 at the request of Neil Hutchinson to work with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust where he directed eight plays and an opera.

He also wrote the book to a popular musical, Lola Montez.

In 1957 he directed a TV play for the ABC, A Fourth for Bridge. He formally joined ABC TV in 1958 and as an executive producer and director until 1986. He directed operas, ballet, musicals, original Australian drama and Australian adaptations of overseas drama.

Burke later described his process for directing operas:

What I do first is learn the whole opera. I would get the records of the opera and learn every note and all the dialogue. I would play it, and play it etc. After a while images come into the mind – the way an aria sticks out in an opera and so do certain key moments. Then I work out the crucial scenes. What makes it different to any other opera. Why is this opera the opera it is. The ABC Music Department cast all the operas so I played no part in that. Next was the design. I was allocated a designer. We would work out the costumes and sets and flavour and tone and period. Next is the big job of plotting the opera ie pictures and all the detail. I would leave the office and go home and play the opera for weeks, with the script in front of me. I would work on it plotting bar by bar. Then I passed all that information to the cast. I found most singers very grateful for direction.

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