Hi there! You've probably come to this page from a link at www.parkerville-amphitheatre.com

The official title of the Parkerville Amphitheatre is: Seddon Vincent Memorial Theatre for Australian Playwrights.

Vincent was an energetic West Australian senator with broad interests who played a vital role in encouraging Australian theatre.

Here are some relevant excerpts from the fascinating short biography about Vincent by David Hough at http://biography.senate.gov.au/index.php/vincent-victor-seddon/

During 1937 and 1938 Vincent assisted Paul Hasluck in initiating and promoting the Western Australian Drama Festival...

He [Vincent] and Freda [Vincent's wife] had been influential in shaping the young Goldfields Repertory Club and assisted in its resurrection after a wartime recess. Freda’s production of Ladies in Retirement was highly commended at the 1951 Commonwealth jubilee amateur theatrical competition in Hobart and their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was well received at the 1960 Festival of Perth.

... he was respected for his professional and community service and his interest in the welfare of others.

Vincent’s principal legacy is the report he wrote as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on the Encouragement of Australian Productions for Television. The committee’s report, released on 29 October 1963, was broad in scope and far-reaching in its effect on the future of the performing arts in Australia. Vincent played a crucial role in guiding the committee’s work. Although unwell throughout the inquiry, he presided over the committee with ‘diplomacy, integrity and devotion to the subject’. The report saw television and film as interrelated but dependent on live theatre, ‘the real home of the actor and the producer’. It recommended that Australian theatre productions should be shown on television; that actors’ pay and conditions should be improved; that young actors and producers of high promise and ability be given scholarships for overseas training (on condition that they return to Australia); and that a comprehensive policy be adopted on assistance to reputable and competent theatrical groups. The committee’s labours received little public acknowledgment. The report ‘was presented in the dying hours of the last Parliament and … in the midst of election fever’. No Cabinet ministers spoke during the debate on the report, and the Government was reluctant to spend any money on implementing the report’s recommendations. The major newspaper groups, who were also owners of commercial television channels likely to be affected by demands to show more local productions, greeted the report ‘with a thunderous silence’. Although the Vincent Report had no initial impact, its long-term influence on national arts policy was seminal. The report arguably influenced those calling for a direct government role in policymaking, especially Vincent’s Liberal Senate colleague and close friend John Gorton who, on becoming Prime Minister in 1968, began the process of establishing the Australian Film and Television School, and made the Australian Council of the Arts operational.

Away from the rigours of Parliament, Vincent grew native wildflowers, on which he was a recognised authority. Although he loved producing plays and sharing a bottle of wine with close friends after rehearsal, music was his first love and he continued to play the piano whenever he could. In 1971 the Seddon Vincent Memorial Theatre for Australian Playwrights was opened at the Parkerville Amphitheatre, near Perth.

By David Hough

Excerpts used here under Creative Commons Licence.

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