Entertainment
8 December, 2024
Icon takes a bow
AFTER 32 years of amplifying regional voices and inspiring audiences, co-founder and long-standing artistic director of JUTE Theatre Company Suellen Maunder is taking her last bow and retiring from the company.
Known for her vision to make Cairns a hub for professional theatre, winning the prestigious Gold Matildas this year and for being a key member in the establishment of what we know today as Bulmba-ja Arts Centre, Ms Maunder has left an indelible legacy in the arts scene of regional Queensland and the Far North but she says she’s ready to take a step back.
“I felt like it was time to pass on the role to someone who would bring terrific new energy,” she said.
“I’m opening the door of retirement and I don’t know where that’ll take me but it’s nice to have the space to think about that.
“I’ll miss all the artists that you get to work with, the sparks of ideas that eventually come to fruition and the audience gasping when something surprises them, but I won’t miss having to make all the hard decisions,” she said.
Ms Maunder reminisced on three decades of JUTE and the achievements of the company during her tenure.
“When Susan Prince, Kathryn Ash and I started the company it was on the basis that there wasn’t any professional theatre going on in Cairns, it was all being delivered from the capital cities and we wanted a chance to explore our creativity,” she said.
“We wanted to tell stories that were relevant to us as women in that day and age and in this geographic space. Kathryn Ash is a playwright at heart and she wrote our first piece.
“Then we thought, ‘If we’ve got stories, there must be other people in this region who’ve got stories’. We scratched the surface and outpoured all these people who had plays in their bottom drawers and we started to develop those people.
“When we first started it, it was the three of us and it was about what we wanted to do, and now it’s so much more.
“Now we’re a leader in regional theater and creating models for developing new, diverse work and we have the massive Dare to Dream program, and now the African migrant refugee program, Ubuntu, so it’s about much more.”
Now that the curtain is closing on her tenure, Ms Maunder thanked the community and asked them to continue supporting JUTE.
“I’m especially thankful to Kathryn Ash and Susan Prince for igniting the spark that created JUTE. Our partnership was the foundation of everything JUTE has accomplished,” she said.
“The rest of Queensland and Australia look up to JUTE as a shining star in the work that we do, so we need our community here in Cairns to continue to support so that we can create the art that we want to see, so please stay and enjoy the new energy coming into the company.”
The search for Ms Maunder’s successor will begin in the new year.
