Scott Rankin (born 1959) is an Australian theatre director, writer and co-founder and creative director of the arts and social change company Big hART. Based in Tasmania, Rankin works in and with isolated communities and diverse cultural settings, as well as in commercial performance.
Early life and education
Rankin was born in 1959[1] in Sydney and grew up there. His parents were businesspeople who owned an early learning specialist toyshop and lived on a Chinese junk in Lane Cove, moored in Sydney Harbour for 21 years.[2][3]
Rankin enrolled in an arts degree but did not complete it, instead working in a retirement village and offering music workshops to homeless youth. Since 1981, he has mainly lived and worked from the far north-west coast of Tasmania.[citation needed]
Work
As creative director of Big hART and as playwright and director,[4] Rankin has created or collaborated on many large-scale Australian stage productions: Namatjira for the Namatjira family;[5]Ngapartji Ngapartji for Trevor Jamieson,[6][7][8]Box the Pony for Leah Purcell;[9][10]RiverlanD for Wesley Enoch;[11]StickybrickS for the Northcott Public Housing community in Surry Hills, Sydney;[12]Junk Theory for the Sutherland Shire,[13] as well as internationally touring works such as Certified Male.[14]
2002: Ros Bower Award for Community Cultural Development[16]
2004: Three Melbourne Green Room Awards for Beasty Girl (most innovative work, best female actor in leading role (Leah Purcell), best direction)[16]
Two Green Room Award Nominations for Namatjira (best production and best actor (Trevor Jamieson));[17]
Two Sydney Theatre Critics Awards (best new Australian work and best newcomer (Derik Lynch)[18] and another 6 nominations (best mainstage production, best direction, best actor in a leading role, best actor in a supporting role, best lighting design and best score or sound design);[19]
Deadly Award (most outstanding achievement in film, TV or theatre)[20]
^"Namatjira". Alison Croggon, Theatre Notes. August 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Namatjira, which opened last week at the Malthouse after a ... Sydney season at Belvoir St, plays authenticity against truthfulness. ... Namatjira, written and directed by Scott Rankin, is a supple mediation between the artifice of theatre ... and the realities that the story of Namatjira reveals...
^"Ngapartji Ngapartji". Sydney Morning Herald, Emily Dunn. 1 November 2006. Retrieved 10 December 2012. ...Ngapartji Ngapartji, a performance at the Sydney Opera House that tells the story of the Spinifex or Pitjantjatjara tribe of Central Australia and their encounter with atomic testing at Maralinga in the 1950s.
^"Canberra Theatre Centre Announcement". Canberra Theatre Centre. 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Ngapartji Ngapartji one is a Centenary of Canberra project, proudly supported by the ACT Government and the Australian Government
^Rankin, Scott; et al. (1999). "Box the Pony". Hodder Headline. Retrieved 17 December 2012.
^Coates, Donna (2000). "Siting the Other: Revisions of Marginality in Australian and English-Canadian Drama". Marc Maufort and Franka Ballarsi in: Theatre Research in Canada. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Helen Thomson's informative and cogently argued essay, "Aboriginal Women's Staged Autobiography", for example, introduces a number of brave new works: Jane Harrison's Stolen; Deborah Mailman's The Seven Stages of Grieving (with Wesley Enoch); Leah Purcell's Box the Pony (with Scott Rankin); Deborah Cheetham's White Baptist Abba Fan; and Ningali Langford's Ningali. Representing the most marginalized of all social groups in Australia, these women have recently created and performed autobiographical shows that document their experiences as victims of the Stolen Generation.
^"Adelaide Festival 2004: RiverlanD". Real Time Arts. 2000. Retrieved 10 December 2012. RiverlanD (director Wesley Enoch, writer Scott Rankin, design Richard Roberts)
^"900 Neighbours"(PDF). Atom. 2006. Retrieved 7 January 2013. Scott Rankin, creative director of StickybrickS
^Rosemary Sorensen (27 February 2008). "Treasure is one man's junk". The Australian. Retrieved 28 October 2020. On the River Torrens, Rankin has moored a Chinese junk, the sails of which reflect images put together by 100 people who live in the Sutherland Shire, around Cronulla in Sydney.
^Coggan, Carolyn; Saunders, Christopher; Grenot, Dominic (2008). "Art and Safe Communities: The role of Big hART in the regeneration of an inner city housing estate". Health Promotion Journal of Australia. 19 (1): 4–9. doi:10.1071/he08004. PMID18481925.
^"Les Dennis in Certified Male at the Edinburgh Festival". Telegraph by Dominic Cavendish. London. 8 August 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2012. Scott Rankin and Glynn Nicholas's show, which was initially put on in Australia, digs deep into the wounded recesses of the modern male psyche, but it does so with the lightest of touches.
^"Mornings with Margaret Throsby". ABC Radio presented by Margaret Throsby. 24 February 2003. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Scott Rankin, Artistic Director of Big hART – His latest production "Beasty Grrrl" begins a season at the Melbourne Festival 16th October
^"This is Living". ABC, Tim Walker. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2012. The Scott Rankin written and directed piece is being debuted in Tasmania as a part of the biennial festival Ten Days on The Island.
Rankin, Scott & Nicholas, Glynn: Certified Male: Let's Face It...Men Are Funny Buggers: Songs & Highlights from the Hit Show, sound recording, Balaclava: Art Cackle & Hoot, 2000.
Rankin, Scott: Namatjira: Written for the Namatjira Family (Aranda); and, Ngapartji Ngapartji: Written for Trevor Jamieson (Pitjantjatjara), Strawberry Hills: Currency Press, 2012.