Canberra Theatre Centre's Daniel Clarke knows star power when he sees it

Clarke is a 19-year-old drama nerd, shortly to head to the UK to study theatre in Manchester, and still in raptures over a production of The Tempest he has seen a few days earlier.

It's 1995, and the play's star, Cate Blanchett, is only a young thing barely out of drama school herself, but already shining with full star wattage.

And here she is, getting on Clarke's bus.

"There was something about that performance that just blew my mind," he remembers, nearly 30 years later.

"I got the biggest art crush. I remember going home to my flatmate, and saying, 'I've fallen in love! I wanted to send flowers to the stage door'!"

He didn't send flowers; he didn't need to. He may have been gearing up that day to don his elf costume and push rocking horses for hours on end, but here was Cate Blanchett herself heading straight for him.

"She walked right to the back of the bus and sat next to me - she was on her way to the gym," Clarke says.

"I was like, 'Cate'! It was probably about a 15-minute bus trip into town, and we chatted all the way into the city. I picked her brains about drama school. It was so exciting to talk to her about her time at NIDA and she got me so excited about my journey ahead in the UK."

It's a standout moment in a lifetime of standout moments for Clarke, who has recently settled in Canberra as head of programming at the Canberra Theatre Centre. He's come fresh from Sydney, where he was co-creative director of Sydney Pride, a career high he's still surfing.

So there's a standout moment, watching Sydney transform and get behind the international event. Another is watching Yothu Yindi perform at the Canberra Theatre a week ago, for Reconciliation Day, and being reminded of why he loves his work so much.

"I love supporting artists and making new work happen," he says.

"And I was reminded of that on Sunday, what I love about the work. It's being close to artists and supporting them, and it was a really great day for me ... to be out of the office and actually on the floor, and being with the artist and First Nations communities. It was very special."

There's another moment that goes way back to his childhood in Adelaide, where his career path began, more or less, at the age of seven.

He's sitting on the red carpet - actual red carpet - in his parents' living room, having just watched Mary Poppins for the first time, and announcing to his parents, in no uncertain terms, he wants to be an actor.

It's a first for his family. He's the oldest of four kids, his mother's a nurse and his father an administrative clerk. But they take it in their stride.

"They were so supportive," he says.

Years later, another moment, or period of life, at drama school in Manchester. It's where he learns his craft, and comes to terms with his sexuality.

He spends a year there training as an actor, and returns to Adelaide, later continuing his training at the Centre for Performing Arts.

It's in his final week before graduating that it hits him: it's not acting he wants to pursue, but directing. Although the writing had been on the wall for some time already.

"When I was in Manchester, as second-year students, we had to tidy up the theatre at the end of the third years' production," he says.

"I found the script of the show that they'd done, and I travelled with it back around the world, and it was the first show that I directed in Adelaide. So from 1998, I was pursuing a career as a director ... I actually just wanted to be like driving things and making stuff happen."

Cut to another moment, eight years later: Clarke has been working and living in the UK for several years as a producer and director, and has brought a production from Leicester Haymarket Theatre for a run at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

It's a play called The Bogus Woman, and stars his best mate Sarah Niles. The two had shared an apartment in their Manchester days, and she's steadily making her name as an actor. She will one day be pretty famous, for TV roles in Ted Lasso and Catastophe, but back in 2006, she's making waves playing multiple characters in a show about a young woman from Africa seeking asylum in the UK.

On this particular day, however, Clarke has his eye on someone else, a man he has just met in the audience queue lining up outside with a mutual friend. The man is actor Nick Pelomis, and Clarke spends the next few days tracking him down to ask him out.

They go on a date; it's March. Ten days later, just before heading back to England, Clarke proposes, and Pelomis says yes. Civil partnerships for same-sex partners have just been introduced in the UK, and Gay Times magazine is running a competition to celebrate. Pelomis enters it and wins the couple a wedding on the Thames. They're married in October, about six months after meeting. They're still together, 17 years later.

Another moment, just last year. World Pride Sydney is entering its final phase before the festival proper in February 2023 and Clarke, aware he will need to find a new job once it's over, sees an ad for a job in Canberra. He's already worked at multiple arts and theatre centres in Melbourne, Brisbane and the UK.

He's barely seen Canberra, however, and knows very little about it, but he's impressed by the theatre's programming strategy.

"There's a lot of focus on sector development, and supporting the Canberra sector, building capacity," he says.

"There's a real intent to make sure that the programs are really diverse and embracing First Nations culture. There are the plans for the new building, and what that could mean for the city ... a real appetite to work on projects from the ground up and not just present projects.

"And so I felt like there's a lot of opportunity. I felt like I was coming in at a really interesting starting point."

READ MORE:

He and Pelomis come for the weekend; they visit the Arboretum, take in Braddon, attend a show at the theatre. And that's it - they love it here.

After a long search for a house, Canberra's vacancy rate being no joke, the couple have finally settled in Oxley, where they live on a hill, take in the sunsets and just the other morning found a tawny frogmouth in their backyard.

"I'm just really looking forward to, now that I'm here, just immersing myself in the city, getting to know everyone, getting to know the culture here," he says.

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: