Wayne Anthoney OAM

Actor, theatre director and teacher

Wayne trained as a scientist at Adelaide University, graduating in 1962, and worked with early computers until opting for a different career path in 1974.

He has worked as Humbolt the Clown on a children’s TV show and has done many film roles, most recently playing one of the guilty priests in “Oranges and Sunshine”. He has also taught part-time at Adelaide College of the Arts since its first year of operation and has written several plays.

In 1996, he took a job as Project Manager for Nyangatjatjara Aboriginal Corporation, living mostly in a caravan at Yulara near Ayers Rock. He retired from the job at the end of 2004 and during that nine years he hardly performed at all. The years in the desert, working cross-culturally at a high emotional level, have influenced him greatly.

He recently published a book, “Travels In A Foreign Land”, it being a memoir of his more than thirty years’ experience with Aboriginal people in Central Australia.

His most recent theatrical work was a play co-written by himself and colleague Jenn Havelberg. Titled “Never a Drop to Drink”, it is a bleak black comedy concerned with life in Adelaide after all the water runs out and most people have left. Wayne and Jenn performed it for a two week season at the top of a deserted building in Adelaide.