About me (some of the current story) aka "bio"
Peter Fyfe is a writer, performer, bricoleur, and heresiarch with an eclectic range of experience covering theatre, music, comedy, improvisation, and art. He holds a degree in organic chemistry and computer science and an unused diploma in education. For his own amusement (and hopefully that of others) he is pursuing an ongoing enquiry into the enchanted places shared by myth, image, symbol, art, theatre, music, soul… and the dirt upon which we stand: apparently it's all pretend.
Peter is still working on his excellent and lamentable new play and expects he'll have a new draft ready to show off 'very soon' … so if you're a literary manager, director, or some other kind of reader of unsolicited plays with an abundance of patience and at least some understanding of the more amusing stages of the writing process, contact him immediately and express interest.
Along the way, Peter wrote a number of plays that were noticed… but didn't make it onto the stage. Rex was nominated for the Monte Miller Award at the 2002 AWGIES (Australian Writer's Guild awards) and optioned for adaptation into a feature film. Centre Caught was shortlisted for the 2004 Rodney Seaborn Playwright's award and the 2004 Edward Albee Last Frontier Theatre Conference (feel free to short-list it yourself); act one was presented in a workshop production at NIDA in August 2004, directed by Andrew Davidson. Schrödinger's Hotel almost let its cat out of the box, but not quite, so remains unobserved, in a drawer, amusing only itself.
Peter's outrageous little cabaret/musical The Von Trapp Heresy started life as a ten minute try out in the Short and Sweet and Song festival at NIDA's Parade Playhouse in February 2007 (where it caused at least one argument with a publicist). The full length version is currently hiding in a crypt trying to escape to Switzerland… or the stage.
Peter dabbles in the visual arts and exhibited in many group shows At the Vanishing Point from April 2008 until its closure in April 2013. His work the brief mystery of time was highly commended in the Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize 2008. His first solo show unfolding… [the artist] opened At the Vanishing Point in October 2011.
Peter continues to wrestle with his expensive, ridiculously time-consuming, and some would say mystic obsession with hyperinflation banknotes. He marvels at how all that whirled's a stage (a personal mandollar) ended up as a finalist in the 61st Blake Prize (2012).
As a performer, Peter's vintage credits include 11pm Sharp! for the Griffin Theatre Company (just after the war), Total Recoil at the old Tilbury Hotel (do you remember the Tilbury?), Silly Season at the long-gone Comedy Store on Parramatta Road, Night of the Seamonkey by Reg Cribb (his first play) at the Old Fitzroy Hotel, the 2003 Sydney Cabaret Convention (its last hurrah), a one-night stand at The Basement, and Muf-Tee Casual Cabaret at the Stables Theatre. He wrote and performed a one-man show Glamourflage: they'll never see the Real you at the once-famous vegetarian Side-On Cafe.
For seven years (1990-1996), Peter was Sydney's "Queen of the Keyboards" in countless performances of TheatreSports and other improvised comedy shows; during this time he worked with most of Australia's best improvisers and comedians, some of whom are now much more famous than he'll ever be; if you ask he'll be happy to drop names for small change. He played Mark Warren's musical sidekick in that hilarious TV1 game show Cliptomaniacs on Foxtel. He was a consulting editor on Lyn Pierse's groundbreaking book, TheatreSports Down Under (now in its third edition under the title !mprovisation). To think there's a whole industry out there just making stuff up.
In 1999, Peter visited the US, where he joined an international cast (including Kristen Linklater) in presenting Stealing the Show, directed by Enrique Pardo, at Paris-based Pantheatre's 7th International Myth and Theatre Festival in New Orleans, LA. He also participated in the 8th Myth and Theatre Festival in Waterford, Ireland in 2000, and in Cabaret and Contradiction: a Choreographic Theatre Workshop with Pantheatre in Pau, France, where he met the mayor and made the local paper.
In 1997, his acting "career" reached the staggering heights of a guest appearance on Water Rats (episode 030 "Jilted"); he can be seen in the background failing not to be obscured by Colin Friels.
In 2001, Peter joined the founding board of Currency House, a performing arts advocacy, think tank, and resource centre. He continued to serve on the board until 2007.
Peter also works in proper jobs as a technical writer, copy writer, graphic designer, editor, instructional designer, business analyst (whatever that is, no-one seems to know for sure) and general annoyance (or some delightful hybrid of some or all of the above), celebrating diversity as a fungible resource maximising synergies to leverage customer delight somewhere in the warm but drafty open plans of large and respectable organisations (or tiny start-up ones)… who either tolerate him or kindly pretend not to notice, but never question the quality of his work. For a "serious" discussion on the havoc he could wreak on your organisation's content, contact him and take your chances.
Still scrolling! What can I find to entertain you?
Chuckle at a historic "Showcast" mug shot by the late Stuart Campbell: it's so last century
Walk down the memory lane of seven years exhibiting At The Vanishing Point, Newtown
Marvel at my "found exhibition" Like R. Mutt possibly the first ever PDF to "hang" on a gallery wall
Read about my candidature for the coveted Column 8 Ph D
Browse "highlights" of my Letters to the Sydney Morning Herald
Click on some internet references: Austage, Auslit, iMDb