Meet our new Program Coordinator!

In just a few months, Blake Taylor has won hearts and minds at ActNow with his calm-in-the-face-of-chaos attitude, anecdotes about his cat Molly and an extraordinary grasp of facts you didn’t know you cared about. He wears many hats at our office, including as our indefatigable Program Coordinator and the new Digital Innovator for the MakeSpace Residencies.

Here we’re finally introducing Blake to you, as he sits down for a Q&A with Smriti, Marketing and Development Manager at ActNow.

What was it like to graduate and find yourself faced with lockdowns and all the challenges the pandemic has thrown at us? Are there lessons we learned in that period that we should carry forward as an industry?

Look, it was a bit nuts to be honest, you spend four years of your life building up to this moment and then the wind is forcibly taken out of your metaphorical sails right when you're supposed to take off. But a positive thing was it gave me time to breathe, and to think, it took the pressure off and I think that was really valuable for me.

Lessons we learned? I've been so impressed with the flexibility everyone has shown during the last year, the resilience. We've always said "The show must go on", and then it didn't, every stage in the world was empty. But I think it took less than a day before I was doing a play reading over Zoom, and digital projects started popping up everywhere! It was a real reminder that this career is about a love of the craft more than anything, we perform because we must, because it makes us happy. I hope I never forget that.

We've heard rumours of your past lives at ActNow. Will you tell us about them?

Before moving to Adelaide I had a variety of interests.

I left school at 15 to become a Baker and I did that for 10 years. I have a degree as a pâtissier, along with my acting degree.

I was also heavily involved in the MMA scene as a teenager, winning the Victorian and South Australian under 25 full contact tournaments at the age of 17 before I was forced to quit due to injury.

While studying in Drama in Adelaide I started working in a cinema, I was the head mixologist for a major hotel, and straight after graduating I was the manager of RUMPUS theatre for the tumultuous 2020 season (which lasted well into 2021).

I suppose you could label all of these as separate lives, but for me they all build on each other. I use skill I learnt 10 years ago as a pâtissier to help me today.

If you had to live with a fictional character on a desert island for a month, who would it be?

Oh that's tough! I guess Jack Sparrow, he knows where the rum is. Or Tom Hanks's character in Cast Away, I think I could be a good Wilson alternative.

I know you collect oddities. A useless but fascinating piece of trivia you recently discovered is...

Did you know that the first tabletop microwave was invented as a way to quickly and safely reanimate hamsters? In the early 1950’s scientists were experimenting on cryogenics and invented a version of the modern microwave as a way to humanly defrost and resuscitate hamsters after they were frozen solid!

What do you do when you’re not at ActNow?

When I’m not at ActNow I have a variety of things to keep me busy! I chair the Performers Support Fund of SA, a charity to support entertainment workers in times of need (particularly COVID). I’m a member of the South Australian Performers Committee, the National Performers Committee, and part of the executive committee of RUMPUS. When I’m not working on those things I watch movies, or plays, or write my own!

What are you looking forward to the most about working with us?

I'm really passionate about the importance of Community, it motivates a lot of my work. I love the work ActNow does to support and build communities and safe places for people who otherwise might not have had a place to find theirs, and I'm very excited to be a part of helping that continue and grow.