Robyn Archer AO

Robyn Archer AO (b. 1948), performer, writer and director, began singing at four years old. Her first role was Annie 1 in the cabaret show The Seven Deadly Sins at the Adelaide Festival Theatre in 1974. She became a star with her shows, Kold Komfort Kaffee (1978), The Conquest of Carmen Miranda (1978) and Tonight: Lola Blau (1979), for all of which she wrote the songs and performed. Her hit one-woman show A Star is Torn (1979–1983) toured Australia and ran for a year in London's West End. Other stage successes include Songs from Sideshow Alley (1980), The Pack of Women (1981–1983), Café Fledermaus (1990) and The Sound of Falling Stars (2017–2018). She is internationally renowned for her interpretations of classic European cabaret, especially the works of Brecht/Weill and Eisler, which she performed in New York and Berlin in 2002 to tremendous acclaim. In the 1990s she began her distinguished career as director of various artistic festivals, which have included the National Festival of Australian Theatre, the Adelaide Festival and the Melbourne Festival; she initiated the Tasmanian festival, Ten Days on the Island, and Melbourne's The Light in Winter, and was the Artistic Director of the Centenary of Canberra in 2013. Archer won the Helpmann Award for Best Cabaret Performer 2013, has honorary doctorates from Sydney, Canberra and Flinders universities and is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She is patron of numerous arts organisations and chairs the Board of HOTA: Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast, and the Master of Fine Arts (Cultural Leadership) at NIDA. In 2021 Archer performed Mother Archer's Cabaret for Dark Times in Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide, and released her eleventh album Classic Cabaret Rarities.