Torben Brookman
Chairman

Torben Brookman is the joint Managing Director of Arts Asia Pacific, a position which he has held since founding the company in 2005 to cater for the growing demand for touring productions throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Torben has worked with a number of leading arts organisations in Australia including the Adelaide Festival Centre, the Adelaide Festival, the Sydney Festival, Company B Belvoir, City of Sydney, Arts Projects Australia and more recently The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific (RUC). Productions for RUC as Associate Producer include, the International Tour of Cats (2001 to 2004) destinations included Lebanon, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei (twice), Beijing, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Gothenburg and Doha. As Company Manager, the Asian tour The Phantom of the Opera (2004 to 2006) destinations include Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong. As Production Coordinator, The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber (2001 - Great Hall of the People, Beijing and Shanghai Grand Theatre), The Phantom of the Opera (2001 Korean language production in Seoul), Australian productions, The Graduate, Grease the Mega Musical and Shout!.

In 2001 Torben founded Fresh Track Productions.. Fresh Track have produced; The Return (Adelaide Fringe 2002, Australian Festival for Young People (AFYP) 2003, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2003 (Nominated for Best Production) and 6th Australian Performing Arts Market 2004), Morph (Adelaide Fringe 2004), Songs for the Deaf (Adelaide Fringe 2004), Disco Pigs (B Sharp at Company B Belvoir 2003), Marathon (AFYP 2005, Old Fitz 2005) Bend it Like Bollywood I and II 2003, Bollywood Vibes (2004 Adelaide Cabaret Festival) and management of singer/songwriter Liam Gerner.

Torben is currently joint Managing Director of Arts Asia Pacific (AAP) which was established in 2005 AAP offers executive production, general management and tour management services with a focus on the Asia Pacific region.

Richelle Brookman
Deputy Chairman, Director

In 2005 Richelle co-founded Arts Asia Pacific and has run the company as joint Managing Director since that time. Richelle has a strong background in the performing arts training as a dancer since the age of three.

This led Richelle in 2001 to become a member of Latin Dance Australia (LDA) which is the founder and producer of the first Brazilian Festival in Sydney and also represents Australia at the world Salsa Congresses. LDA also specialise in dance instruction and Latin entertainment. For LDA Richelle was involved as a performer, instructor and choreographer as well as the promotion of events and festivals. Aside from her dance background, Richelle studied law, economics and computing as part of a teaching degree.

Richelle worked for Company B Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney as Administration Coordinator. Richelle also took on the role of Administration Coordinator and Assistant Producer for Fresh Track Productions. These roles allowed Richelle to become familiar with the running of both an independent and subsidised companies and also enabled, Richelle to develop a good understanding of many facets of performing arts production including budgeting, contracting, marketing, technical management and publicity.

In 2004 Richelle joined The Phantom of the Opera Asian Tour as Deputy Company Manager and has toured to Shanghai (Shanghai Grand Theatre), Seoul (Seoul Arts Centre), Taipei (National Theatre) and Hong Kong (Hong Kong Cultural Centre), Singapore (Esplanade Theatre) and more recently Melbourne (Princess Theatre).

Rob Brookman
Director

Rob Brookman is the General Manager of Australia’s leading theatre company, Sydney Theatre Company. He has been a festival director, arts producer and programmer.

Rob's range of experience and interests is unusually diverse, ranging from the classical to the avant-garde and the commercial and across all art-forms. His keynote is versatility and a range that covers both artistic vision and exemplary management, whether directing major arts festivals, arranging the Australian tours of companies like Pina Bausch’s Wuppertaler Tanztheater, Compagnie Philippe Genty and Peter Brook’s C.I.C.T., setting up the first overseas tour by Circus Oz, bringing Peter Gabriel to Australia for the first time, commissioning leading contemporary composer Henryk Gorecki, co-producing the Australian premiere of John Adams’ Nixon In China or producing a major musical like South Pacific or Crazy For You.

Having served his apprenticeship on the logistical and financial side of presenting performances for the Adelaide Festival Centre and mounting the Adelaide Festival, Rob Brookman moved on to artistic administration as Co-ordinator of the 1983 Come Out Youth Festival. He subsequently served as Administrator and/or Associate Director of the Adelaide Festival from 1984 to 1990 and was Artistic Director of the 1992 Festival. Following his stewardship of the Adelaide Festival, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the 1994 New Zealand International Festival in Wellington. He subsequently directed the National Festival of Australian Theatre held in Canberra in 1996. In 1992 he founded Australia’s leading world music festival WOMADelaide and remained as Artistic Director until 1999 when he took the role of Artistic Advisor – a role in which he continued until 2007.

In parallel with his Festival pursuits, Rob Brookman was also Program Director of the Adelaide Festival Centre (Australia’s most active producing and presenting theatrical organisation at the time) from 1988 to 1992 before taking on the role of Executive Producer and then Artistic Director/Producer for the Centre (1993 – 96) in which capacities he managed its major entrepreneurial activities and the Centre’s overall artistic program. His numerous musical-theatre credits as Producer and/or Executive Producer include Me & My Girl, Hello Dolly, Crazy For You, South Pacific and the richly praised production of The King and I, which became the first Australian production to win a Tony Award on Broadway.

Other projects included the national tours of The Royal National Theatre’s “An Inspector Calls”, The Guandong Acrobats of China and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the creation, national and international tour of Philippe Genty’s Stowaways and the national tour of South African musical legend Mbongeni Ngema’s Mama. Innovations at the Adelaide Festival Centre under Rob Brookman’s leadership included the World Theatre subscription series and Made To Move the Centre’s contemporary dance subscription. He was also principal architect of the national Made To Move scheme and supervised its management in its first two years.

In 1996 Rob Brookman co-founded the Adelaide-based private arts management company Arts Projects Australia (APA). Projects undertaken between 1996 and 1999 included the direction and management of Womadelaide 97 and 99, its sister Festival in Auckland WOMAD NZ 99 and Australian tours by Twyla Tharp (USA), Joaquin Cortes (Spain), Circus Ethiopia, Ballet Preljocaj (France), Disco Pigs (Ireland), Water Puppets of Vietnam and Drummers of Burundi. APA also managed the Australian International Performing Arts Market held in Adelaide for the Adelaide Festival in 1998 and produced the ground-breaking national and international tour of Company B’s Cloudstreet including Zurich, London and Dublin.

Since being invited to join Sydney Theatre Company by Robyn Nevin in 1999, Rob Brookman has managed a dynamic period of change as the Company which has included the Opening of the new 900 seat Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay in January 2004 and the establishment of Australia’s only full-time ensemble of actors The Actors Company. He is also responsible for the management of the Company’s annual program including a twelve play subscription season, art-form development program and education program. He has secured national tours for many STC productions and international tours of The White Devil (2001) and Robyn Nevin’s production of Hedda Gabler with Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving (2006) to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and The Cherry Pickers to the Commonwealth Games Arts Festival in Manchester, the Brighton Festival and three other major UK venues (2002).

Rob Brookman has served as Deputy Chair of Australia’s national touring scheme Playing Australia and sat on the Performing Arts Advisory Committee of the Australian Bicentennial Authority. He has also been Chair of the panel for Australia’s richest private performing arts awards (the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards) and a board member of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre. He remains a Trustee of the WOMADelaide Foundation.

In 2003 Rob Brookman was awarded the Australian Institute of Arts Administration’s Nugget Award (named after Nugget Coombes) – the national award for excellence in Arts Administration voted on by members of the Institute.