Vallejo Gantner
OW1992
"The Adamson Theatre Company gave me the addiction. It was the camaraderie, the experience of being part of an environment where there was no slacking off. It was outside the school, but inside it."
Vallejo will be remembered long and fondly by his Adamson Theatre Company colleagues, staff and peers alike, as a student who gave his all to every production in which he could possibly participate. To Vallejo, there were definitely no 'bit parts', just 'bit actors', and he gained as great a sense of satisfaction and achievement from his enthusiastic and highly productive involvement behind the scenes as from his many stage appearances.
Reflecting on the latter, he gleefully recalls his membership of the tap-dancing chorus lines in Anything Goes (1990) and Sweet Charity (1992) as 'total highlights', asserting with a wryly self-effacing but genuine sense of wonderment, "I've never done anything like it, before or since!" Other productions that stand out in his memory include The Silver Sword (1988), The Inspector (1989) and Lysistrata (1992), which played to absolute capacity houses over its four-night season.
For Vallejo, his subsequent arts/law degree at Monash University, completed in 1996, simply meant a change of venue and further opportunities to explore the possibilities of theatre. "I spent more time doing theatre production from all angles than studying," he asserts impishly. Having played Peter Quince in an avante-garde, highly physical A Midsummer Night's Dream at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre, he assumed the role of producer when the opportunity of a season in Singapore bore testimony to the production's far-reaching audience appeal. This was followed by a production of The Tempest, produced by Vallejo from its inception for the newly formed student company, Horned Moon. Again there was a strong emphasis on physicality in performance. In many ways, his Monash student theatre experience was subtly shaping the direction of his future career.
And a spectacular career in theatre and festival production has certainly been the outcome of Vallejo's forays into related realms at both Wesley and Monash. In 1997, immediately post-university, he became agent/producer for Hirano, a company that toured circus, dance, physical and outdoor theatre throughout Asia. This in turn led to his appointment as Artistic Associate to the Director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, a position he occupied throughout 2000 and 2001. "Specifically, my role was to coordinate all the outdoor events, including those at the Spiegeltent," he explains. His need to assemble overseas acts for the festival meant continual travel to dozens of cities throughout the world in order to experience their culture. A chance meeting in Tokyo towards the end of 2001 led to Vallejo's appointment as Director of the Dublin Fringe Festival, now Ireland's fastest growing festival and one he has headed with notable success for the past three years.
Now Vallejo takes on a new and exciting challenge, having been appointed in December 2004 as Artistic Director of Performance Space 122, New York's premier off-Broadway company that has been a bastion of experimental theatre since its foundation in 1979. He was chosen from a field of 40 applicants on the strength of his commitment to putting New York art and artists into a world context "beyond the bubble of New York". Executive director Anne Dennin says it was his knowledge of international theatre that clinched him the job: "We wanted to find someone who has seen and continues to see lots and lots of art of the type we continue to produce." Vallejo's first programmed season begins in September, 2005.
Perhaps Vallejo's journey from Adamson Hall to New York's East Village and the designation 'international theatre wunderkind' is not so surprising, after all. "The Adamson Theatre Company gave me the addiction," he insists. "It was the camaraderie, the experience of being part of an environment where there was no slacking off. It was outside the school, but inside it." Vallejo also recalls his ATC experience as a rich training ground. "The production values were far higher than a lot of the professional productions I've seen and done since," he avers. "We gained an experience of everything – from the building, the selling and the performance of a show to those occasional moments of abject failure when you're on your own. You learn so much from that."
