An Eye for Talent

How did an institution that began in a tin shed at the University of NSW become, within forty years, one of the most influential theatre training schools in the world?


By any measure NIDA is a force in the entertainment industry. It has identified and trained many of the world's most influential performers, directors, designers, producers and others in the entertainment industry, from Mel Gibson and Judy Davis to Baz Luhrmann, Cate Blanchett and Justin Kurzel, to name a fraction.


An Eye For Talent traces John Clark's creative life from his childhood in Tasmania and early training in the U.K., to the inception of NIDA, and his stewardship of NIDA on its way to international success. John describes in detail the system he developed that brought the school its international success, the crises that almost destroyed it on the way, as well as its rapid decline as decades of experience were lost in a few years.


An Eye For Talent is an instruction manual on how to create a great theatre school, and how it was lost.