Remembering Rodney Seaborn

A man whose philanthropic acts provided so much to the cultural life of the city, Dr Rodney Seaborn is perhaps most well-known for his involvement with the SBW Stables Theatre. We look at an extraordinary life...

Back in 1986, the Stables Theatre - a former home for delivery horses, a former Sunday school and former gymnasium – was soon to become a former theatre. The venue that had played a critical part in the early life of Nimrod Theatre Company and the current home of Griffin Theatre Company was marked for demolition.

But it was not to be. After responding to actor Penny Cook’s passionate campaign, Dr Rodney Seaborn, a retired Macquarie Street psychiatrist, moved quickly – gathering together a team including Dr Peter Broughton, Leslie Walford, Anthony Larkins and barrister Lloyd Waddy to form the Seaborn, Broughton and Walford Foundation.

The Foundation then completed its first task - buying and restoring the Stables Theatre, before allowing Griffin to remain there rent free (less outgoings) from that moment on. It was a visionary act of Australian philanthropy and could not have come at a more opportune moment - within 18 months, both Michael Gow’s Away and Richard Barrett’s The Heartbreak Kid had premiered at this 120-seat theatre in Kings Cross.

Following Mr Seaborn's death at the age of 96 in 2008, Chair of Griffin Theatre Company, Michael Bradley said: “Dr Seaborn helped Griffin at perhaps the most critical time in the Company’s history. In 1986, he saw promise in a small, but vibrant theatre – and provided the encouragement to help it grow. His personal investment in the bricks and mortar of the Stables laid the foundations for plays such as Away, Kafka Dances and Holding the Man, and films such as The Boys and Lantana. His contribution to Australian culture is hugely significant.”

Since 1986, the Seaborn Broughton and Walford Foundation has continued its philanthropic activities - assisting companies such as the Independent Theatre, Company B, Bell Shakespeare Company, the Ensemble Theatre and most recently, NIDA, and the new SBW / NIDA Archives & Performing Arts Collection.

Paying tribute to Dr Seaborn, 2008 Griffin Theatre Company Artistic Director Nick Marchand said: “Dr Seaborn was a man who lived out the latter stages of his life with the zest and vigour of someone seventy years his junior. He attended the theatre most evenings and the office every morning. For the last two years I had the great privilege of working alongside him. He had three special traits – a generous heart, the memory of an elephant and a wicked sense of humour – that combined to wonderful effect. At our monthly get-togethers he’d conjure up anecdotes about Sydney’s theatrical history that no publication could ever hope to match. He was an extraordinary man. I’ll miss him, and his stories, enormously.”