Directing keeps a balance for Bevan

He won the first of 10 City of Newcastle Drama Award nominations at age 16 for his work (with Philip Paterson) on the lighting design for Young People’s Theatre’s musical Seussical, and took home a CONDA in 2008 for the visual effects and sound design he created for Dags, his first show as a director (gaining a nomination in that capacity as well).

Employed by Newcastle ABC Local Radio as what is officially known as a ‘‘content maker”, he is a familiar voice to 2NC 1233 listeners.

Matt Bevan is now tackling one of his biggest challenges – directing and playing the role of composer Mozart in Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, though, as he explains, he didn’t originally intend to act as well as direct.

Why did you decide to take on the role of Mozart when the actor originally cast had to withdraw?

I certainly didn’t want to direct and act at the same time. But we were at a point where we would have had to start again because up until then we’d concentrated on the characterisation of Mozart.

I’ve organised for various people to come in and look at rehearsals.

The other thing that led me to take the advice of others to step into the role is that Mozart is mainly on stage in several crucial scenes, so that I can leave the stage and focus on direction of the scenes that are driven by Salieri, his rival as a composer and the person whose story this is.

Your work on Dags showed you to be a director who uses technical features well. How have you incorporated them into Amadeus?

It’s a play in which you either need the most extravagant set to represent the 18th-century royal court locations or to tackle the settings through the lighting. I chose the latter because you’d need a stage crew of 10 and lose time in the scenery shifting between scenes if you had an elaborate set.

Philip Paterson has done the lighting and come up with effects such as a golden look for Salieri’s house and grey for Mozart’s.

I want the audience to be looking at the actors and listening to what they are saying. Salieri’s words are so beautiful and insightful into not just the culture of his time but the culture we have now.

You say you have never described yourself as an actor, but you won a CONDA nomination in 2009 for playing the Wolf in Young People’s Theatre’s Three Little Pigs. Are you being modest about your acting skills?

Playing the Wolf was so much fun. It was more like stand-up comedy than acting.

I had considerable freedom to write my own material for interaction with the audience.

The length of shows varied by 20 minutes, depending on how the audience reacted to the Wolf’s comments and actions.

I had operated the lighting for a 2003 Three Little Pigs production and from watching it then knew I had to audition for the Wolf’s role.

I understand it was the Pasha Bulker storm in 2007 that got you interested in a radio career?

I was in year 12 at high school and I volunteered to go into the ABC with dad (presenter Paul Bevan) and answer the phones and run messages during the storm emergency. I remember saying to myself, “This adrenalin rush is what I want to do all the time.”

The following year I was given an internship and early last year I was asked to be the producer of Jill Emberson’s program. In August my father’s producer got sick and for four months dad and I worked together.

It was an amazing experience. It had the potential to blow up our relationship but we’re closer than we ever have been.

I’ll be working partly on his drive-time program this year.

Do you have any shows planned for this year after Amadeus?

No. I’m getting married in May (to fiancee Rachel Aspinall, who plays Mozart’s wife Constanze in Amadeus) and we’re going overseas. Amadeus is such a big gamble – it’s a delicate show that has to be done just right – that if it succeeds I’ll be satisfied with just doing that.

Amadeus will be staged by Lindsay Street Players at Young People’s Theatre in Lindsay Street, Hamilton, from Wednesday until January 29.