Profiles

Kate Cherry has reached a stage of life, in her early 50s, when the world is offering a new set of possibilities. She has been through a period of taking stock, sifting through, sorting out. Now, having emerged out the other side, she’s getting on with life and work with renewed focus and energy.

As a theatre director, she has spent the past quarter-century making shows and running companies: most notably with Perth’s Black Swan State Theatre Company, which she moved into a new home at the Heath Ledger Theatre, and where she introduced Tim Winton to the stage as a playwright.

Three years ago she left Black Swan for a new role in Sydney, as director and chief executive of the nation’s most storied acting school, the National Institute of Dramatic Art. The job didn’t work out and, 12 months later, she’s back where she wants to be, in control of her own creative life. On Thursday she makes her return to directing, with her production of Madama Butterfly due to open in Adelaide.

Family life, too, is coming into a new phase. Her elderly mother, Peg, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago, and has moved out of her own home and into a care facility. Peg grew up in poverty and went on to have a successful career in academe.

When her husband, theatre director Wal Cherry, accepted a job in Philadelphia and the family moved to the US, Peg became professor of English and creative writing at Swarthmore, one of the leading liberal arts colleges. But Kate says her mother was never really the same after Wal died