Applications are now open for the 2025 Frank Van Straten Fellowship

The Frank Van Straten Fellowship returns for another year offering arts enthusiasts the opportunity to research and develop a project of their choosing in exploration of the iconic Australian Performing Arts Collection (APAC).

We are so grateful and immensely proud to be launching this, our sixth Frank Van Straten Fellowship. Over the years, through this important and innovative program, we’ve had tremendous creative projects tell stories from the Australian Performing Arts Collection including podcasts, online exhibitions, a recreation of a dance piece and the writing of a show. This is what makes the Collection so powerful – to be able to explore these identities and precious objects, to reach through time and reconnect us through creativity and the performing arts,” said Karen Quinlan AM, CEO, Arts Centre Melbourne.

In line with our application guidelines, the successful recipient will gain special access to the Collection for their project, along with $15,000 to undertake research aligned to key areas including circus, dance, music, opera and theatre (which includes comedy, vaudeville and magic).

The aim of the Frank Van Straten Fellowship is to tell stories of performance and performers through the extraordinary objects from the Australian Performing Arts Collection that will resonate with diverse audiences. The Frank Van Straten Fellowship is made possible by the generous contribution of The Van Straten and Turley Foundation.

The Fellowship also honours the memory of the late Frank Van Straten AM who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Australian Performing Arts Collection in the late 1970s and was the founding director and first archivist of what was then the Performing Arts Museum in the 1980s. He was a celebrated performing arts historian, published author, consultant, radio presenter, and throughout his career, graciously served on many boards, committees and panels across the arts and cultural sector.

Arts Centre Melbourne has been the proud custodian of APAC through five decades of collecting, and it now holds over 850,000 items. With such a diverse and vast Collection, there are literally thousands of stories waiting to be told. We strive not just to share these objects in contemporary ways, but to unlock our nation’s rich and diverse performing arts history through to today, and to inspire and engage whole new generations of audiences.

Over the past five years, the Fellowship has seen incredible outcomes from esteemed creatives and researchers highlighting stories from the diverse and rich history of performing arts in Australia.

Claudia Funder, Research Coordinator, Collections, Arts Centre Melbourne:

What is vitally unique about the Fellowship is that each artist brings their own lived experience to the story. They identify with performers of the past and in their telling, make a historical story relevant to today and the issues that face performers even now.

Current recipient Ali McGregor (2024) is investigating the life and career of 1880s Australian actress Nellie Stewart, affectionately known as ‘The Rose of Australia’, in what will become a stage show aimed at reviving Stewart’s legacy through the musical repertoire that made her famous.

Past recipients include Dr Amaara Raheem with C.O.R.R.U.P.T.E.D II (2023), Angela Bailey (2022) with The GLAD Project, Cathy Pryor (2021) with Rare Flowers and Golden Butterflies: Stories of women and magic from the Australian Performing Arts Collection and inaugural Fellow Dr Kate Rice (2020) with Performing the Past.

Applications for the 2025 Fellowship are now open and will close on 23 March 2025.

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For more information click HERE