Robyn Archer

Robyn Archer (1948 – ) is a singer, writer, director and arts advocate. She was born Robyn Smith in Prospect, South Australia and began performing as a singer, semiprofessionally, from the age of twelve. In 1974, when The Space Theatre, a modern venue within the Adelaide Festival Centre opened, she sang in the Australian premiere of Brecht/Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins. Later, she played Jenny in Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera for New Opera South Australia and was introduced to Brecht’s translator and editor John Willett. He encouraged her to explore the cabaret songs which had been popular in Germany and France before the war and facilitated her first performances outside Australia, at London’s Royal National Theatre. Archer subsequently became well-known as a cabaret singer through her one-woman cabaret A Star is Torn (1979) which toured Australia from 1979 to 1983 then played for a year at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End.