APATA Member Spotlight: Meet Steve Toulmin

APATA Member Spotlight

Ever wondered who we commissioned to compose our APATA theme music? That beautifully building, motivating bundle of notes you hear behind our videos, on our podcast and website?

Meet Steve Toulmin: Father, Photographer, Sound Designer, Composer, Director, Songwriter, Music Producer, Collaborator and Educator.

Graduating from NIDA [in Technical Production] in 2006 , an opportunity to step into a role as assistant sound designer to Basil Hogios on the original Griffin Theatre production of Holding the Man, created a snowball effect for Steve’s career.

Steve has created theatre compositions for productions such as:

•  Strut and Fret’s – Blanc De Blanc, Fun House, Life, Love Riot and Blanc De Blanc Encore.

The show features a thumping energetic soundtrack from Toulmin who was also part of the creative team that made the original a smash hit. “A sound track that blasts and rebounds and a show that moves fast and furiously from segment to sexy, surprising segment.” – Stage Whispers

• Sydney Theatre Company’s – Our Town [Foley Artist], A Flea in Her Ear, Little Mercy, Edward Gants Amazing Feat of Loneliness, Power Plays and Nakkiah Lui’s Blackie Blackie Brown and Black is the New White.

“Music is key to the play, led by the composer and sound designer Steve Toulmin”.  said The Guardian. The rom-com Black is the New White proved a challenge though. “The musical language of comedies is so much harder than dramas,” said Toulmin. “You can put something suspenseful or ominous-sounding under a drama and it will work, but finding the comedy voice is always unique and a bit trickier.” Blue Mountain Gazette

• Ensemble Theatre’s – Great Falls, Liberty Equality Fraternity, Circle Mirror Transformation, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?
• Bell Shakespeare’s – Othello, Twelfth Night [Co-Design with Paul Charlier] and Richard III 
• Griffin Theatre’s – Beached, A Hoax [Composer/Sound Design], Holding the Man [Assistant Sound Design], Angela’s Kitchen, Between Two Waves [AV Design], The Bleeding Tree, Gloria, The Homosexuals and Kill Climate Deniers.
• Belvoir’s – Radiance [Associate director, Blue Wizard, Is This Thing On?, 20 Questions, The Blind Giant is dancing, HIR, Ivanov, La Traviata, The Rover, The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe [Associate Director], The Seed, Scorched and Jasper Jones
• Queensland Theatre Company’s – Scenes From a Marriage, Switzerland, That Face
• La Boîte Theatre’s – Tender Napalm, Julius Caesar and Hamlet
• Malthouse Theatre’s – Testament of Mary

As well as a plethora of independent productions and events Steve was also Ricki-Lee Coulter’s Music Director from 2012-2014 and has worked with Megan Washington, Ricki-Lee and Samantha Jade as a song-writer and music producer.

Coming up to our APATA birthday in July and we are still very much in love with our APATA theme music.

Thanks Steve!! [Main image of Steve Toulmin by @kenleanfore ]