A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Bryan has collaborated with a diverse range of theatre makers across Australia, India, the U.K. and Europe. He is the recipient of two W.A. Equity Guild Awards for Best Set Design. In 2008 he undertook a series of residencies across India throughout Kerala, Gujarat and Delhi, researching traditional puppetry and devising new works.
Between 2010 and 2019, Bryan was primarily based in London, where he designed set, puppetry and costume for site-specific immersive work, new writing, festival installation, alternative spaces and established theatre institutions. Now living in Walyalup (Fremantle, Western Australia), he is an associate of Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, and remains an associate of Dash Arts London.
Woltjen is presently designing a schools touring theatre work BEANSTALK for Spare Parts Puppet Theatre starring Sam Longley, and an immersive adaptation of MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot with Dash Arts London which will be produced in Coventry, the setting of Eliot's brilliant novel.
Sovereignty in Australia has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land. Woltjen acknowledges the past atrocities against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this land and that Australia was founded on the genocide and dispossession of First Nations people.
Anti-oppressive, inclusive, sustainable practice is the framework for which Woltjen seeks to create work that is beautiful, true and rare.
Work that is excellent, innovative, and responsive to the changing world around us.
