Armidale grown, Sue Fell was woven tightly through the fabric of the town. She went through school from pre to high to tertiary here.
Performing as a child with Claire Napier’s touring shows, Sue became known for her talent as an actor and later as a teacher and mentor for aspiring students. Her first full-time position was in Melbourne at La Trobe University, and after a stretch at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, returned to Armidale in the early nineties.
Sue dreamed of creating a unity of the diverse and the plethora of students of the University of New England remember her fondly, and as a most beloved member of the theatre department.
On the 23rd December 2014, Sue Fell took her final bow before rapturous applause for a life dedicated to betterment of those around her.
I’ve been struggling in my mind to think of what I could say about Sue that would make sense to anyone who hadn’t seen her in action.
I will always remember Sue as a perpetual optimist. She, Andrew McCue and I were solely in charge of teaching theatre for about half of the past two decades, and we worked very closely with each other, sometimes discussing and marking students’ work after a performance, until well after midnight. Where time permitted, we would sit in on each others’s classes so that we could present a more coherent approach to teaching theatre, albeit at some times with very different approaches. We did this not in a judgmental sense but genuinely to learn more about theater from each other and from the coursework productions that students performed—all three of us had great respect for each other professionally. One of the many disappointments in the changes to higher education over the past three decades was that so-called “luxuries” like this hands-on teaching practices are no longer possible.
Sue witnessed this and, as we all have to do, she did her best to maintain the high standards that we and our students rightly expected. There were some gains as she found ways of teaching with less reliance on the time of the teaching staff, but there is a limit to the amount of teaching and marking you give away without also throwing away some of the quality. Theatre Studies at UNE is unique in the world for its on-line teaching of theatre, and despite her passion for theatre as a living event, Sue was a great contributor to the design and content of these innovative units and courses which allowed students from around Australia to study theatre in their own time, pace and space. Even here, though, she devised ways of keeping theatre live; residential schools were a teaching form where she excelled, and the students who came would often say that Sue had changed their lives.
One part of the success of Sue’s teaching is accounted for by her optimism which was tied in with her ability to dream of better worlds. I don’t know of any other discipline where the standard staff meeting agenda included an item on dreaming, and I think it was Sue who initiated that; our meetings would often linger over this item. In some cases it just made us feel better—a little less embattled— and at times it alerted us to problems, to new ideas, and to new ways of modifying what and how we taught. I would recommend it to other disciplines.
None of this though really captures much of what made Sue such a special teacher. There was something intangible but at the same time vividly present, in the way she worked. Theatre can have the some of the same quality as dreams, making us aware of worlds which are not exactly our own.
Sue died too young, but she will not age any more. Now is the time for us to remember and use the legacy of her skills and wisdom, for her to move on and become one of our theatrical and pedagogical ancestors.
Adrian Kiernander
Adjunct Professor of Theatre Studies
Sue’s skill as a teacher and mentor was that she was able to draw the best out of all her students, no matter what their experience or talent. She instinctively knew how to connect with all sorts of different people,
no matter what their background or personal ‘story’. Sue had a knack of making everyone feel that their contribution was valuable and a necessary part of the big picture - Josee.
Sue saw the potential of her students, and after working with her, they would become people who didn’t doubt themselves and strived to be the person see saw them as – Cassarndra.
Sue brought out the best in her students by demanding their best, and simply their best. This means that we were never given unreasonable goals that we could not achieve, but that, in searching for our ‘best’. We often found something even better than we thought we could produce – Lara.
I was one of Sue’s external Theatre Studies students for a number of years, as I was studying part time. She was the best teacher I have ever had, and I’ve done a lot of study over the years. If you are lucky, you may meet one or two people like her in your lifetime … she was a person who made EVERYONE feel special. We all loved her dearly and I am heartbroken she is no longer with us – Michelle.
When I first went into theatre I was playing it safe, sticking to the styles I knew I was good at because I wanted to get good marks. Sue was the one who pushed me to step out of my comfort zone, to dare to do the new and to risk making mistakes, so I actually learned something, not just passed – Jay.
Sue saw the talent in every single person and in every piece of theatre. She knew how to create amazing theatre out of even the smallest or most obscure idea – Xanthe.
Sue awakened the bravery in me and offered kindness, wisdom and acceptance to everyone she met. She was the teacher and woman I aspire to be – Sharnee.
I signed up to theatre to grow confidence by trying to pretend to be someone else … Sue inspired me and grew my confidence in who I was - DJ.
