Robert J. Merritt

Robert James Merritt (1945 – May 2011), known as Bob Merritt or Bobby Merritt and credited as Robert J. Merritt, was an Aboriginal Australian writer and activist. He is especially known for his play The Cake Man and for founding the Eora Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts.

Early life, family and education Merritt was born in 1945 into a large Wiradjuri family on Erambie Mission, near Cowra, New South Wales.

He had a son named Robert. The play was first performed at the Black Theatre Arts and Culture Centre in Redfern, Sydney on 12 January 1975, directed by Bob Maza. In 1977, a production directed by George Ogilvie was performed at the Bondi Pavilion Theatre in 1977, making it the first play by an Indigenous Australian person to be presented by professional actors at a mainstream Australian venue. Brian Syron, who took the lead role in the first production, Saunders again played Ruby in 1982, while Syron was the director. Syron and Merritt formed the Aboriginal Theatre Company with the sole function of producing this play (although there were later attempts by Syron to create a company for Aboriginal performers).

In 1983, Merritt co-wrote a film noir with director Ken Quinnell, entitled The City's Edge, which never had a theatrical release in Australia.

In July 1984, Merritt established the Eora Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts in Redfern, with help from Birrippi-Worimi artist Gordon Syron (cousin of Brian Syron), to provide training in the arts for Aboriginal students as an alternative to NIDA and the Australian Film and Television School. with David Gulpilil and his Maningrida dancers contributing to the soundtrack. The Eora Centre continues to operate today as Eora TAFE from a building that the centre relocated to in 1993, in Darlington, bordering Chippendale and Redfern.

The film Short Changed, made in 1985, was based on a script written by him, and the cast included Eora students. in November 1986,

He was chair of the Festival of Pacific Arts in 1988.

Corroboree Eora earned an AWGIE nomination,

Filmography The City's Edge (1983) Short Changed (1986)