Chris Brookes‘ sudden death sent shock waves through NL’s cultural community, and far beyond. In a career that spanned theatre, print, and radio, and ranged from St John’s to Toronto to Latin America and back to St John’s again, Brookes was a pioneering and award-winning theatre artist and radio producer and broadcaster. Just a short list of his accomplishments would include: co-founder of The Mummer’s Troupe; battling The Canada Council for better funding terms for collective theatre groups (and succeeding); the purchase of the LSPU Hall which thrives today as Resource Centre for the Arts; field and network production positions with CBC Radio in St John’s and Toronto, garnering multiple awards, including the President’s Award; and establishing Battery Radio, in his house at the foot of Signal Hill, where Marconi received the first rans-Atlantic wireless signal in 1901, where his long-form storytelling was both neighbourhood-based and technologically nimble. A sad loss of an incredibly talented, adept, and generous person.

Photo courtesy Ruth Lawrence