David Branson

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David Branson (died 11 December 2001) was an Australian theatre director, actor, and writer.

In 1985 David Branson he and Patrick Troy founded Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, who staged several large productions, sometimes involving hundreds of people, fire sculptures, large moving metal scultpures. Splinters made good use of crowd manipulation.^[1] He remained with Spliters until 1996 when he became the Artistic Director of Culturally Innovative Arts, which he founded with Louise Morris.

During his time with Splinters he was involved in more than 20 productions including Cry Stinking Fish (1987) as part of the Melbourne Spoleto Festival, Gumboot Full of Blood (1988), Cathedral of Flesh (1992) (winner Best Promenade Theatre Performance Award in the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Guardians of the Concourse (1993, National Festival of Australian Theatre, Canberra), Utopia/Distopia (1995, Springbank Island, Canberra), and Faust - The Heat of Knowledge (1996, 50th Anniversary Celebrations of the Australian National University).

Branson worked as an actor with many different companies including La Mama Theatre. As a director he staged The Threepenny Opera and Handel's Ariodante His Ribbons of Steel used a mix of archival material, interpretive art, sculpture and photographic exhibits, to mark the closure of Newcastle's BHP Steelworks. Under the pseudonym 'Senor Handsome' he was a founding member, and violinist, of the cabaret group Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen.^[2] He also directed works by Daniel Keene, Alison Croggon and Christos Tsiolkas.

He died in a car accident in 2001.