School Life
Coming from the small country town of Mansfield, Gabriel Bergmoser boarded at Caulfield Campus from 2007 to 2009 and loved his schooling experience. Gabriel had an entirely new personal and academic environment to get used to as a result of his move to Melbourne. He recalls it being a major adjustment, Caulfield and his previous schools differing tremendously. Over time, life at Caulfield as a boarding student became very familiar and comforting to Gabriel. Despite this, he doesn’t remember ever quite adjusting to having to wear a tie correctly on a daily basis! Nevertheless, the dramatic change in environment was well worth the journey for Gabriel; he says that Caufield changed his life in immeasurable ways. As a creative child, Gabriel was offered a drama scholarship, which provided him with a plethora of opportunities he may not have otherwise experienced. He also made lifelong friendships and has many fond memories of school. Reflecting on his reports, Gabriel says he was not an especially academically gifted student, but he feels that Caulfield catered magnificently to his burgeoning interests and passions. For example, Gabriel participated in multiple productions alongside being exposed to weekly trips to the MTC and the Malthouse as a part of the theatre program.
The 2009 Year 12 production, The Golden Age by Louis Nowra was an extremely influential experience for Gabriel. Being his first lead role in a play, it was an extremely special time for him.
“What has stuck with me, was getting to explore an Australian play that was uncompromising, confronting, compelling and strangely beautiful all at the same time – it was energising and thrilling and left me wanting to write something of my own that could come close to packing that kind of a punch”.
Discovering Passions
Gabriel credits his experiences at school with firing his passion for writing and leading to his future career as a theatre writer. As a child, writing and acting were always on par as potential career paths and it was both these talents that helped Gabriel land a scholarship at Caulfield. Gabriel remembers, however, being quickly intimidated by the various talents of the other drama students, feeling their talents far outstripped his own. The following three years at Caulfield would result in Gabriel’s love for writing becoming his primary passion. Ultimately, he had to make a choice between acting and writing. He could either pursue something he didn’t feel he really excelled at, or instead focus his energy on the thing that consumed his thoughts.
“But even saying it was a choice probably makes it sound like less of a natural transition than it was; I never really considered putting one over the other until I found myself devoting far more time to writing than acting. At that point the choice was basically made for me and I never looked back”.
Career
Currently, Gabriel is a full-time writer. This results in long hours of procrastinations and talking to his dogs, Gabriel says, two familiar activities that he finds are not to be mutually exclusive as he attempts to write. Nevertheless, eventually he does get some writing done. Mostly Gabriel works from home, or to be more honest, “in every café and pub in St Kilda”. He is inspired everyday by his work and relishes in the idea that he gets paid to make up stories. Having always loved books and movies with a passion bordering on the pathological, he is inspired most by reading or watching something that gets his heart racing. Gabriel feels privileged to have arrived at a point in his life where he can tell his own stories full time.
“It really is a dream come true in every conceivable way, and I couldn’t be luckier”.
Now that Gabriel’s hobby has become his career, he is always on the hunt for new and different pastimes. Having gone through an obsessive jigsaw puzzle phase in lockdown, and having briefly pursued some other perspective hobbies, Gabriel is yet to find one that has truly caught his interest. Nevertheless, during winter he spends as much time as possible skiing and enjoying the snow.
“If I’m being honest? Apart from time spent with friends, I’m always going to get the most joy out of being caught up in a story that I’m enjoying the hell out of writing”.
Advice
Gabriel’s advice to both others and his younger self would be to take yourself a little less seriously. He believes that this is something almost every aspiring artist could learn.
“The big secret about both writing and acting is that they’re silly careers (you play pretend for a living) and it’s dumb to delude yourself into believing you’re somehow changing the world. Which isn’t to say that art can’t change the world; obviously it can and has, but those who pull that off are one in a million. The best the rest of us can hope for is to entertain people and maybe make them think, so relax a bit and have some fun with it!”
You can read more about Gabriel and his work as an author here. Similarly, find him on twitter, instagram and facebook.
