His traditional country encompassed Taree, Forster and the Great Lakes area of the Wang Wauk and Coolonglook rivers on the North Coast.
Even with this background, Syron told the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) on 15 November 1992:[3] I have no mortgage on being dispossessed or having a tough life.
[1] Completing his American training, he spent 12 months in Britain studying with Cicily Berry as well as Doreen Cannon, head of acting, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before returning to New York.
[1] Syron was invited to join Sydney's Old Tote Theatre by Robert Quentin, Head of Drama at the University of New South Wales, and Robin Lovejoy, Artistic Director.
[citation needed] The following year, 1973, Syron co-founded the Australian National Playwrights Conference (ANPC)[1] with Katharine Brisbane, which continued to take place annually until at least 2006.
[citation needed] In conjunction with the Aboriginal Educational Unit of TAFE, Syron founded the Eora Centre in Redfern, Sydney.
[19] As a result of the first NBPC, Syron, as a member of a steering committee which included Rhoda Roberts, Kevin Gilbert, Lydia Miller (later executive director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts at the Australia Council[20]), Michael Johnson (who presented two SBS Television series in 1989[21] and 1991[22]), Suzanne Butt, and Lesley Fogarty, with Justine Saunders as adviser,[23] proposed and co-founded the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust (ANTT).
[23] In March 1990 ANTT staged the world premiere of Munjong, by Richard Walley and directed by Vivian Walker (son of Oodgeroo Noonuccal[25][26]), at the Victorian Arts Centre.
Roberts later related a story about an elderly Aboriginal woman, who had never been in a theatre before and was sitting in the front row, who got up to help protect the actress from the husband's blows.
Syron carried out a two-week workshop, a stage reading, plus a production in 1991 at the Belvoir Street Theatre, Redfern, Sydney of Mudrooroo Narogin's "courageous and brave new play"[28] The Aboriginal Demonstrators Confront the Declaration of the Australian Republic on 26 January 2001 with the Production of "Der Auftrag" by Heiner Muller and starring Justine Saunders, Michael Watson, David Kennedy, Pamela Young, Ray Kelly and Graham Cooper.
[citation needed] In 1969 Syron taught the first group of urban Aboriginal actors to every study Stanislavski or acting from an Indigenous perspective.
The classes were held at the Foundation of Aboriginal Affairs, George Street (near Central railway station), Sydney CBD and the actors included political and cultural historian/actor Denis Walker and actor/director/historian Gary Foley.
The situation was still so bad that at the end of each evening the actors had to be ferried back by taxi to their homes in Redfern, about 10 minutes' walk away, to avoid arrest by the police.
He then instigated The Artists' Group Theatre, with the first workshops being held in the sculpture studio of Ron Robertson-Swann before moving to The Stables, Kings Cross.
His group included playwrights Jim McNeil and Robin Thurston, and Syron is believed to be the first drama teacher to work in the prison system of New South Wales.
In Australia's Bi-Centennial Year, 1988, Syron, as representative of actors and the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust, was invited back to AFTRS as a guest lecturer for the "Writing '88" Course.
Syron then played the leading role of "The Wife Abuser" in director Stephen Wallace's telemovie Women Who Kill (1983) which screened on ATN Channel 9.
The script never received production funding and was later used as the basis for the Clare Dunn book People Under the Skin - An Irish Immigrant's Experience of Aboriginal Australia.
[citation needed] Backlash (1986) directed and produced by Bill Bennett featured Lydia Miller with Syron in the role of The Executioner or Kadachi Man.
[citation needed] The script improvisation by the actors is confirmed by Encore "Bill Bennett's "Backlash", for instance, is a film for which the principals improvised their dialogue...in this his latest effort he tested this technique to its limit" (Encore, 24 April - 7 May 1986 : 6)Syron and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks were employed as Co-Aboriginal Consultants on the television production Naked Under Capricorn (1989) directed by Rob Stewart, produced by Syron's brother-in-law Ray Alchin and starring Nigel Havers.