News

Aussies Love Shows more than Sport or Movies.

Australians spend almost two billion dollars on live entertainment every year– a new survey has found.

The results for 2008 were released by Live Performance Australia [LPA], the peak body for Australia’s live entertainment and performing arts industry.

The Study finds that the industry generated revenues of $1.88 billion in 2008 and contributed $1.1 billion to the Australian economy making it larger than film and video production, sports and physical recreation, book publishing and horse and dog racing.

Memphis and Red Big Tony Winners

Red (Best Play) with six awards and Memphis (Best Musical) with four awards were the big winners at this year's Tony Awards, presented in front of a 3,000 plus audience at New York's Radio City Music Hall on Sunday June 13. Catherine Zeta-Jones (Best Actress in a Musical) and Denzel Washington (Best Actor in a Play) were both recognised with individual awards.

Hit Children’s play wins acclaim at home and abroad.

David Spicer looks at the remarkable success of The Gruffalo.

Gold Logie Winner for Strange Bedfellows Stage Musical

Gold Logie winner John Wood and musical theatre star Peter Cousens are set to head the cast of a stage musical version of 2004 Australian film Strange Bedfellows (which starred Paul Hogan and Michael Caton) set to premiere at Albury’s Regent Theatre on October 29 in an off-Broadway-style try-out, close to Yackandandah, where the movie was set.

“The script is hilarious and the music by John Foreman is terrific. It’s going to be an enormously entertaining show,” said Peter Cousens (Vince). 


SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE’S $152 MILLION UPGRADE

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally unveiled a $152 million upgrade of the Sydney Opera House on Sunday June 6 – the biggest building works on the site since its October 1973 opening.

“Our Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognised buildings in the world and the upgrade is about securing its long-term future,” Premier Kristina Keneally said. “The Sydney Opera House is the single master work of a recognised architectural genius – Jorn Utzon.

Adelaide’s 10th Cabaret Festival … the ‘World’s Biggest’ with the ‘World’s Fastest’ Riggers.

David Campbell’s second Adelaide Cabaret Festival as Artistic Director, with Natalie Cole as headliner, opens on June 11. The festival has hundreds of artists and is now so big it even has its own cabaret fringe.

Tasmania’s Amateur Theatre Giants Dwarf Professionals.

The theatrical order is upside down in Tasmania’s capital. A fledgling professional theatre company staging new plays is dwarfed by mega musicals and revues run by amateurs.

David Spicer reports.

Fight to Save Brisbane's Regent

Protesters held a vigil in the centre of Brisbane last Saturday (May 29) to pressure the Queensland Government over the looming demolition of the historic Regent Theatre. The Regent Theatre in Brisbane, currently a cinema complex, is one of Australia's last remaining theatres of its kind and is under threat of demolition to make way for the city's newest office tower. For many years the Save the Regent committee has lobbied the Queensland Government to restore The Regent to its former glory as a venue for live performance.

STC in the Black, and Green

At its Annual General Meeting today (May 25, 2010), Sydney Theatre Company announced an operating profit of $607,167 for 2009, the first year programmed by Artistic Directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett. While the Company’s operating profit is $607,167, the recorded result also includes income of $152, 192 earmarked for the Company’s Greening The Wharf project, which means the Company’s 2009 result is a surplus of $759, 359.

GRIFFIN APPOINTS A NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Griffin Theatre Company Chair Michael Bradley today announced that award-winning director and dramaturg Sam Strong has been appointed the new Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company, replacing Nick Marchand. Strong, currently the Literary Associate at Company B Belvoir and director of its current hit The Power of Yes. Prior to that he established Red Stitch Writers, a playwriting residency at Red Stitch Actors Theatre in Melbourne (through which he developed and directed Tom Holloway’s Red Sky Morning).

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