Stage Briefs

Wesley Enoch to be Sydney Festival Director from 2017 - 2019

Sydney Festival today (June 2, 2015) announced Wesley Enoch as the incoming Festival Director for a three-year tenure from 2017-2019. He will take the reins from Lieven Bertels, who completes his term in 2016, marking the Festival’s 40th anniversary.

Sydney Theatre Company 2014 Annual Report

At the Annual General Meeting of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) Chairman David Gonski tonight noted that the result for the theatre operations of STC and the Roslyn Packer Theatre (RPT) for the twelve months to 31st December 2014 was a deficit of $297, 296.  While the performance of STC’s producing arm exceeded targets, the late cancellation of two commercial bookings at the RPT meant there was a revenue shortfall for that business unit, leading to an operating deficit.

Australian Producer Jeremy Youett’s Tony Nomination

When Australian producer Jeremy Youett left Sydney and moved to New York hoping to find work on Broadway, he never dreamed that after only four years he would be one of the co-producers of critically acclaimed Broadway Musical The Visit, starring the legendary Chita Rivera, or that the show would receive five Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical.

Catherine Alcorn Is Crowdfunding Debut Album

Catherine Alcorn (The Divine Miss Bette, Go Your Own Way: The Story of Christine McVie and Nothing But a Song) is creating a compilation album featuring rearrangements from each production and is calling on fans to help fund the project. 

STC Recognises Playwrights’ Achievements

• Kate Mulvany is the new Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellow

• Debra Thomas has won the 2014 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award

High Society at Hayes Theatre Co

Who wants to be a millionaire?

A brand new production of High Society will be presented by Hayes Theatre Co from September 4, 2015. In a first this production will be produced solely by Hayes Theatre Co, rather than one of the production companies involved with the theatre, or an external producer. With Richard Carroll serving as Producer this is a bold step forward for a theatre company that has already made a huge impact in the entertainment industry since opening its doors in February 2014.

RENT For Hayes Theatre Co

The East Village is dead. At the dawn of the 1990s, New York City’s East Village is home to an ever-diminishing bohemian community. Development pushes people from their borough, disease withers loved ones from their lives, and a group of friends fight for their place in the face of such quiet vanishing. One iconic city, one life-changing year, one astonishing masterpiece: RENT.

Time For The Arts To Become Profitable?

Pioneering play publisher Katharine Brisbane has called for a radical re-think of the way major public arts companies operate and are funded in Australia.

The co-founder of Currency Press attacked what she described “as the intractable problem of the high-minded not-for profit structure” of the arts industry in the latest Platform Paper  published by Currency House called The Arts and the Common Good.

STC Prepares Godot for London

Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame comes to a close in Sydney this weekend (May 9, 2015), but for the show’s lead actor Hugo Weaving, director Andrew Upton and designer Nick Schlieper, a Beckettian world view will continue to loom large for a while longer. 

Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy Co-Artistic Directors for the Adelaide Festival

Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy have been appointed Co-Artistic Directors for the Adelaide Festival of the Arts for 2017, 2018 and 2019.

It will be the first time in the festival’s 55 year history that two people will share the role.

Minister for the Arts, the Hon Jack Snelling said, “It is a coup for Adelaide to have secured two of the most highly regarded arts leaders in Australia who I have no doubt will curate a series of rich and unique festival programs.