La Boite Theatre 1925 to 2003: an Historical Survey of Its Transformation from an Amateur Repertory Society to an Established Professional Company

LA BOITE THEATRE 1925 TO 2003: AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ITS TRANSFORMATION FROM AN AMATEUR REPERTORY SOCIETY TO AN ESTABLISHED PROFESSIONAL COMPANY

Christine Anne Wilmington Comans

Bachelor of Arts, Diploma in Education, The University of Queensland Master of Education, The University of Melbourne

A thesis submitted to Queensland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology 2006

KEYWORDS Australian theatre history Brisbane Repertory Theatre Brisbane theatre history La Boite Theatre Company

ABBREVIATIONS

AD Artistic Director AETT Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust AGM Annual General Meeting ANZTR Australian and New Zealand Theatre Record BAT Brisbane Arts Theatre BCAE Brisbane College of Advanced Education BCC Brisbane City Council BRTS Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society BRT Brisbane Repertory Theatre ECDP Early Childhood Drama Project GM General Manager MAD Managing Artistic Director NARPACA Northern Australian Regional Performing Arts Centres Association NIDA National Institute of Dramatic Art QPAC Queensland Performing Arts Centre QTC Queensland Theatre Company QUT Queensland University of Technology RQTC Royal Queensland Theatre Company TYP Theatre for Young People UQ University of Queensland UQFL University of Queensland Fryer Library

DEFINITIONS Pro-am theatre The term ‘pro-am theatre’ usually refers to a professionally managed theatre company that provides artistic and administrative leadership and support for amateur participants. It is dependent on volunteer workers for its functioning and is governed by a Council or Board all of whom serve in a voluntary capacity. For its ongoing financial viability pro-am theatre is generally reliant on Federal and State Government funding bodies plus box office profit. During La Boite’s time as a pro-am theatre, full- time professional staff comprised at least an artistic director and, generally, a separate business manager, and often had in addition a production manager, a youth theatre director, a publicity officer and a secretary, with part-time staff hired as necessary.

Constituency The term ‘constituency’ is used throughout this study to refer to all those with a vested interest in BRTS/BRT/La Boite, including paid up members, active participants, employees, audiences, theatre critics, theatre supporters and the theatre industry.

ABSTRACT

This study addresses the central question of how Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre negotiated its transformation from an amateur repertory society to an established professional company and, despite set-backs and crises, survived, changed and developed in an unbroken line of theatrical activity from its genesis in1925 to 2003. To answer the question, La Boite’s history is surveyed within its three status modes of amateur, ‘pro-am’, and professional. Effective artistic and organizational leadership and a set of key manifestations of effective leadership are identified as crucial to the company’s successful transformational journey. Such a transformation is a distinctive achievement in Australian repertory theatre history and, in exploring it, this study makes an original and important contribution to the history of Australian theatre organizations, very few of which have been the subject of scholarly research.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Keywords i

Abstract ii

Table of Contents iii

List of Appendices ix

Statement of Original Authorship ix

Acknowledgements ix

CHAPTER ONE Introduction to the Study Preamble 1 Overview of the Study 3 • The research problem 4 • Significance of the study 5 • Current research in the field 6 • Personal interest in the study 7 • Ethical Clearance 7 Research Design and Methodology • Research activity overview 8 Theoretical Perspectives • Historiography 8 • Postmodern historiography – an informing paradigm 9 • Hermeneutics 12 Qualitative Research Methods • Archival research – data collection 13 • Interviews - oral accounts as data 15 Structure of the Study 17

CHAPTER TWO Literature Review Introduction 19 Major Published Works 19 Minor Published Works 29

CHAPTER THREE The Sisley and Stable Era 1925-45 Introduction 37 PART ONE The Establishment of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society • Co-founders - the artist and the academic 38 • Guided by ‘Repertory’ rules 40 • First seasons of “safe but unimpeachable” plays 41

iii Stable’s Leadership • Building membership a priority 43 • Dynamic evolution through affordable innovations 44 • Involvement in early ABC Radio Drama 44 • Crippling venue costs puts ‘a home of our own’ on the agenda 45 • Artistic excesses tempered by sound management 46 • Moves towards a ‘house style’ - the ‘one producer’ policy 47 • Serious venue-related debt increases as war approaches 48 Effects of World War Two 48 PART TWO A Commitment to the Australian Play – the rhetoric and the reality • The influence of Stable and Sisley 50 • The first Australian productions 51 • Stable’s public commitment to the Australian play 52 • Australian premiere of Vance Palmer’s Christine 53 The In Beauty It Is Finished Controversy • BRTS Australian Playwriting Competition 54 • The controversial dramatic content of the winning play 54 • Dann’s recollection of “the public shindy” 56 • The media savaging and Stable’s defence 56 • A box office success and serious critical response 58 • Reflection on BRTS’s first controversy 60 An Ongoing Commitment to Dann’s Plays 61 Other Productions of Australian Plays to 1945 64 Non-Australian Repertoire 1925 – 1945 64 PART THREE Sisley’s Artistic Leadership Professional Background 66 ‘A tall and striking woman’ – Her Dominant Artistic Presence 68 Her Sudden Death - The End of an Era 70 Conclusion 72

CHAPTER FOUR The Babette Stephens Era 1946-1968 Introduction 73 Stephens’ Emergence as a Powerful New Presence 73 PART ONE Stephens’ Organizational Leadership Background to seeking ‘a home of our own’ 75 • BRT’s purchase of the Hale and Sexton Street properties 77 • Stephens appointed in new role of ‘Theatre Director’ 78 • The 1967 opening of La Boite’s first theatre-in-the-round 79 • The significance of the first La Boite 82 La Boite’s Theatrical Life 1967 to 1972 83 Other Organizational Achievements 84 PART TWO Stephens’ Artistic Leadership • Early tensions about the non-programming of Australian plays 85 • Stephens’ English-dominated repertoire 86 • The two producer ‘policy’ 88 • Babette Stephens – Theatre Director 1960 to 1968 89 • Membership increase 91 • Gloria Birdwood-Smith’s ‘fall from grace’ 92 Stephens’ Resignation 94 Conclusion 94

iv CHAPTER FIVE The Blocksidges and Billinghurst Era 1969 – 1979 Introduction 96 PART ONE President Bruce Blocksidge’s Leadership Role • The decision to build a new theatre-in-the-round 97 • Queensland Government support 98 • La Boite Theatre opening and first seasons 99 Steps Towards Administrative Professionalization • First Executive Officer appointment 101 • A developing entrepreneurialism 102 PART TWO Jennifer Blocksidge’s Artistic Leadership Her Role as Artistic ‘Change Agent’ 103 First Challenges to BRT Orthodoxies • Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming – a sign of things to come 105 • The return of the Australian play 106 Blocksidge’s 1973 Season - Confirmation of her Programming Intentions 107 Declaring Her Hand on Artistic Policy and the Amateur/Professional Debate 108 Steps Towards Artistic Professionalism • Professional directors 110 • The emergence of the Early Childhood Drama Project – BRT’s first professional ‘wing’ 111 Consolidation of Her Artistic Policy • Problems of rights and casting 113 • Innovation and experimentation: successes and failures 114 The Transition from ‘Amateur’ to Professional Artistic Direction 117 PART THREE Rick Billinghurst - First Professional Director • BRT’s first ‘outsider’ 119 • Theatrical background 120 • How the position was advertised 121 Billinghurst’s Organizational Leadership • ‘Tooling up’ to market ‘La Boite Theatre’ 121 • Introduction of a Subscription Scheme 123 • Success in ‘selling the product’ 123 • Asserting his authority – administrative restructuring 124 • The Energy Wheel 127 Billinghurst’s Artistic Leadership • Artistic policy 129 • The Floating World - his La Boite directorial debut 130 • His groundbreaking season of Australian plays 130 • La Boite’s pro-am status supports risk-taking policy 133 • Risky, innovative theatre of 1978 134 A Major Review of All Activities 139 Artistic Policy Issues and Recommendations • Serious debate on becoming a professional company 140 • Recommendations on new works and a future professional company 142 Administrative Policy Issues and Recommendations 143 • Financial issues and recommendations 144 Billinghurst’s Last Hurrah 144 Conclusion 146

CHAPTER SIX The Blaylock, Ross, Bridges & Routh Eras 1979-1985 Introduction 148 PART ONE Malcolm Blaylock 1979-1982 149

v His Ideological Position on Theatre 150 Blaylock’s Organizational Leadership • The Australia Council funding crisis 151 A ‘Professional Community Theatre’ Emerges 154 Issues with ECDP 157 Blaylock’s Artistic Leadership • His Risky 1980 Program of Australian Plays 159 • The Oz Music Theatre Season ’82 161 Negative Responses to Blaylock’s Artistic Program • Police presence at political plays 162 • Outraged public response to Traitors and Roses in Due Season 163 Blaylock’s Legacy 164 PART TWO Andrew Ross 1982-1983 Introduction 165 The Professional Agenda 166 The Demise of ECDP 171 Ross’s 1983 Season 174 • First professional mainhouse productions 174 • First commissioned work in 1983 season 175 • Professional and pro-am theatre for young people 176 The Professional Agenda Fails - Financial Crisis 176 PART THREE An Era of Crisis Management 1984-1985 180 The Bridges and Hickson Offer of a Rescue Plan 181 Artistic Survival 1984-1985 • The 1984 Season 182 • 1985 Season One 184 • 1985 Season Two: decrease in mainhouse productions 185 • A chaotic end to 1985 186 Organizational Leadership: From Despair to Review and Reform • The emergence of Helen Routh 186 • The stark financial reality 187 • Dependence on volunteers for survival 188 • Mending the funding bridges and refocussing activities onto TYP 188 • Cleaning up the financial mess – a condition of restored funding 190 • ‘A Review of the Operation of BRT’ in 1985 191 Decisions, Action and Recovery 192 Unhappy Members Call a Special General Meeting 194 Bridges and Routh Bow Out 195 Conclusion 196

CHAPTER SEVEN The Jim Vilé Era 1986-1989 Introduction 198 Management Strategies and Financial Recovery • Clarity about professional youth theatre and pro-am productions 200 • A sense of perspective based on property assets 200 • Sensible steps towards financial revitalization 201 • Constitutional changes professionalize operations 202 • Nurturing a new kind of membership 203 Artistic Revitalization in Mainhouse Productions • “Open door” policy 204 • Hits and misses 205 • Success in the Year of World Expo ‘88 206 • First Matilda Awards 208 • A house-style emerges 208

vi • The non-payment of professional actors emerges as a serious issue 210 Youth Theatre Developments • The Doneman’s influence - a professionalized Youth Theatre 211 • ‘Balanced diversity’ rather than Youth Theatre expansion 213 Vilé’s Exit 213 Conclusion 214

CHAPTER EIGHT The Patrick Mitchell and David Bell Era 1990-1992 Introduction 216 Patrick Mitchell’s One Year as Artistic Director • A “shattering” experience 217 • Despite everything - a successful season 219 David Bell’s Eighteen Months as Artistic Director • Industry pressure to transform into a professional company 220 • Bell’s appointment 220 • New Queensland Government Arts Policy forces professional issue 221 • Profit-share as a transitional step to a professional company 222 • Membership response to ‘professional’ decision 222 The Three Professional Productions Plan for 1992 225 • Financial failure of first professional season leads to property sale 226 • A case of fraud deepens the debt 227 • A deteriorating situation 227 Bell’s Artistic Work • The 1991 Season 229 • First Professional Season – an artistic assessment 231 An Analysis of Survival and Transition in Traumatic Times 233 Conclusion 237

CHAPTER NINE The Sue Rider Era 1993-2000 Introduction 239 PART ONE From the Brink of Disaster to an Acclaimed Professional Company: an analysis of Sue Rider’s eight year stewardship • Facing a daunting task 240 • Deborah Murphy’s appointment 242 • Rider’s First Season of “Passion, Energy and Entertainment” 243 • An artistically and financially successful first year 246 • The ‘psychology’ behind the first year of professional operations 247 • Down to business with a strategic plan 248 Rider’s Artistic Leadership 1994-2000 • Championing of Queensland and Australian plays 250 • Positive discrimination towards Queensland theatre workers 254 • Support for young emerging artists 255 • Programming for school and youth audiences 256 • Tours, partnerships, co-productions 257 Rider’s Achievement by 2000 – A Very Successful Theatre Company 259 PART TWO Funding and Financial Security Issues with La Boite’s Facilities and Physical Location 261 • Early moves to re-develop or re-locate 262 • Whitehead’s main agenda – to re-locate 263 Issues with the Artistic Director • The Board’s disquiet about Rider’s performance 266 • Programming issues and The Bumpy Angels dispute 268 • Concerns about the company’s strategic direction 269

vii • Funding body concerns about the artistic program 271 • “A seminal moment” – the artistic failure of The Popular Mechanicals 272 The Re-structured Senior Management Positions 273 Rider Asked To Resign 275 Media Response to Rider’s Forced Resignation 276 Conclusion 277

CHAPTER TEN The Mee, Whitehead and Young Era 2001 – 2003 Introduction 279 PART ONE The Physical Re-Location to QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct • The re-location Imperative 280 • A new option - QUT’s planned precinct 282 • The ‘deadlines’ saga 284 • Criticism from some quarters 287 • Heritage listing 288 • La Boite at The Roundhouse 289 Conclusion 292 PART TWO The Artistic ‘Re-location’ of the Company 293 • A re-vitalized artistic direction under Mee 295 Mee’s Goal – To Create a Company of National Significance • National, international and regional touring 297 • Partnerships and collaborations 299 • Artistic re-location underpinned by a new relationship with the Board 300 • Financial ups and downs 301 Conclusion 303

CHAPTER ELEVEN The Findings: Effective Leadership and its Manifestations Introduction 305 PART ONE How Effective Leadership Supported the Transformational Journey Findings in relation to its amateur years, 1925-1975 • Barbara Sisley and Professor J.J.Stable 307 • Babette Stephens 308 • Bruce Blocksidge and Jennifer Blocksidge 309 Findings in relation to its pro-am years, 1976-1992 • Rick Billinghurst and Jennifer Blocksidge 310 • Malcolm Blaylock 311 • Mike Bridges and Helen Routh 311 • Jim Vilé 312 • Philip Pike 313 Findings in relation to its professional years, 1993-2003 • Sue Rider, Philip Pike, Peter Lawson, Deborah Murphy, Athol Young 314 • Sean Mee, Craig Whitehead, Athol Young 315 PART TWO Recurring Manifestations of Effective Leadership 317 • The distinctive contribution of four women 317 • The evolutionary nature of La Boite’s journey from amateur to professional and the role of subsidy 319 • Property accumulation and theatre ownership 320 • The contemporary nature of the repertoire and its Australian content 321 • The culture of constituency strength, support, and loyalty 323 • The special sense of belonging that La Boite inspired 324

viii Significance of the Study 325 Further Research 327

Bibliography 328

APPENDICES Appendix 1 Key Personnel 1925 to 2003 345 Appendix 2 Biographies (a) Barbara Sisley 346 (b) Babette Stephens 351 (c) Jennifer Blocksidge 355 (d) Sue Rider 358 (e) J.J.Stable 362 Appendix 3 (a) Extract from a G.L.Dann speech, 1956 365 (b) Smith’s Weekly article, July 4, 1931 367 Appendix 4 BRTS/BRT/La Boite productions 1925-2003 368

Appendix 5 Interview Transcriptions on CD-ROM

STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet the requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature ……………………………………………………

Date ……………………………………………………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I sincerely thank my principal supervisor Dr Don Batchelor whose scholarship in my field of study, critical feedback, generous mentorship, and unflagging support have been invaluable in the preparation of this thesis. I thank, too, my associate supervisor Dr Jacqueline Martin whose fine eye for detail, scholarly advice and constant encouragement have been greatly appreciated.

I extend my thanks and gratitude to La Boite Theatre Company for its keen support of this project from conception to completion. I also acknowledge all those individuals, associated with La Boite Theatre’s history, who provided me with valuable interview and archival material.

And finally, I thank my family, especially my daughters Katherine Hoepper and Annie Lower, for their love and encouragement throughout my doctoral study.

CHAPTER ONE Introduction to the Study Preamble To set the history of Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre within the context of the Australian repertory movement is an important first step for this study. Inspired in its genesis by the movement, the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society adhered to repertory principles as an amateur group for fifty years before transforming itself, after a sixteen year period as a ‘pro-am’ theatre, into a fully professional, still flourishing company. Of the four original repertory societies that continue to exist in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart1, only La Boite can claim a still unbroken line of theatrical activity since 1925 and a successful transformation into a professional operation, a distinctive achievement in Australian repertory theatre history.

The Australian movement was influenced by the English repertory movement which began in the 1890s as a reaction against the increasing American influence on English theatre and its lack of interest in serious contemporary theatre emanating from the new dramatic genres of literary drama and realism (Parsons, 1995: 39). This was a professional movement that saw the establishment of, among others, London’s Royal Court, Manchester’s Gaiety Theatre, and Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, dedicated to the plays of Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, John Galsworthy, W.B.Yeats, J.M Synge, Sean O’Casey and others (ibid.).

Unlike their English counterparts, the major Australian repertory theatres in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney2 and Perth were formed with the explicit aim of providing high standard amateur theatrical opportunities and training for their membership although it was not unusual for them to be set up by professional

1 Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart repertory companies continue to exist as amateur companies. It should be noted that although Perth’s Repertory Club, formed in 1919, evolved into the National Theatre Company in 1956, this professional operation closed in 1984 (King & Simmons in Parsons, 1995: 494). Adelaide Repertory Theatre which began in 1908 has the distinction of being the oldest still operating amateur theatre in Australia (Afford, 2004: 11). 2 The Sydney Repertory Theatre Society was “a curious example of professional patronage of amateur theatre” as it was formed with initial financial support and venue provided by the Tait Brothers (Chance in Parsons, 1995: 571).

1 directors or actors. For example, actor/director Gregan McMahon founded both the Melbourne Repertory Theatre Company (1911-1917) and the Sydney Repertory Theatre Society (1920-1928), bringing to both groups professional directorial standards (Chance in Parsons, 1995: 351), and English born actor and director Olive Wilton, who had toured England and America as a professional actor before settling in Tasmania, founded the Hobart Repertory Theatre Society in 1926 (Winter in Parsons, 1995: 279).

Overwhelmingly the operational model that sustained repertory theatres was that of a wholly amateur organization with paid membership and subscription seasons for audience members and, generally, a resistant attitude to any moves towards professionalism. At the outset, all were interested in promoting good quality, serious, literary theatre and some, including repertory societies in Melbourne, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, championed Australian plays for varying periods (Dawes in Parsons, 1995: 357; King & Simmons in Parsons, 1995: 494; Batchelor, 1995: 65-66; Afford in Parsons, 1995: 32). However, surviving amateur repertory companies in Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart are noteworthy for ‘safe’ programming and the absence of Australian works in their more recent seasons3. Having ‘a home of their own’ was a great stabilising influence and a crucial factor in the longevity on those companies fortunate enough to afford to buy or lease property. Hobart, Adelaide and Canberra Repertory theatres all succeeded in finding a permanent home of their own as soon as possible and there is little doubt that the establishment of their own performing space was an important factor in their ongoing survival as amateur companies.

Whilst not wishing to pre-empt my findings, my account of La Boite Theatre’s long history reveals that it shared many of the same characteristics of other Australian repertory theatres, yet managed its progression in ways that make its history distinctly different from its counterparts. Foregrounding this study, therefore, is La Boite’s legitimate claim that of all the major repertory societies set up in the early part of the twentieth century, only La Boite surmounted set-backs and crises to never once, even temporarily, cease operations, and to achieve what is unusual in Australia’s theatre history – to survive the difficult transition from an amateur group, to a ‘pro-am’

3 www.canberrarep.org.au/main.html;geocities.com/Broadway/Balcony/4914/; www. playhouse.org.au/showlistintro.html#anchor159599, cited November 4, 2005.

2 theatre, to a fully professional theatre company that is flourishing today and appears well placed to continue to prosper into the foreseeable future.

Overview of the Study Australian Little Theatres of the 1920s to the 1960s – a term which embraces repertory societies and other amateur groups – are acknowledged by Katharine Brisbane, in her introduction to Connie Healy’s Defiance: Political theatre in Brisbane 1930-1962, as “the parents of our national theatre” (2000:5). These amateur groups, that presented serious drama and aspired to “cultural awareness, social improvement, and moral and spiritual values and collective responsibility” became the force that “pushed for a national theatre and created the climate out of which came the demand for an Australia Council” (ibid.). Brisbane notes, however, that although at this time there was a great need for “ ‘professionalism’ in performance”, most little theatres were unable or unwilling to make that transition from amateur to professional and “by the end of the 70s most of the old-fashioned theatre groups were gone” (ibid.). La Boite Theatre, which began life as the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society in 1925, was an exception. In Queensland, so too, for a time, was Brisbane’s Twelfth Night Theatre: established as an amateur group in 1936, it successfully transformed into a professional company in 1971, achieving twenty years of professional theatre before losing its funding and ceasing operations in 1991.

Of all the Repertory societies and little theatres that were set up as amateur theatrical groups throughout Australia from the early twentieth century onwards, the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society was the only one that succeeded in making a successful transition to fully professional status and to be still operating at the end of 2003 as La Boite Theatre, Queensland’s second major theatre company. How did it do it?

Through researching the history of La Boite Theatre from 1925 to 2003, the aim of this study is to discover the answer. This question about its professional transformation both limits and focuses an otherwise long and unwieldy theatrical saga; to fully account for La Boite’s longevity and capacity for survival over seventy- eight years is not possible within the scope of this thesis. A chronological approach to addressing the aim of the study is nonetheless taken in an endeavour to both shape the

3 material and to create a clear through-line of events that informed La Boite’s development from its amateur years to pro-am status to professionalism. This study takes as its beginning point the time when the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society began operating as an amateur theatre in 1925; its end point is the historic relocation of La Boite Theatre from its premises in Hale Street, Milton to the Roundhouse in the Queensland University of Technology’s Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove, in November 2003.

Originally formed in 1925 as ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society’, the organization dropped ‘Society’ in 1945 to become ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’. With the opening of its first theatre-in-the-round in 1967, it often referred to itself as ‘Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre’. In 1977 it began marketing itself as ‘La Boite’ although it remained, legally, Brisbane Repertory Theatre. Between 1993 and 2003 its official title was ‘La Boite Theatre’. On its move to Kelvin Grove, it became ‘La Boite Theatre Company’. For convenience, the organization is referred to, where relevant, as ‘BRTS, ‘BRT’ and ‘La Boite’. Although the original French spelling – La Boîte – was used for almost fifteen years, the spelling favoured by the company since the early 1980s has been consistently used within this study.

• The research problem

The research problem is identified in this question: Over its long history to 2003, how did La Boite Theatre negotiate its transformation from an amateur repertory society to an established professional company and, despite set-backs and crises, survive, change and develop in an unbroken line of theatrical activity? To answer this question, the study examines how La Boite developed and progressed within each of the three different status modes of amateur, ‘pro-am’, and professional in order to understand how it was able to make successful transitions from an amateur repertory group to a ‘pro-am’ theatre with professional administration and artistic direction during the period 1973 to 1976, and then to a fully professional company during the period 1992 to 1993, a status it has sustained to 2003, the year nominated for the end of this research project.

4 It was only after a full investigation of, first, the genesis of the organization and second, the series of major changes, crises and status transitions that the company endured during the seventy-eight years of its history, that I could identify a recurring feature or characteristic that seemed to be most significant in both periods of growth and periods of crisis and retardation. It seemed that crucial to the company’s capacity for survival was the artistic and organizational leadership provided throughout the decades by those people who were honorary or professional artistic directors, professional general managers, and those who took voluntary positions as presidents/chairs of BRTS/BRT/La Boite Councils/Boards. Therefore, the study has been shaped around key individuals within the eras they represented. Through an investigation of this characteristic of leadership, certain common, recurring ‘manifestations’ presented themselves as particularly relevant to the company’s transformation from amateur to professional status.

The question of why La Boite chose to make the transitional status changes that it did is of course relevant to the study and given due emphasis within the analysis of artistic and organizational leadership and the Theatre’s response to change and development opportunities. However, the major focus of the study is on how this successful transition was negotiated and sustained to 2003. Given that many an Australian amateur theatre company has foundered in the attempt to become ‘professional’ or failed to survive for a significant period after an initial successful transition to professional status, how La Boite managed this transformation is of more crucial interest to this study than why it chose this path, and also of more relevance and importance within the wider context of Australia’s theatre history.

• Significance of the study The timely nature of this research is evident in the significant physical move undertaken by La Boite Theatre in November 2003 from its Milton location to Kelvin Grove. This spelt the end of an era for La Boite, whose identity since 1972 had been so closely associated with the award winning building in Hale Street, Milton. This is a history – limited as it is by the nature of the research question - that has never been recorded in this depth and detail before. This history is special: it is an example of a successful negotiation of the difficult transition from an amateur to professional operation. As it is second only to the Queensland Theatre Company in official status

5 in this State (and much more significant in terms of the length of its history), the researching and writing of this history of La Boite’s development from 1925 to 2003 in relation to its status transformation, makes an important contribution to the history of theatre not only in Queensland but nationally.

A significant addition to new knowledge in the field of Australian theatre history is the set of twenty interviews, compiled for this research project, of key personnel associated with La Boite between 1960 and 2003. On this study’s completion, transcriptions of these interviews will be added to the existing archives at the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library, thus substantially expanding research possibilities for future scholars.

• Current research in the field No comprehensive history of La Boite that addresses the full span of its amateur to professional journey from 1925 to 2003, has been written to date. In the 2004 publication of Geoffrey Milne’s Theatre Australia (Un)Limited – Australian theatre since the 1950s, a synoptic State by State analysis of the development of a national theatre, BRT’s “early lead” in Queensland’s “movement toward non-commercial professional theatre” is acknowledged and its growth to 2003 recorded in summary form (2004: 93). A biography of Babette Stephens, Never Upstaged - Babette Stephens her Life and Times (2004) by Jay McKee, contains historical material related to the Theatre’s history and Stephens’ contribution. Whilst of interest to this study, its limitations are related to the nature of the work – an affectionate tribute to a very popular Brisbane personality. Not pretending to be a scholarly work, the unsubstantiated nature of statements, otherwise useful to this study, rendered this book of fairly restricted value to my research.

Parts of La Boite’s history have featured in two Masters theses. In 1978, Jennifer Radbourne wrote her University of Queensland Master of Arts thesis on Little Theatre: its development since World War 2 in Australia, with particular reference to Queensland. Chapter Ten of her thesis The Brisbane Repertory Theatre “Enterprise, Action and Innovation” traces the theatre’s history in brief from 1925 to the 1940s and in more detail from the 1950s to 1978. In 1982, Sue Cullen submitted for her Master of Literature Studies degree at the University of Queensland a thesis titled A

6 History of Brisbane Repertory Theatre at La Boite, June 1972 to June 1982. The most significant part of her thesis focuses strongly on the plays produced at La Boite during this decade, critical opinion of them and audience response. Some of her appendices are a useful resource for my study including a list of La Boite productions between 1972 and 1982; a list of newspaper and periodical articles about La Boite and its productions for this time span; a table of Government Grants received by La Boite between 1972 and 1981. Both these theses are valuable part histories of La Boite. My doctoral thesis is the first attempt not only to record an overall history of this theatre company but to problematise its history in seeking an explanation for the Theatre’s distinctive achievement in Australian theatre history –its transformation from an amateur group to professional status via a period as a pro-am theatre without ever closing its doors and despite numerous set-backs and crises.

• Personal interest in the study It is important to reveal my personal association with La Boite and therefore my interest in pursuing this particular topic for my doctoral study. Between 1975 and 1985, I performed (under the name of Christine Hoepper) in twelve La Boite Theatre mainhouse productions as an amateur actor and for a short time as a professional actor with La Boite’s Early Childhood Drama Project. I served as a member of the La Boite Council between 1992 and 1994. As an audience member, my first vivid memory of a La Boite production was of seeing Jennifer Blocksidge in a 1969 production of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming directed by Wilf Buckler. In the intimate confines of the old converted cottage in Sexton Street, this was my first experience of theatre- in-the-round. Since the early 1970s, I have attended countless productions at the Hale Street La Boite Theatre as a dedicated audience member, subscriber or invitee. Finally, I was a member of the planning committee and a participant in a two-night farewell season – The Final Bow - in September 2003 to celebrate La Boite’s thirty- one years of theatrical activity in the iconic Hale Street building on the eve of its closure and the company’s re-location to Kelvin Grove.

• Ethical Clearance My doctoral project has been confirmed as exempt from full ethical clearance by the University Human Research Committee (20/2/03).

Research Design and Methodology • Research activity overview Research for this study has involved extensive archival research in the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland which holds the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Collection dating from 1925 to circa 1988. Records in this collection include Council reports, policy documents, administrative, financial, artistic and publicity materials, newspaper articles, reviews, programs, photographs, scripts, posters and memorabilia. The Fryer Library also holds the George Landen Dann Collection, and materials relating to Professor J.J.Stable. The Performing Arts Museum of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre holds some La Boite documents from circa 1988 to the present, but also an eclectic collection of programs, photographs and other archived material which date from the 1920s which have been useful to this study. Substantial material relevant to this study has been kindly lent to me from La Boite’s own archival collection. Small private collections have also been lent to me by Annette Kerwitz, Rod Lumer, Michael Nason, Errol O’Neill, Sue Rider, Kaye Stevenson and Athol Young. I have also made use of my own private collection of materials gathered through my personal association with La Boite.

Crucial to the study are oral accounts, gathered through audio-taped interviews, of people who were instrumental in shaping the theatre’s history or were involved in a significant way in the theatre’s activities. Such people include past and present Artistic Directors, Presidents/Chairs of Councils/Boards, General Managers, Administrators, directors and actors. Of the many dozens of people who could have made a contribution to this study, a limit had to be placed on the number of interviews undertaken and decisions were made on the basis of their relative significance to the thesis question.

Theoretical Perspectives • Historiography Historiography, or historical research, is at its base level “a method for discovering, from records and accounts, what happened during some past period” (Marshall & Rossman 1999 in Berg 2001: 210). However, historiography goes beyond the mere

8 collection of information about the past – “it is the study of the relationships among issues that have influenced the past, continue to influence the present, and will certainly affect the future” (Glass 1989 in Berg 2001: 211). What is most important and most interesting to the historiographer is the interpretation, analysis and presentation of the data. The reasons for conducting research as outlined by Berg (ibid.:212) support the research problem of how La Boite Theatre transformed from an amateur theatre to a flourishing professional company: Specifically, historical research is conducted for one or more reasons: to uncover the unknown; to answer questions; to seek implications or relationships of events from the past and their connections with the present; to assess past activities and accomplishments of individuals, agencies, or institutions; and to aid generally in our understanding of human culture.

Berg asserts that “historiographers view history as a field of human actions” and the important task of the historiographer is “to reconstruct the reason for past actions” by “identifying evidence of past human thinking” from “valid and meaningful data” which are then interpreted “with regard to how and why decisions and actions have occurred” (ibid.:219).

• Postmodern historiography – an informing paradigm My original determination to design this study around the interpretative paradigm of postmodern historiography was abandoned on academic advice, proffered at my PhD Confirmation (a formal step undertaken several years into my part-time doctoral studies). I was advised that this paradigm was too complex for a study that embraced a long and complicated theatrical history and that it would distract from the transformational journey at the centre of this study which required a chronological approach. Therefore, I was advised to pursue a more traditional historiographical paradigm which allowed for my investigation to be chronological and less complicated in its structure.

However, some elements of postmodern historiography remained attractive to this study and have been blended into the traditional historiographical approach to create a paradigm for this study that could be labelled a contemporary historiographical paradigm. Attractive about postmodern historiography is the possibility it can suggest of combining both a positivist epistemological approach with a subjectivist

9 epistemological approach. Iggers (1979: 16) states that the postmodern critique of traditional historiography has thrown new light on historical practice: “It has not destroyed the historian’s commitment to recapturing reality or his or her belief in a logic of inquiry, but it has demonstrated the complexity of both.” This ‘complexity’ involves a number of things in relation to this study, one of which is its framing within a cultural historical context to better understand the ‘human actions’ that constitute this particular institution’s history, as Berg suggests above.

A profound ‘complexity’ that postmodern historiography offers the researcher is related to the effect feminist theory has had upon traditional historiography. For centuries, Western history has been a series of narratives of ‘great’ men and a recording of ‘great’ events (Elam in Jenkins 1997: 66-67). Under the influence of postmodern feminist thought, historians are now finding ways to write the histories of women. Scott in her book Gender and the Politics of History (1988) sees a feminist history as: “not the recounting of great deeds performed by women but the exposure of the often silent and hidden operations of gender that are nonetheless present and defining forces in the organization of most societies” (Scott in Jenkins 1997: 69).

Archival research has revealed that there is a group of women associated with the history of La Boite theatre whose influence was significant in shaping the Theatre’s development. Within this interpretative paradigm, their place in this cultural history as “defining forces” (ibid.) can be given appropriate significance. This is not to diminish the role of many significant men in the Theatre’s history, but rather to ensure that the women’s stories are appropriately recognized.

Finally, I believe that the ‘complexity’ of postmodern historiography allows for a blending of positivist and subjectivist epistemologies that suits this study. A positivist epistemology entails “an objective account of the past based on thorough immersion in the empirical data and an unbiased assemblage of that data into an accurate sequence” (Friedman in Jenkins 1997: 233). The Theatre’s history between 1925 and the late 1950s in relation to the research question emerged mainly from archival research as very few key people associated with the Theatre are alive today to provide any other account of those years. To at least some extent, therefore, this part of the Theatre’s history has the flavour at times of an objective account.

Friedman describes the subjectivist epistemology within the context of “the Real of history” which is “knowable only through its written or oral textualizations” (Friedman in Jenkins 1997: 233/234), in these terms: The past is therefore triply mediated – first, through the mediations of those texts, which are themselves reconstructions of what “really” happened; second, through the fragmentary and partial survival of those textualizations which are dependent upon the politics of documentation and the luck, skill and persistence of the historian-as-detective who must locate them; and third, through the interpretative, meaning-making gaze of the historian. From this perspective, the excellence of history writing depends not upon the level of objectivity but rather upon the cogency of interpretation. (ibid.)

In relation to the Theatre’s history from 1960, many oral accounts have been collected to add texture and flavour to the archival research. It is in this part of the history in particular that the subjectivist epistemology permeates the work. Even aspects of the earlier history respond well to ‘cogency of interpretation’, especially in relation to contributions made by key figures such as Barbara Sisley and Professor J.J.Stable, co- founders of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society, and George Landen Dann playwright and active member of the Theatre for many years. With its emphasis on key figures, there is a sense, within this historical survey, of ‘micronarrative’, a term used by Burke to describe “the telling of a story about ordinary people in their local setting” (1991: 241), although my history falls far short of embracing the precise meaning of the term which allows for the historian’s use of “fictional techniques” to more richly ‘thicken’ - Geertz’s term – the narrative of the ‘factual’ work (in Burke, 1991: 240).

Overall, this research is an interpretative enterprise that requires, finally, an historical imagination for an interpretive ‘truth’ to emerge in relation to the key question. Following the poststructuralist notion that all ‘texts’ have the potential to convey many meanings, and that there is no one true and objective reading of these texts that will reveal the ultimate ‘truth’ of this history, then what this study seeks is an interpretative truth that could exist alongside other interpretations that are also ‘true’ (Tuchman in Denzin 1994: 316).

• Hermeneutics The term ‘hermeneutics’ first appeared in the seventeenth century to mean the science of biblical interpretation and the term ‘exegesis’ was the actual explanation of the meaning of the biblical text (Crotty, 1998: 87). Hermeneutics has now become a valuable means of ‘reading’ not only written texts to bring understanding but also unwritten texts such as “human practices, human events, human situations” (ibid.). Fischer-Lichte, for example, employs hermeneutics as a “theory of understanding” in relation to “the reception of the theatrical text” i.e. performance (1992: 206-217).

Although the word is relatively new, Crotty comments that a disciplined approach to interpretation characterised the way ancient Greek scholars studied literature. Their approach was to take the text as a whole rather than a series of unrelated parts: “…the relating of part to whole and whole to part …would become an enduring theme within hermeneutics” (ibid.: 89). In contemporary interpretivism this notion has been formalised in the term ‘hermeneutic circle’ (ibid.: 92; Fischer-Lichte, 1992: 212-214). Crotty states that while “one can satisfactorily understand the natural world simply by understanding the parts that make it up”, this is not the case in the human sciences: “To understand a text bearing upon human affairs or a culture that guides human lives, one needs to be able to move dialectically between part and whole, in the mode of the hermeneutic circle” (ibid.: 92). As Fischer-Lichte explained it “the meanings of the individual elements and substructures of a text can be constituted only with a view to its overall meaning just as, conversely, the overall meaning can only be constituted on the basis of the meanings of the elements and substructures” (1992: 213-214). This approach to text provided a useful theoretical perspective to support the interpretive exercise I was undertaking.

In the initial data gathering process, my ‘text’ was the whole history of La Boite which I felt I needed to understand before I could begin to grasp the meaning and significance of the parts of this history, and vice versa. In this process, those parts or elements which emerged as seemingly more important than others were related to artistic and organizational leadership. Thus, a second major text emerged which became the basis for the interpretive exercise of addressing the key question of this thesis – grouped into a ‘whole’, this new text constituted all those artistic and

12 organizational leaders who seemed to have most influenced, both positively and negatively, La Boite’s development. Now, the research enterprise was to both survey and analyse these leadership contributions in an endeavour to find what kinds of ‘manifestations’ of leadership might emerge to provide a meaningful response to the thesis question.

Additionally, Gadamer’s introduction of the notion of “prejudice” into hermeneutic theory throws light on the relationship between the “interpreter” and the text (in Fischer-Lichte, 1992: 207). Following Gadamer, Fischer-Lichte explains that these prejudices, determined by background and “particular experiences s/he has had” can “condition the process of understanding a text” and “yields the respective for- understanding with which the receiver approaches a text” (ibid.: 208). Although I have fought against a too subjective presence within this study, my own set of experiences within La Boite has given me a particular “fore-understanding” which may in some ways have shaped how I have understood this ‘text’ and its manifestations.

Qualitative Research Methods In broad terms then, this study can be categorised as social research within the human sciences that employs qualitative research methodology. ‘Qualitative research’ is a convenient umbrella term to describe the kind of research undertaken in this study but as a term it is widely acknowledged as difficult to define (Ely et al., 1991: 3–5). Berg attempts a clear definition by comparing qualitative research with the term quantitative research: if “quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things” then “qualitative research properly seeks answers to questions by examining various social settings and the individuals who inhabit these settings” (Berg, 2001: 2- 7), a fitting description of this research project.

• Archival research – data collection Qualitative research methods or procedures of data collection “provide a means of accessing unquantifiable facts about people [that] researchers observe and talk to” or are “represented by their personal traces (such as letters, photographs, newspaper accounts, …and so on)” (ibid.: 7). Archival research has been a major method of data collection for this study and has unearthed not only the ‘personal traces’ of key

13 individuals associated with La Boite’s transformation from amateur to professional but also non-personal traces of an institution – Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society, Brisbane Repertory Theatre, and later La Boite Theatre.

The archival documents that form part of the data collection are a combination of primary and secondary sources. Important distinctions are made between both kinds of sources and require clear definition. Whilst admitting that the distinctions can be fuzzy, Tuchman (in Denzin 2001: 318) has a clear-cut demarcation, defining secondary sources as “books and articles written by historians and social scientists about a topic” and primary sources as “most often the historical data (documents or practices) of the period one is trying to explain.” Berg (2001) elaborates on primary sources as involving “the oral or written testimony of eyewitnesses” which can be “original artifacts, documents, and items related to the direct outcome of an event or an experience” and may include “documents, photographs, diaries, journals, life histories, drawings, mementos, or other relics” (ibid.: 214). Secondary sources he details as “the oral or written testimony of people not immediately present at the time of a given event. They are documents written or objects created by others that relate to a specific research question or area of research interest” (ibid.).

The range of secondary sources gleaned from the archives creates a useful set of data that can be triangulated with archival primary sources, oral accounts via contemporary interviews and non-archival secondary sources found in scholarly works. Archival data that incorporates both primary and secondary sources as defined by Tuchman (in Denzin 2001) and which form the basis for this interpretative study include: Primary Sources Interviews; Minutes of Annual General Meetings; Minutes of Meetings of Executive Committees; Minutes of Special General Meetings; Annual Reports by Presidents and Chairs of Council; Annual Reports by Artistic Directors; Annual Reports of Administrators and General Managers; Financial Reports; Planning Documents; Funding Documents; Constitutions; formal and informal correspondence; theatre programs; season brochures; photographs; scrapbooks.

Secondary Sources Newspaper articles, press clippings, theatre reviews; scholarly works including Australian theatre history texts; Australian cultural history texts; journal articles; parts of some interviews.

• Interviews - oral accounts as data Oral accounts of La Boite’s history have been collected via interviews. Oral histories – the personal reminiscences of a number of key people associated with the Theatre’s history – comprise a significant amount of highly valued data for this study. The legitimacy of using oral data has been contested over the last several decades and is part of the on-going debate about the nature of history (Prins in Burke 1991: 127- 128). Prins defines oral history simply as “history written with evidence gathered from a living person, rather than a written document” (ibid.: 114). She suggests that the controversy over oral sources is related to historians’ traditional valuing of the written word over the spoken word, which, she says, they hold in contempt (ibid.: 116). This contempt for oral history is related to the backlash against school-based history curricula which has favoured exposing young people to many types of sources including oral and to a range of evidence on the one topic. The backlash in England under Prime Minister Thatcher resulted in a “document-driven and parochial syllabus of British political and constitutional history, with an emphasis on rote learning of dates and ‘facts’ and an aversion to the historical imagination” (ibid.: 128).

Although this study is not an ‘oral’ history, personal accounts as data are of fundamental importance in responding to the research question. Interviews contribute significantly to the richness and texture of the study providing detail, subjectivity and human presence. Prins sums it up: What personal reminiscence can bring is a freshness and a wealth of detail which is not otherwise to be found. It makes possible small-scale group histories…it gives historians the means to write what the anthropologist Clifford Geertz has called ‘thick description’: richly textured accounts which have the depth and the contours to permit substantial anthropological analysis. (ibid.: 134) Historians opposed to the use of oral accounts cite the unreliability and untrustworthiness of memory as compared to “the inanimate and unchanging records of documents” (ibid.:131). However, Prins warns of documentary sources not always as “unintentionally, unselfconsciously bequeathed to us as one might think” (ibid.). In my case, while it is difficult to ascribe any sinister intent, gaps in documentary sources have been evidenced in incomplete archival records of, mostly, early decades where some vital annual reports and minutes of meetings are missing, where Special General Meeting minutes have not been kept, where a few financial reports cannot be

15 located, or ‘see the attached document’ instructions reveal nothing attached. Of the reliability of memory, Prins says that “tests on different types of memory tend to agree that long-term memory, especially in individuals who have entered that phase which psychologists call ‘life review’, can be remarkably precise” (ibid.:133).

These oral accounts acquired through interview will test the validity and reliability of the archival data or, at least, create a tension between the primary/secondary source material and the oral histories of the interviewees. Those interviewed by me and three others (underlined below) whose audio interviews were made available to me, include some of the key people who were significantly involved in the theatre’s history and whose collective memories span from the late 1950s to 2003: David Bell, director/designer in the 1970s, AD 1991 – 1992; Rick Billinghurst, AD 1976-1979; Malcom Blaylock, AD 1978 – 1981; Bruce Blocksidge, Council President 1967 – 1972; Jennifer Blocksidge, actor from 1960s, Theatre Director 1968-1975, Council President 1976-1978 and 1981; Mike Bridges, AD 1984 – 1985 (phone interview, not taped); Rosemary Herbert, currently Public Relations Manager 1982 +; Graeme Johnston director/designer 1970s-1980s; Sean Mee, actor/director/writer from 1970s, AD 2001+ ; Patrick Mitchell, AD 1990; Deborah Murphy, GM 1993-1996; Errol O’Neill, playwright/ actor from the 1970s ; Philip Pike, Council President 1990 – 1993; Mark Radvan, Youth Theatre Director 1982; Sue Rider, AD 1993 – 2000; Andrew Ross, AD 1982 – 1983; Helen Routh, Council President 1984 – 1986; Babette Stephens, actor from 1930s, Council President 1957-1959, Theatre Director 1960-1968; Kaye Stevenson, actor from 1960s, long-term Council member; Jim Vilé , AD 1986 – 1989, director 1990 to 2000; Muriel Watson, actor from 1950s, Social Committee Chair 1950s -1960s; Craig Whitehead, GM 1998 +; Athol Young, La Boite Board Chair, 1998 +.

Taped interviews conducted by persons other than the researcher and recorded prior to the commencement of this study are also considered valuable data for this study. To help fill the gaps of those deceased or, in one case, not available to be interviewed, I am grateful to Jennifer Radbourne, who kindly lent me a tape of interviews she conducted in 1978 with Jennifer Blocksidge (now deceased) and Rick Billinghurst (unavailable for interview); and Rod Lumer, who lent me a tape of a 1991 interview he and Marguerite Stevenson conducted with Babette Stephens (also deceased).

16 Structure of the Study This chapter, Chapter One, locates the study within the context of the Australian Repertory Movement, presents an overview of the study including its significance and my personal interest, describes the research design, methodology and research methods, and signals the function of each chapter. Chapter Two is a Literature Review of relevant major published works on Australian theatre, a small number of minor publications and several unpublished theses.

Chapter Three analyses the artistic and organizational contribution that co-founders Barbara Sisley and Professor Jeremiah Joseph Stable made to BRTS with a particular focus on the Theatre’s relationship with the Australian play, and argues that the capacity for BRTS to survive and thrive during the first twenty years of its amateur existence had much to do with the quality of their leadership. Chapter Four examines the organizational and artistic contribution of Babette Stephens between 1946-1968 particularly in relation to the acquisition of property, the establishment of La Boite’s first theatre-in-the-round in 1967, the professional standards she aimed for in productions, and the anglo-centric nature of her programming.

Chapter Five focuses on Bruce Blocksidge, Jennifer Blocksidge and Rick Billinghurst as defining forces in BRT’s development between 1969 and 1979. Significant outcomes of their effective leadership, considered important building blocks in the Theatre’s journey, still many years away, to fully professional status, were the opening of Australia’s first purpose-built 200 seat theatre-in-the-round; a dramatic change of repertoire; an important status transition from amateur to pro-am; and the building of a national profile and reputation as an ‘alternative’ theatre company. Chapter Six considers the eventful period between 1979 and 1985 when the initial consolidation of La Boite as a flourishing pro-am theatre by Malcolm Blaylock between 1979 and 1982 was followed by a premature push towards professional status and loss of funding which could have closed the organization except for the determination of its Council and constituency to keep the Theatre ‘alive’.

Chapter Seven analyses Jim Vilé’s contribution as Managing Artistic Director between 1986 and 1989 as a re-energization of La Boite’s activities after a period of

17 stalled development, particularly in relation to the re-affirmation of La Boite’s pro-am status and the growing industry unrest about its ongoing use of unpaid professional theatre workers. Chapter Eight examines the period 1990 to 1992 focussing particularly on David Bell’s ill-fated efforts to take the company, under pressure from the industry and with the support of the Management Committee, into a profit-share arrangement as a transitional step toward the company becoming fully professional.

Chapter Nine is an analysis of Sue Rider’s role in transforming La Boite into a fully professional company with special focus on the resolution of the crisis situation she walked into in 1993, the first year of operations as a funded professional company, and the development of her artistic vision for a distinctly Australian theatre between 1994 and 2000. This section also considers re-location concerns, the Board’s growing sense that it was time for a change of leadership, and the circumstances of Rider’s dismissal.

Chapter Ten examines the drama of the re-location from Hale Street to The Roundhouse at the Creative Industries Precinct, Queensland University of Technology, between 2001 and 2003 and the parts played by General Manager Craig Whitehead, Board Chair Athol Young and Artistic Director Sean Mee. This chapter also evaluates the steps Mee took to stamp his artistic vision on the company to ensure its ongoing viability as a nationally significant theatre company. Chapter Eleven presents the findings of this study within the context of effective leadership and a set of leadership manifestations, it identifies the value of such a study, and signals avenues for further research in the field of Brisbane theatre history.

Appendix 1 lists those who played significant roles in La Boite’s artistic and organizational leadership between 1925 and 2003. Appendix 2 contains short biographies of Sisley, Stephens, Blocksidge, Rider and Stable. Appendix 3 includes a 1931 Smith’s Weekly article and an extract from a George Landen Dann speech, both pertaining to his play In Beauty It Is Finished. Appendix 4 is a complete list of BRTS/BRT/La Boite productions to 2003. The CD-ROM of interview transcripts is Appendix 5.

18 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction In searching the field for published literature to inform my study, I found that very few of the major published works on Australian theatre made more than passing reference to BRTS, BRT or La Boite Theatre. One of the reasons for this scant attention is that, until recently, most scholarly works in the field have concentrated much more on playwrights, plays and theatrical movements than on individual theatre companies. This trend is slowly changing however, and in recent years interest has been focused on organizations and the contributions of their key personnel as sites of research relevant to Australian theatre scholarship. Another reason may well be linked to La Boite’s many decades as an amateur and pro-am company and the perception that organizations such as La Boite were of limited importance to Australia’s theatre history until they reached professional status.

In addition to two theses by Radbourne (1978) and Cullen (1982) respectively , both of which focus on particular eras in La Boite’s history and have already been discussed in Chapter One, a small number of minor publications have also been useful in providing valuable secondary sources on the history of other major theatre groups that existed or continue to exist in Brisbane alongside La Boite and whose ‘stories’ have a bearing on the thesis question.

Major Published Works An example of growing research interest focused on theatre organizations is Julian Meyrick’s history of Nimrod See How it Runs: Nimrod and the New Wave (2002), a text which underlines the usefulness of interrogating such histories as Nimrod’s (and by implication, La Boite’s) to better understand our contemporary Australian theatre practice. His emphasis on connecting Nimrod historically to the repertory movement - “… it is within the context of the ‘repertory idea’ that we should view Nimrod’s foundation and its attempts to explicate a self-image” (2000: 257) - as a way of understanding its evolution has direct relevance to this study and its contextualization.

19 Relevant also is Meyrick’s highlighting of two generations of theatre professionals, the anglo generation and the New Wave generation, as a kind of ‘back story’ to understanding the particular cluster of events pre 1960s and post late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Both “pioneering generations” (ibid.: 5) emerge in my study as shaping La Boite’s evolution during this time frame in ways that paralleled national trends. Barbara Sisley, J.J.Stable and Babette Stephens fit well into the generation that “consciously borrowed their working methods from the British theatre of the time, particularly the better class of regional repertory theatre” while Jennifer Blocksidge (although English by birth), Rick Billinghurst and Malcom Blaylock represent the development of “an alternative sensibility” that was often “self-consciously, even pugnaciously, nationalistic” (ibid.). Harbouring an ambition to become the Nimrod of the North in the early 1980s, La Boite created similar seasons to Nimrod but, unlike Nimrod, survived the life-threatening funding and financial woes that struck both companies in 1982 and 1983. While beyond 1987 the professional Nimrod could not survive financial disarray, the resignation of General Managers, exhaustion of Artistic Directors, the sale of its Surrey Hills home and the move to the Seymour Centre (ibid.: 198-202), the still pro-am La Boite was able to re-ignite its fires, rescued from a similar fate by different forces, the significance of which set this history apart from a history such as Nimrod’s.

A more directly relevant text is the recent publication of Geoffrey Milne’s Theatre Australia (Un)limited: Australian theatre since the 1950s (2004), a major work of enormous scope and range that examines national organizations and institutions as well as state and regional companies and bodies, and delivers, for the first time in one volume, a comprehensive overview of Australian theatre as a national project. One of the functions of this study is to “honour the huge energy, vision and hard work of hundreds of organizations and people before memory of their achievements fades” (Milne, 2004: 3). Within his study, Milne’s observations about La Boite and its development, necessarily in brief, give a snapshot of its evolution relative to progress in the rest of the state of Queensland and the nation, especially regarding the growth (and decline) of professional companies and the “deeper narrative” of subsidy (ibid.: 3), within the contexts of the first wave of Australian theatre 1953 to circa 1969, the second wave to 1981 and the third wave to 1998. Comparisons with the national trends that emerge in Milne’s study are valuable in showing how La Boite, in some

20 ways, followed these trends and in other ways, evolved counter to them. For example during the first wave, counter to the national trend, BRT, along with the other major amateur Brisbane groups, rejected the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust’s offer to form a subsidized professional company, opting to remain amateur, leaving it to the entirely new Queensland Theatre Company to become the flagship state company in 1970.

Other significant exceptions relevant to this study are the authoritative reference book Companion to Theatre in Australia (Parsons, General Editor, 1995), Connie Healy’s Defiance: Political theatre in Brisbane 1930 to 1962 (2000), and Challenging the Centre, Two Decades of Political Theatre (1995) edited by Steve Capelin. In the section on “Amateur Theatre” in the Parsons text, Katharine Brisbane briefly surveys BRT’s early history in the context of the Australian repertory movement, and its post- 1950’s history in the context of its resistance to professionalism and its “steady revolution” under Honorary Director Jennifer Blocksidge, particularly in relation to its “presenting the challenging new writing of the time” (1995: 44). Of significance to this study is Brisbane’s recognition that Australia’s amateur theatre history is worth retrieving for its contribution to “national development” and that this is an area of research still largely unrecognized by historians (ibid.: 38). A separate entry “Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society” written by Sue Cullen (1995:104) gives a brief historical overview from 1925 to 1993.

Defiance – Political theatre in Brisbane 1930-1962 by Brisbane writer Connie Healy (2000) tells a much neglected part of Brisbane’s history – the rise of working class political theatre in the wake of the Great Depression and its mixed fortunes to 1962. Healy concentrates her research on The Workers Educational Association Dramatic Society which existed in Brisbane between 1929 and 1941, and the Student Theatre/Unity/ New Theatre 1936 to 1962. Their raison d’etre, as explained by Healy, was to express their commitment through theatre to “issues of workers’ solidarity and the denunciation of fascism” (Healy, 2000: 13). In terms of repertoire, active participants and audience, the history of these groups provides a very interesting political and cultural contrast to BRT, whose roots were Brisbane’s intelligentsia and whose participants and audience were mainly the upper echelon and middle-class of that society. Not overtly aligned in any way to a particular political persuasion, BRT

21 nevertheless is given special attention by Healy as an amateur theatre group which “deserves to be mentioned in tracing the origins of Brisbane’s political theatre” (ibid.: 42). Commenting on BRTS’s early repertoire, she notes that whilst most of the plays were of the “well-made” variety, plays of “serious social comment” were represented in the works of Shaw, Drinkwater, Galsworthy, Yeats, Synge, Ibsen and Rice (ibid.). Although productions of Australian plays were few in number, they were “encouraged” and she mentions two early productions memorable for their cultural and political content and impact – Betty Roland’s The Touch of Silk and George Landen Dann’s In Beauty It Is Finished. BRTS’s 1929 production of The Touch of Silk, one year after it was written, was a mark of the organisation’s sharp, contemporary orientation; in Healy’s view, the theme of rural isolation raised serious social issues of women’s individuality within marriage (ibid.: 44). Healy calls In Beauty It Is Finished “an exceptional play for the time presenting in sympathetic light a part-Aboriginal character” (ibid.) and briefly outlines the public furore that was acted out through the print media of the day in the lead up to BRTS’s 1931 production, noting that its effect on the organization was “to avoid production of plays which might cause offence or dissension amongst its members or its middle- class audience” (ibid.: 46).

Although Challenging the Centre, Two Decades of Political Theatre: the work of The Popular Theatre Troupe, Order by Numbers and Street Arts Community Theatre Company edited by Steve Capelin, makes little reference to La Boite, it is significant to this study for its documentation of the 1970s and 1980s political and community activism that was core to the work of these companies. They developed not in opposition to, but alongside the ‘alternative’ La Boite, which was also reacting, in its own, less radical way, to the “worst excesses of the Bjelke-Petersen years” (1995: 10). Established in 1974, The Popular Theatre Troupe attracted federal government funding from the Australia Council Community Arts and Theatre Boards but no funding from the deeply conservative Bjelke-Petersen State Government1 (O’Neill in Capelin, 1995: 53). Errol O’Neill comments that “in no other state of the nation was there a theatre group funded by the Australia Council which was not receiving

1 Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the Queensland National Party Premier between 1968 and 1987. The Fitzgerald Inquiry which began in 1987 revealed deep levels of corruption within the Petersen Government including in the police force and the electoral system. In 1989 a Labor Government was elected in Queensland.

22 corresponding funding from its state government” (ibid: 54). It began as a fully professional company with five full time actors, a resident writer and an administrator (ibid: 42). Initially influenced by Britain’s leading light in alternative theatre, Albert Hunt, the second phase was heavily influenced by Richard Fotheringham who wrote and directed six shows for the Troupe (ibid: 45). O’Neill, who made a major contribution to the third phase, certainly as an actor but significantly as resident writer and director with the Company (ibid:37), commented that it was ideology which held the group together between 1975 and 1983 – “a general belief in the need to promote social critiques through the medium of theatre” (ibid: 43). It dealt with contentious issues such as racism, multinational companies, women in the workforce and uranium mining and has the distinction of twice being banned from schools by the Queensland Education Department for encouraging disrespect for law and order (Healy: 198). In 1982 it lost its funding and ceased existence in 1983.

The radically oriented Street Arts Community Theatre Company was founded in 1982 by Dennis Peel, Pauline Peel and Steve Capelin and funded by the Australia Council’s Community Arts Board. Peel outlines the political environment in which this company began its work in 1982: It was the 25th year of what was to be 32 years of conservative government in Queensland. This was an era marked by a “development at all costs” mentality, the anti-street march legislation, the electoral “gerrymander”, the Special Branch, a corrupted police force and little regard for issues such as the environment, women or Aboriginal land rights. (Peel in Capelin, 1995: 99)

Tough times in the early 1990s saw the company almost fold: it left the Paint Factory for a smaller space, grants decreased, there was no corporate sponsorship and internal difficulties were taking their toll (ibid.:137). Stewart and Capelin believe that the company survived 1993 mainly because “Arts Queensland did not want to see another professional Brisbane theatre company follow TN! Theatre Company to the wall” (ibid.: 141). Although not yet a fully professional company, La Boite was also not abandoned by Arts Queensland in these difficult times, probably for much the same reason: that Brisbane’s theatre industry and supporters would not countenance La Boite’s disappearance. Whilst Street Arts’ level of funding was the lowest it had been since 1985, it was able to appoint Brent McGregor as a new coordinator in 1993. Well into the nineties, the company’s work with communities continued but without its

23 former political edge. When McGregor left in 1996, Street Arts, as it had existed, disappeared, to be replaced by Arterial, a visual arts organisation (Milne, 2004: 348).

Two landmark texts on Australian Drama are those by Leslie Rees AM: A History of Australian Drama : Volume 1 The Making of Australian Drama from the 1830s to the late 1960s (1978) and A History of Australian Drama: Volume 2 Australian Drama 1970-1986 A Historical and Critical Survey (1987). Lane refers to these volumes as still comprising “the most comprehensive history of Australian drama, and …the most frequently consulted” (in Parsons, 1995: 483). As the subject of both volumes is a critical and historical survey of Australian playwriting, it would be unfair to expect in Volume 1 much reference to Brisbane Repertory Theatre given the theatre’s only occasional productions of Australian plays between the 1920s and the 1960s. Passing mention is made of BRTS’s production of Australian playwright Vance Palmer’s comedy Christine in 1930 with Ruby May (for whom the play was written) in the title role (Rees, 1978: 150). However, four pages are devoted to a comprehensive account of BRTS’s most controversial happening in its early history revolving around the story of the Theatre’s production of George Landen Dann’s prize-winning play In Beauty It Is Finished (ibid.: 162-165)2, giving weight to my own interpretation of this event as having significance in exposing the kind of cultural context in which BRT was operating in the 1930s and the effect this foray into controversy had on the Theatre’s choice of repertoire.

In Volume 2, an historical and critical survey of Drama between 1970 and 1985, ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’ is referred to only within an appendix which serves as an earnest attempt in this revised 1987 volume to make up for the shortcomings of both volumes in their neglect of Australian theatre companies like La Boite. In his own words this supplement provides facts and figures about: …various repertory, experimental, alternative, community or otherwise non- profit-motivated organisations in giving first or pioneer performances of Australian plays, performances sometimes grandly known as ‘world premieres’…to fill out the picture and allow credit (or sometimes debit) to

2 A fuller account of the controversy surrounding BRTS’s production of In Beauty It Is Finished is contained in Chapter Three.

24 groups which may have received scant mention, if any, in the general text of this volume, or in The Making of Australian Drama. (Rees, 1987: 364)

In a section titled “Into the 1980s”, Rees acknowledges that “In Brisbane the Repertory Theatre at its small La Boite playhouse has led the way in recent years with Australian play premieres” (ibid.:377). Amongst those mentioned are Lorna Bol’s Treadmill, the group devised Fotheringham and O’Toole scripted Happy Birthday East Timor, Stephen Sewell’s The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea, Steve J. Spears’ King Richard, John Bradley’s Irish Stew, Simon Denver’s Sheer Luck, Holmes and Sheik, Rattle ‘n’ Roll, Graeme Johnston’s Back to the Cremorne, and Richard Fotheringham’s Hell and Hay. “With this record”, Rees concludes, “it is no wonder Barry Oakley said: ‘If the frontiers of Brisbane’s drama are going to be expanded, it’s in La Boite’s little space that it will happen.’” (ibid.: 378).

The revised 1987 edition of Contemporary Australian Drama, edited by Peter Holloway and originally published in 1981, is a collection of forty-seven essays that consider historical and critical perspectives of Australian Drama from the 1950s to the 1980s. Amongst the authors are such theatre luminaries as Hugh Hunt, Jack Hibberd, Katharine Brisbane, David Williamson, Dorothy Hewett, John McCallum, Eunice Hangar, Clive James, Peter Fitzpatrick, Veronica Kelly and Barry Oakley. La Boite rates two mentions. The first is a statement that Ray Mathew’s best known and most successful play A Spring Song written in 1958 was first presented at La Boite (1987:193). This is in fact inaccurate: Katharine Brisbane (in Parsons, 1995: 346) accredits Twelfth Night Theatre Company in Brisbane for this occasion and this is supported by Jennifer Radbourne’s research (Appendix IX, 1978: 399) which dates the production as 1958. The second reference (accurate this time) is to Stephen Sewell’s first play The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea which was first performed at La Boite in 1978, when Sewell was living in Brisbane (1987: 565).

This paucity of acknowledgement of La Boite’s role in the development of Australian theatre is also very evident in Leonard Radic’s book The State of Play: The Revolution in the Australian Theatre since the 1960s (1991). Again there are two references to La Boite: one about the already mentioned premiere of Stephen Sewell’s play (1991: 163) and the other about La Boite’s commitment to presenting Australian plays during the 1970s (1991:170). Radic is a theatre critic and his text reflects his

25 preoccupation with theatre in Sydney and Melbourne. In an era dominated politically by the deeply conservative Bjelke-Petersen Government, perhaps the alternative theatre that was going on at La Boite was ignored because of the perception of Brisbane as a cultural backwater.

Australian Contemporary Drama (revised edition) by Dennis Carroll (1995) is a book principally about playwrights with some emphasis on the performance history of major plays. Each chapter is devoted to representative playwrights of particular eras and in Chapter 4, George Landen Dann is featured alongside Dymphna Cusack and Sumner Locke Elliott, writers from the same era (Carroll, 1995: 65-68). Predictably, the furore that surrounded Brisbane Repertory Theatre’s production of In Beauty It Is Finished is highlighted along with a short analysis of his other major play Fountains Beyond, produced by BRT in 1947, which also dealt with Aboriginal issues. Two other references to La Boite are in connection with Stephen Sewell’s two plays that were premiered at La Boite - The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea in 1978 and Miranda in 1989 (ibid.:296-309).

Two texts - Entertaining Australia – The Performing Arts as Cultural History (1991), edited by Katharine Brisbane and Michelle Arrow’s Upstaged – Australian women dramatists in the limelight at last (2002) - have provided context and support for my assertions of the particular role women played in La Boite’s amateur history, its transition to a pro-am theatre and its transformation to a flourishing professional company. The latter text also draws attention to other gaps in Australia’s theatre history that this study is attempting to fill.

In her introduction to Entertaining Australia – The Performing Arts as Cultural History (1991), Brisbane makes an important point relevant to this study concerning the role of women in the developing cultural life of this country. Not only does she refer to the hundreds of female artists like Sarah Bernhardt and Clara Butt - “role models for many aspiring Australians” (Brisbane, Ed.,1991:14) - who performed here in the golden age of entertainment from the 1880s to the 1920s, but also to the women associated with the widespread and influential amateur and semi-professional theatre movement from the 1920s to the 1950s. Acknowledging their crucial role in creating the dynamic, amateur environment from which grew our contemporary professional

26 theatre, Brisbane cites as examples Doris Fritton and Carrie Tennant3, concluding that their contribution has never been sufficiently recognized (ibid.: 15). If Brisbane considers such women as Fitton and Tennant insufficiently acknowledged, then women such as Barbara Sisley, Babette Stephens, Jennifer Blocksidge and Sue Rider, whose names rarely if ever appear in major texts on Australian Drama, are very real silences and gaps in our theatrical history.

Michelle Arrow’s book Upstaged – Australian women dramatists in the limelight at last (2002) was inspired by her acute awareness of the ‘gaps’ and ‘silences’ that relate to Australian female playwrights from the 1920s to the 1960s. Her thesis rests on the premise that the ‘golden age’ of Australian drama is generally considered by Drama historians to be the 1970s when the highly nationalistic New Wave of Australian plays and playwrights (mostly male and part of the dominant baby boomers generation) swept onto Australian stages. Her research shows that post-New Wave histories in books and articles focus on the New Wave era very much at the expense of the pre-1970s history, practically ignoring the significance of the amateur movement, radio drama and women playwrights: “the contribution and achievements of the preceding generation have been all but forgotten, reduced to shadows by the bright light of the new” (2002: 194). She blames the baby boomers and “their control over the stories of Australia’s cultural past … they set the terms of debate and discussion within their paradigms” (ibid.: 195).

As Arrow argues in her analysis of the contribution of women dramatists, the pre- 1960s were not a cultural desert and much of the cultural stimulation for communities across Australia was provided by amateur theatre groups such as the Brisbane Repertory Theatre. The Depression-induced decline of commercial theatre by the 1930s gave cultural space to ordinary people and a consequent burgeoning of amateur theatre groups throughout the country. The history I am interested in reclaiming is a history that for over forty-five years was not strongly influenced by nationalism within its repertoire – and perhaps, for this reason, was sidelined in the past as

3 Doris Fitton DBE founded Independent Theatre (Sydney) in 1930 and was its artistic director until 1977. She jointly founded the Playwrights’ Advisory Board in 1938. Carrie Tennant founded Community Theatre (Sydney) in 1929 and focused the theatre’s activities on Australian plays. (Brebach & Noad in Parsons, 1995: 228)

27 insignificant. Both Brisbane and Arrow have exposed the shallowness of this nationalistic view of our theatre history.

Although for Arrow, the gaps and silences are the neglected women dramatists from the 1920s to the 1960s, it could equally be asserted that they exist in the neglect of key women such as have emerged in this study, as well as histories of theatre companies like La Boite’s, of their artistic directors, playwrights and presidents of Councils, of their theatre spaces and their audiences.

Katharine Brisbane’s Not Wrong Just Different: Observations on the rise of contemporary Australian theatre (2005) combines a collection of her arts journalism and theatre criticism for The Australian between 1967 and 1986 with accompanying commentaries that offer insights into the growth of Australian theatre from her distinctive perspective as a leading arts critic and influential commentator on cultural issues. Although there are few reviews of La Boite productions included in this text, its usefulness to this study are her reflections “from the distance of 2005 the lessons of half a century of observations” (Brisbane, 2005: 6), particularly in relation to the politics of subsidy, her sympathetic engagement with the role of Australia’s amateur theatre in understanding how professional theatre developed, and her thoughts about a more self-sufficient future for the arts: “it is time the arts … began to examine their vested interests and their government-funded advantages and to think about restoring community” (ibid.: 356). A sense of community was crucial to La Boite’s survival through-out its history to 2003; post-2003 in its new environment and with a necessarily pared-down set of activities, how it maintains its community may be just as crucial to its ongoing prosperity and cultural significance.

A recent publication, Dreamers and Visionaries: Adelaide’s Little Theatre from the 1920s to the Early 1940s by Thelma Afford, edited and with additional research by Kerrie Round (2004), is, to my knowledge, the only scholarly publication of its kind that has documented an Australian city’s amateur theatre history, albeit only twenty years of it. Useful for this study is the opportunity the chapter on Adelaide Repertory Theatre (Afford, 2004: 11-44) offers for comparison with BRTS within the timeframe of the 1920s to the 1940s. Like BRTS, it was “the ‘establishment’ ” of the day, programming serious drama that was “orthodox, traditional and non-experimental”

28 but characterized by “sincerity and integrity”. However, also like BRTS it gave “consistent, if limited, encouragement and support to Australian dramatists” (ibid.: 14) especially through playwriting competitions, which gave the Society the opportunity to support Adelaide playwrights (ibid.: 22-25) as BRTS was to do for George Landen Dann.

Minor Published Works Informing my research on Barbara Sisley and Brisbane’s early ‘cultural’ scene was Joan Massey Cook’s self-published book Ponder the path of thy feet: a walk along the paths of the teachers of speech and drama in Brisbane and Queensland, 1916-1990 (1992). Apart from the BRT and G.L.Dann Collections in the Fryer Library, information about Sisley was otherwise difficult to find; Cook’s research based on accounts from people who knew her, although limited in its scope and depth, proved a valuable resource. Another useful small publication was the Queensland Performing Arts Museum’s Treading the Boards: a survey of theatre buildings in Brisbane 1947- 1998 (1999) for its well researched documentation of Brisbane’s theatre buildings and the companies that occupied them. Between 1925 and 1967, BRT productions were accommodated in eight different Brisbane theatre buildings, rented or leased for varying periods of time: Theatre Royal, Cremorne Theatre, Princess Theatre, Bohemia Theatre, His Majesty’s Theatre, Albert Hall, TAA Theatre and Rialto Theatre.

Celebration: Brisbane Arts Theatre – The First Fifty Years 1936-1986 was published in 1987 by Brisbane Arts Theatre and edited by Jennifer Radbourne to celebrate the jubilee of this little theatre which has enjoyed an uninterrupted amateur life to the present day. This small volume combines history, newspaper articles, photographs and reminiscences. Founded in 1936 as Brisbane Amateur Theatres by Jean Trundle (a well-known speech and drama teacher and BRTS actress since 1926), and her husband Vic Hardgraves, its appearance on the Brisbane amateur scene seems to have been in response to “a growing pressure of talent in the field of theatre” (Radbourne, 1987: 9). Indeed, Kruck suggests that a frustrating lack of opportunity to act and/or direct at BRTS was behind the decision to found BAT: “The couple had become frustrated by lack of opportunity as members of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society which was dominated by its chief producer, Barbara Sisley” (in Parsons,

29 1995: 615). In 1947, the name was changed to Brisbane Arts Theatre. Its mission was and is to present plays of popular appeal and its choice for an opening play in May 1936, Leslie Howard’s comedy Tell Me The Truth, got the society’s slogan ‘For Your Entertainment!’ off to a good start (op.cit.).

To 1950, BAT was much more supportive of Australian plays than either of its competitors, BRT and Twelfth Night Theatre (Radbourne, Appendix 1, 1987: 67-68; Radbourne, Appendix IX, 1978: 396-401). Between 1936 and 1950 it had produced twelve Australian plays compared with nine from BRT for the same period and only two from Twelfth Night Theatre (ibid.). Between 1940 and 1942, of the seventeen plays staged, eight were by Australian writers Gwen Meredith, Sumner Locke Elliot, Constance Cummins, Bobby Mack and David Cahill. Radbourne suggests possible reasons for this burst of Australian productions were both pragmatic and patriotic: …Gwen Meredith’s inclusion of more women characters to offset the male gap, lack of overseas communication about new plays, scripts and royalties, and a desire to extend patriotism from support of the armed services to support of everything ‘Australian-made’. Whatever the reasons, they were particular to BAT since neither Repertory Theatre nor Twelfth Night produced any major Australian plays during that period. (Radbourne, 1987: 12)

BRT, BAT and Twelfth Night Theatre all presented their major productions at Albert Hall during the 1950s. Like BRT, BAT yearned for a home of its own and was the first of the trio to establish its own theatre building: in 1959, it bought an old building in Petrie Terrace and converted it into club rooms and a two-tiered 170 seat Arts Theatre which opened in 1961 (ibid.:16). Destroyed by fire in 1964, by June 1965 it had been rebuilt and improved, and it is this building in Petrie Terrace that still entertains its patrons today. As was the case with BRT, a number of actors from the 1950s onwards found their BAT training prepared them for a career in the industry, including John Stanton, Garth Welch, Shane Porteous, Bill Pepper, David Clendinning, Ken Lord, Barry Otto, Betty Ross, Judith McGrath, Carol Burns and Jennifer Flowers (ibid.).

30 Radbourne’s account of the 1966 offer by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust4 to all three amateur companies to establish a professional State Repertory Company is significant for this study as it highlights a perception of BRT’s place in the hierarchy of Brisbane amateur companies in the 1960s. The offer envisaged the merging of assets from the three companies and the establishment in 1967 of a subsidized permanent professional theatre based at the Arts Theatre. The offer attracted media attention; an article by Bob Hart of The Courier Mail is, Radbourne states, “an excellent summary of the state of little theatre at that time” (1987: 34): The Arts Theatre – Brisbane’s most influential little theatre group – will soon be faced with a decision on which the future of local dramatic presentation will rest …the Arts Theatre is the strongest, most financial and most productive of the three groups. Since the opening of the theatre in June last year, they have…provided Brisbane with six nights of theatre each week. Their choice of plays is usually adventurous and the standard of most of their productions is high. The group’s assets total almost $100, 000. And then we have Twelfth Night – rather a different proposition. This group, too, is strong in the field of selection and production. But their theatre – the tiny, 95 seat Gowrie Hall – prevents even the most successful productions from being real moneyspinners. The group’s material assets are small – at best they would amount to about $15, 000. But they have one valuable asset – their energetic, dedicated and tremendously capable director Miss Whalley. And finally, there is Brisbane Repertory. This group has, for years, relied on its large membership - a membership which it is in serious danger of losing. The group’s annual output of production is small. This year it will offer only five major productions. But their biggest problem is in the selection of plays – a field in which their executive flatly refuses to move with the times …The group does not own its own theatre, but possesses real estate holdings in Hale Street which have been estimated to be worth between $20,000 and $30,000. From these facts it becomes obvious that an equal amalgamation of the three groups is out of the question. The Arts have everything they need for professional theatre – an air-conditioned, 182-seat theatre, an active committee, a strong company of players and a reputation for worthwhile theatre which attracts players from both the other groups. The committee is well aware that if they do not merge with the other two groups the offer from the Trust must come their way. As things stand, they have complete control of their theatre – the theatre built by their own hard work and foresight. (ibid.: 34)

All three theatre directors Ray Dunlop (Brisbane Arts Theatre), Babette Stephens (Brisbane Repertory) and Joan Whalley (Twelfth Night Theatre) rejected the offer on behalf of their theatres (ibid.: 36). Radbourne commented that a professional merger

4 The Trust was the fore-runner of the Australian Council for the Arts but with a wider brief to be both a funding body and entrepreneur. Set up in 1954 by Dr H.C.Coombes with Hugh Hunt as its first executive director, it seeded the founding of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the Australian Ballet and the Australian Opera and entrepreneured major productions of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year. The Trust was displaced as a funding body when the Australia Council for the Arts (later the Australia Council) was established in 1968 (Musa in Parsons, 1995: 72).

31 would have spelt the end of “the Little Theatre alternative for actors and audiences in Brisbane” and attributes “the healthy and vital competitive spirit that existed among these three theatres” as forming the right climate in which the Queensland Theatre Company was created (ibid.).

Whilst BAT’s period of greatest achievement was the 1960s, it has continued to provide a much-valued place for amateur actors, directors and designers to learn new skills and practise their craft within a repertoire that, in Radbourne’s words, “does not test its audiences with experiment, but offers comedies, mysteries, thrillers and modern classics” (in Parsons, 1995: 103). Today it operates as Brisbane’s largest community theatre still staging a consistently conservative repertoire, with a shrewd eye for school audiences, of mainly English and American classics, popular dramas, comedies, musicals, children’s theatre, and an annual drama festival, with the occasional programming of an Australian adult or theatre for young people play (www.brisbane247.com/artstheatre/ cited November 7, 2005).

Twelfth Night – The Morning After (1986) edited by Don Batchelor was written to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Twelfth Night Theatre. Unlike BAT’s history, this one does not attempt a chronological history (although there is a very useful chronology at the end of the book) but in Batchelor’s words contains “…some reflections and recollections by a set of people whose relationship with Twelfth Night has been close” (1986: 4). Post-1986 information is sourced from Batchelor and Anthony’s contribution on Twelfth Night in Philip Parsons’ Companion to Theatre in Australia (1995) and Milne’s Theatre Australia (Un) Limited (2004).

Although my study is not a comparative one, inevitably Twelfth Night’s history is of interest for both the similarities and differences in the way each evolved. One similarity was the sustained commitment of women; in Twelfth Night’s case the effective leadership of Rhoda Felgate and Joan Whalley as Directors spanned forty- one years between 1936 and 1977. It is noteworthy, although not unusual in Australian amateur theatre history, that in Brisbane the foundation and many decades of stability of the three major companies can be attributed largely to the artistic direction of a small group a gifted women: Jean Trundle (1936-1965) at the Brisbane Arts Theatre; Rhoda Felgate (1936-1949) and Joan Whalley (1949-1977) at Twelfth

32 Night Theatre; and Barbara Sisley, Babette Stephens, Jennifer Blocksidge at Brisbane Repertory Theatre/La Boite between 1925 and the early 1980s. The major difference is that Twelfth Night Theatre transformed itself into a professional company much faster than BRT, operating in this mode for twenty years until financial instability forced its closure in 1991.

Batchelor’s interview with the founder Rhoda Felgate in The Morning After illuminates why Twelfth Night Theatre was set up: I must pay tribute and thanks to the people who started The Repertory Theatre in 1925. They chose plays to suit both the talents of their acting members and the tastes of their audience and, in a very short time, were attracting a large audience. They did not hold auditions and they didn’t attempt a Drama School of any sort so, before long, there were many members of their audiences – the young and not so young who longed for the opportunity of trying themselves out on the other side of the footlights… So stimulated by The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society, but by no means in competition with Rep., we started Twelfth Night Theatre to give more of these people a chance.

…We would put on a play on one specific night every month…We thought of the first Tuesday in every month or the fourth Friday and all of a sudden the quiet but resonant voice of Tom Stephens said, “Twelfth Night”. (Batchelor, 1986: 8)

In 1936 at Empire Chambers, Wharf Street, Rhoda Felgate directed the inaugural production, Touch Wood by C.L. Anthony, with a cast that included Babette Stephens. In fact, most of the cast were gleaned from BRTS. What was unusual about this theatre group and made it stand apart from the repertory society was its determination from the beginning to restrict membership to 40 (although this grew to 60 within ten years) in order to “maximize opportunities for each actor to perform” (Batchelor and Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 617). From the outset, its stated aim was to provide “an avenue for a small group to study and train in theatrical practice” (ibid.).

From very early on this emphasis on training the actor and director was pronounced. Under the auspices of the theatre, a group of speech teachers formed a speech and drama school with their own paying students at 51 Wickham Terrace. In 1953, Queensland’s first Drama School was set up as a biennial event under the direction of

33 Stanley Hildebrandt5, a phenomenon which continued until 1961 (Batchelor, 1986: 56). Later, the group leased Gowrie Hall, opening in 1957 with Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie directed by Eunice Hanger (ibid.). Albert Hall remained the main venue for productions until 1966; thereafter, until 1969, major shows were performed at Gowrie Hall (ibid.: 57).

After Felgate’s retirement in 1961, Joan Whalley, after two years teaching at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, began her long association with Twelfth Night as Director (ibid.). These many years of striving for excellence in acting and directing paid off with the opening of the Twelfth Night Theatre at Bowen Hills in 1971, made possible by dollar for dollar support from the Queensland Government, and the simultaneous setting up of a professional resident company with Joan Whalley as Artistic Director and Bill Pepper as Associate Director. The triumph of a new building and the professionalization of the company was balanced by the reality of a $150,000 building debt which ballooned to $300,000 by 1976 and caused the retrenchment of the acting ensemble and several difficult years (Milne, 2004: 169).

However, by 1979, with John Milson as Artistic Director, an ensemble of actors had been re-established and the operating name changed to the more upmarket TN! By 1981 the company had freed itself from any association with the Twelfth Night Theatre Complex, performing instead, with great success, in the converted Methodist Church at 112 Brookes Street, Fortitude Valley. When Brookes Street was sold, the company, under the direction of Rod Wissler, moved in 1986 to the Princess Theatre where it continued as a successful professional operation. By 1988, now with Rick Billinghurst as Artistic Director, the company found itself in financial trouble. Whilst Brisbane’s World Expo 88 had a draining effect on TN!’s usual patronage, larger forces were afoot that spelt the demise of TN! by 1991: …an arts bureaucracy appointed by a new Labor State Government was developing new systems and policies. There was a prevailing belief that under the old National Party regime the performing arts, the mainstream theatre companies in particular, had been privileged for many years. TN! fought a losing battle to retain the subsidies that were essential to its survival.

5 Stanley Hildebrandt’s 1937 photograph as Feste became the Twelfth Night logo for many years. He had a long and successful professional career in England before returning to Twelfth Night in 1953 to direct Twelfth Night and Christopher Fry’s First Born.

34 (Batchelor and Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 618)

The late 1980s and early 1990s were dangerous times for La Boite as well as TN! and La Boite was as precariously balanced for total financial ruin as was TN! Yet La Boite was to survive these turbulent times and successfully complete its transformation to a professional company by 1993.

The first two decades of Twelfth Night’s repertoire saw the production of many quality contemporary dramas and drawing room comedies plus a fair sprinkling of Shakespearean works, but no Australian works until the 1949 production of Brisbane writer Eunice Hanger’s play A House is Built, directed by Felgate (Radbourne, 1978: 396- 401). More Australian works crept into the repertoire from the 1960s onwards, one production famously attracting media attention and a court case. In 1969, Twelfth Night’s production of Australian playwright Alexander Buzo’s Norm and Ahmed was the subject of a complaint that resulted in the Queensland Vice Squad arresting actor Norm Staines for obscenity in a public place because of his use in the play of ‘fucking’ in the phrase ‘fucking boong!’ The case went to the Supreme Court where it was dismissed (Kingham in Batchelor, 1986: 21-24). Programming choices were made much more on the directorial and acting challenges of plays and the exciting possibilities for original-looking productions. This guaranteed programming that could be as diverse as possible, that could embrace works by Molière, Ibsen, Brecht, Beckett and Coward as easily as it could program much edgier and more controversial plays by writers like Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill, Dario Fo, David Mamet and Edward Bond (Batchelor in Batchelor, 1986: 40-43) .

To my knowledge, no substantial history of the Queensland Theatre Company, which was established in 1970, has yet been written. Douglas Hedge wrote The Company We Keep – The First Ten Years of the Queensland Theatre Company in 1979 and Greg McCart has contributed a brief history in Parsons’ Companion to Theatre in Australia (1995).

The story of its creation is linked to a federal government initiative that saw professional theatre companies established in most States of Australia. In 1968 the Australian Council for the Arts was established by John Gorton’s Liberal Government

35 to subsidise the performing arts. After the three major amateur groups declined the offer to become the company that could transform into Queensland’s State Theatre, the decision was made to create an entirely new entity. The Queensland Theatre Company became the first federally funded professional theatre company in Queensland and was established by statute in April 1970 (McCart in Parsons, 1996: 475). Its first production was The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer, directed by Bryan Nason and its first artistic director was Alan Edwards who remained in the position until 1988. Successive Artistic Directors have been Aubrey Mellor, Chris Johnston, Robyn Nevin, and the incumbent Michael Gow.

McCart comments that, in its early years “there was … antagonism for some years because of a feeling that the company – and Edwards – had been imposed upon Brisbane at a time when amateur theatre was particularly thriving” (ibid.). Although many local actors were used initially, few local directors or designers were employed by the company in its early years and fewer local actors as the company developed. This led to a perception that lasted for many years that this company had a cultural cringe mentality towards Queensland artists. Certainly some local actors were nurtured by Edwards including Geoffrey Rush, Carol Burns, Bille Brown and Geraldine Turner. During Aubrey Mellor’s time as AD (1989-1993), half the plays in every season were Australian, one Queensland play was produced annually and the George Landen Dann Playwriting Award was established. Mellor’s disapproval of La Boite’s use of professional actors for no pay was a factor in its decision to become a professional theatre company. Robyn Nevin re-invigorated the company after a generally acknowledged lack-lustre period with Chris Johnston as AD, however Nevin’s inclination to cast nationally rather than locally caused old wounds to be opened up. Artistically her time at QTC was successful and she passed on to Michael Gow a company with a strong national reputation. Gow has been the champion of local talent and has mentored emerging artists in a way that is unprecedented in QTC’s history.

This literature review has endeavoured to highlight those texts which have enriched my research either into broad contextual issues, on aspects of La Boite’s history itself, or on Brisbane’s theatrical milieu during the time-span of this study.

36 CHAPTER THREE The Sisley and Stable Era 1925-45 Introduction This chapter argues that the capacity for BRTS to begin its operations with a strong sense of purpose and to survive and thrive during its first twenty years had much to do with the effective and sustained artistic and organizational leadership that co-founders Barbara Sisley and Professor Jeremiah Joseph Stable were able to provide as the Society’s first Senior Producer1 and President respectively. Two world events had the potential to close down a less robust organization, but BRTS was, in the first instance, to survive both the general economic downturn caused by the Great Depression and, in the second, the serious reduction in membership and audience numbers, and the absence of key personnel including Stable himself, caused by Australia’s involvement in World War Two. In its seventh year of operations, it also survived a savage media campaign to derail a premiere production of George Landen Dann’s In Beauty It Is Finished.

As the only major amateur group in Brisbane for the first eleven years of its life, BRTS quickly established itself as a significant cultural entity in Brisbane: true to Repertory principles, it produced plays – some Australian - of literary and educational merit not usually seen on the commercial stage; it attracted talented amateur actors and directors, many from private speech and drama studios; it developed a strong audience base of loyal and mainly well educated members; it attracted and, when necessary, carefully managed, media interest from major Brisbane newspapers in its productions, developments and controversies.

Part One of this chapter focuses on the setting up of BRTS in 1925 and on the co- founder’s organizational leadership over the next twenty years. Part Two analyses BRTS’s relationship with the Australian play with a particular focus on the In Beauty It Is Finished episode. Part Three examines Sisley’s artistic leadership and evaluates her contribution to its theatrical development to 1945.

1 Although there was no such position as theatre director or artistic director at this time, Sisley, as ‘Senior Producer’, operated as a ‘de-facto’ artistic director influencing programming and casting and undertaking the majority of the directing during the twenty years of her involvement. The term ‘producer’ remained in use until replaced by ‘director’ in the early 1960s.

PART ONE The Establishment of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society • Co-founders - the artist and the academic Revered for many decades as the original, passionate, artistic presence who created the ‘idea’ of BRTS, and who went on to devote much of her life to it, Sisley is the first of a group of women whose significance in the Theatre’s progression is examined in this thesis. That in 1945 she died tragically in an accident at a time when she was still in full flight in her theatrical career, adds a poignancy to a life twenty years of which were dedicated to creating and sustaining a repertory

theatre of the highest possible standards in Brisbane. A short biography of Barbara Sisley can be read in Appendix 22.

It was Sisley’s idea to start a repertory society in Brisbane, and her background gave her appropriate qualifications for such a task (Cook, 1992: 30; Dann, 1956). A professionally trained actor, fresh from a year’s study at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, “well-established as a leader in the cultural life of Brisbane” and acknowledged as “the leader of speech training in Brisbane” (Cook, 1992: 21-22), she was well placed to enthuse her many students and like-minded colleagues to join her in its realisation.

Beyond Sisley’s own clique however, the Brisbane community was ready to welcome and support a major amateur theatre organization. A city that already had a fifty year acquaintance with professional theatre, outstanding or otherwise, from international and national touring theatrical companies - Fotheringham notes that “during the prosperous 1920s there were at least 70 opening nights each year, with a peak of more than 100 in 1923” (in Parsons, 1995: 101) – Brisbane could claim a culturally well-

2 The photograph of Barbara Sisley 1885-1945, circa 1939, was sourced in Cook, 1992: 23.

38 educated, middle-class society ready and available in 1925 to support and participate in an amateur repertory theatre company.

Stable’s3 contribution to BRTS’s establishment, stability and growth over the twenty years he was involved as its first President, is, on the surface, less apparent than Sisley’s. She was the artist – the director and actor – and has enjoyed, at least in people’s memory, the high profile that goes with these roles. He was the President; his time was consumed by organizational matters, running meetings, encouraging membership, dealing with the media, guiding repertoire rather than contributing as an artist. Yet he, just as profoundly as Sisley, was key to starting the organization off with well defined and secure foundations and to its prospering without faltering for the next twenty years. Indeed, the moment when the Society could have floundered – the crisis surrounding the In Beauty It Is Finished production – was so well ‘stage managed’ by Stable that the impending disaster for the Theatre was turned into a sell- out success with supportive press coverage.

When asked by Sisley for his support in the creation of a repertory theatre company in Brisbane, Stable readily agreed (Dann, 1956, UQFL65 Box 1 File 6). At the time he was Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Queensland 4 and President of the Queensland University Dramatic Society (Dramsoc), an organization he co-founded in 1912 (Gregory, 1987: 148; UQ Gazette, June 1953: 7 in S135 J.J.Stable). Passionate about nurturing Australian writing, he was the inaugural President of the Queensland Authors’ and Artists’ Association, a position he held from 1922 to 1931 and was instrumental in establishing, at Queensland

3 The photograph of Stable 1883-1953, circa 1922, was sourced in Cook, 1992: 23. 4 Stable was also President of the English and Modern Languages Association of Queensland for twenty-five years and Vice-President of the Brisbane Shakespeare Society (ibid.:2). Highlights of Stable’s academic career included his appointment in 1922 as the McCaughey Professor of English and Modern Languages and in 1932 the Darnell Professor of English. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1932 until 1939, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and President of the Board of Faculties, a position equivalent to a modern Vice-Chancellor (Gregory, 1987: 148).

39 University, Australia’s first university course in Australian Literature (UQ Gazette, June 1953: 2-6). With these credentials, it is easy to see why Sisley considered him eminently suitable to co-found Brisbane’s first repertory theatre society.

Stable and Sisley’s next step was to invite members of the public to form the Society’s first Executive Committee. This Committee, instrumental in establishing the Society, is noteworthy because of the upper-echelon of Brisbane society it represented – there were two Archbishops, two Professors, one Doctor and one Honorourable. Within this foundational committee was a highly influential mix of the clergy, the intelligentsia, the medical profession and the political sphere. The Officers of the Society for that first Committee were: President, Professor J.J.Stable; Vice-Presidents: Archbishop Sharp (Church of England), Archbishop Duhig (Catholic), Hon.A.J. Thynne, Dr. Lockhart Gibson; Hon. Treasurer, Professor J.L. Michie (University of Queensland); Hon. Secretary, Miss Mona MacDairmid5 (The Dover Road Program, 1925, La Boite Archives).

• Guided by ‘Repertory’ rules The first BRTS Constitution6 dictated, from the outset, the overall objectives of the organization, which were: “To stimulate public interest and to promote public education in the drama and to encourage the study and development of the best in dramatic literature and art” and “To produce from time to time plays of literary merit, not usually presented upon the commercial stage” (Constitution Document 1933, UQFL109 Box 1.2) 7. Such objectives were not plucked from the air; the Society was

5 The first General Committee members were: Professor Stable, Professor Michie, Miss MacDiarmid, Miss Barbara Sisley, Mrs P.J. Symes, Mr A.D. Graham, Mr W. Alan Devereux, and Mr L.Townsend. (The Dover Road Program, 1925, La Boite Archives). 6 The 1933 Constitution is the earliest version available in the BRT Collection in the Fryer Library. This version was published as a requirement of the Theatre’s Incorporation on November 27, 1933. 7 The other main Articles of the Association in the Incorporation document were: • To produce plays and to arrange readings of plays for transmission by radio broadcast or other form of wireless communication. • To engage in the production of plays for cinematographic reproduction. • To provide opportunities for proper training of members in elocutionary and dramatic art and stagecraft by means of lectures, classes and performances. • To test, by examination and otherwise, the competency of persons seeking to be enrolled as acting members of the Society, to award certificates and to institute, establish and found scholarships and bursaries, grants, rewards and other benefactions.

40 following the “general rules for Repertory work” (The Dover Road Program, 1925, La Boite Archives) to which all other Australian repertory societies generally adhered. An elaboration of that objective appeared on the first page of BRTS’s first program: The plays selected must be plays of literary or dramatic merit, old or modern, that the public might not otherwise have the opportunity of seeing, care being taken to give the members of the society and the audience as much variety as possible. But always, and this is the main feature of the Repertory, the play is the thing. The actor, however good he [sic] may be, is given no undue prominence, the scenery must always be simple, a background to harmonise with the play, and nothing more. As its main motive, the Repertory movement has in view the restoration of the regular drama to its rightful position in our social life, that of a form of entertainment ranking as a valuable educational and moral force in the community. (The Dover Road Program, 1925, La Boite Archives)

Given its prominence as the very first thing audience members would read in their program on their first night at a BRTS performance, these rules can be taken as the philosophy behind the Society’s establishment and thus provide some background to play choices and some indication of what was to be emphasised in terms of performance and production values.

• First seasons of ‘safe but unimpeachable’ plays The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society announced its arrival on Friday July 31, 1925 with a one night season of The Dover Road, a comedy in three acts by A.A.Milne, directed by Sisley. The following day, The Brisbane Courier greeted this debut performance with great enthusiasm, reviewing the play within the context of the Australia-wide repertory movement, declaring that: …this dictum which was laid down by Gregan McMahon, father of the repertory movement in Australia, was followed scrupulously by the Repertory Society of Brisbane at its first performance at the Theatre Royal last night. Nothing was left to chance. The cast was admirably chosen, and the large audience – a most encouraging start off for the society – was held by the splendid acting for two hours and three-quarters. The players, one and all, rose to the occasion, and satisfied the sceptics that the repertory movement in Brisbane has come to stay. (UQFL109 Box 69/1 The Brisbane Courier: August 1, 1925)

• To encourage the writing of plays by holding of competitions or the offer of prizes or awards, and to provide facilities for the production of such plays as may be considered to possess sufficient merit. (Constitution UQFL109 Box 1, File 2)

41 The venue for this inaugural production was the Theatre Royal in Elizabeth Street, which went on to accommodate twelve major Repertory productions until 1934. That BRTS chose to open its first production and remain for ten years in one of Brisbane’s most prestigious theatres, the venue for visiting companies such as J.C.Williamson Ltd., the Taits, the Fullers and the Allan Wilkie Company (Treading the Boards, 1999: 17), speaks volumes about the stature and the professional standards it aspired to. BRTS was never to be a repertory company relegated to the suburbs; it always chose to perform in theatres either in or near the city. This remained the case when BRT bought land and built La Boite theatre in inner-city Petrie Terrace and later relocated to The Roundhouse in Kelvin Grove, also close to the city.

Following The Dover Road was the September 1925 two night season of Alice-Sit-By- The-Fire by J.M.Barrie, directed by Lewis Townsend. Ten years later, a Teleradio retrospective on the Society’s first ten years described these choices as “two safe but unimpeachable ‘Rep’ plays that helped to steady its first feet” (Free-Lance “The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society: An Appreciation,” in Teleradio May 25, 1935, UQFL109 Box 69). The final production for 1925 was an October two-night season of four one act plays, all also ‘safe and unimpeachable’ and of sound literary merit (see Appendix 4).

All three seasons were conservative choices – “nothing any of the 175 foundation members could take offence over” (Dann, 1956, UQFL65 Box 1, E6) but Sisley and Stable were wise in not offending any audience members in that foundational year knowing that the Society’s survival depended on ongoing member support. More challenging plays were introduced the following year with three seasons consisting of Clemence Dane’s contemporary play A Bill of Divorcement, George Bernard Shaw’s classic Candida and its first Australian play, Vance Palmer’s A Happy Family. This careful relationship with its constituency, cemented in its early years, continued as an ongoing, positive feature of the Theatre’s mode of operation. The pay-off of a loyal and supportive constituency was to be the Theatre’s capacity to survive a number of crises and progress the theatre through radical parts of its evolution even when some of the constituency opposed proposed changes.

42 Stable’s Leadership 1925-1945 Once established, growth and development, despite financial difficulties, over the next twenty years was possible because of the business-like way in which BRTS was nurtured during Stable’s term, until his retirement from office in 1945. Executive and General Committee members, all volunteers, took their roles seriously; it was not unusual for meetings to be held four times a month and certainly twice a month almost without fail, indicating how committed and hard-working was this small group of people (Executive Committee Minutes 1928-1945, UQFL 109, Boxes 1-4).

• Building membership a priority From the beginning, revenue raised by membership was the life-blood of BRTS, as it was for any amateur theatre group in Australia. As its emergence coincided with the sudden decline of the professional legitimate theatre, due mainly to the Great Depression and the introduction of talking films (Fotheringham in Parsons, 1995: 40), BRTS was able to capitalize on this lack of competition by capturing membership from a community starved of opportunities to see good theatre. Although records for the first three years of the Society’s existence are scant, The Dover Road program records that there was a healthy 175 who had taken up membership by July 1925, paying an annual fee of £1.7.68 (Christine Program, 1930, La Boite Archives). Through the depression years, membership grew, reaching 400 in 1934. The strange phenomenon of amateur ‘projects’ thriving during the depression is commented on by Rees: “It is true that while the commercial theatre suffered, the depression in some ways encouraged do-it-yourself projects in the theatre, so long as they did not involve a great deal of money” (1978: 154). World War Two had the opposite effect, plummeting membership to an all-time low of 70. After 1945 it steadily increased, reaching “the highest yet recorded” (exact number not recorded) in 1946 (Box 3 Annual Report 1946, UQFL65). Like all Repertory societies throughout Australia, BRTS relied on subscriptions from members for its financial viability so it is not surprising that one of the most persistent refrains woven through all of Stable’s Annual Reports to members (of those available in the incomplete archival collection)

8 Unchanged throughout Stable’s time as President, this fee entitled members to three reserved seats for each production plus invitations to one-act plays, readings and lectures that the Society held from time to time. There were originally three categories of membership: Subscribing, Acting, and Producing Members.

43 was a plea to do everything possible to increase membership (Annual Reports 1931, 1934, UQFL65 Box 3; Annual Reports 1937, 1939, 1942, UQFL109 Box 4.10).

• Dynamic evolution through affordable innovations By the late 1920s, with membership on the rise, BRTS could afford some innovations: from at least 1928, a director’s fee of between 15 and 20 guineas became established practice, a very generous amount for this era and an indication of the emphasis placed on the expectation, at least, of high directorial standards (Executive Committee Minutes Nov. 6, 1928; May 10, 1932, UQFL109 Box 1); in 1930, with £595 in the bank, a £50 prize for a National Playwriting Competition was announced; and, in the same year, after a five year period of nomadic existence, the Society acquired a two year lease on a meeting room at Epworth House in Albert Street (ibid.: Dec. 6, 1930) before a more permanent move to Empire Chambers, a venue it hired for many years9.

Another sign of the growing financial confidence and the urge to professionalize activities previously undertaken by a volunteer committee, was the appointment in 1931 of Mr. S. Palmer as a paid secretary on a salary of £30 per annum, replacing the Honorary Secretary, Irene Silvester (Minutes Feb. 10, 1931, UQFL109 Box 1). This Secretarial position, which became full-time in 1946, was the only paid position until the appointment of an Executive Officer in 1973.

• Involvement in early ABC Radio Drama Furthering their ‘professional’ reputation was BRTS’s involvement in an Australian- wide innovation, initiated by the newly formed Australian Broadcasting Commission, of broadcasting radio plays (Rees in Parsons, 1995: 478). By 1934 the Society’s broadcasting of plays on Brisbane’s National Network Station 4QG had become “a distinct feature of the work of the Society” and was considered a most valuable artistic endeavour because it brought “the work of the Society under the notice of a wide circle of listeners” and also “assisted in the financial administration of the Society” (Annual Report 1934, UQFL65). Sixteen plays were broadcast that year, arranged by Sisley, Rhoda Felgate, Dulcie Scott, Jum Pendleton and Stable. While it

9 Before 1930, the Committee had shifted its meetings from place to place including 393 George Street, Barbara Sisley’s Studio in Adelaide Street, Lyceum Club Room in Edward Street, the Queensland School of Dancing Studio, the New Town Hall, the Queensland Book Depot Room, and the Anne Hathaway Café in the city (Executive Committee Minutes Dec. 6, 1930, UQFL109 Box 1).

44 lasted, this involvement in broadcasting was a very good strategic move and assisted both image and finances. It was an early example of professional aspirations and recognition of the directing and acting capabilities of BRTS members.

• Crippling venue costs puts ‘a home of our own’ on the agenda The reliance on the need for ever-increasing membership to off-set the ever- increasing cost of theatre hire was a burden Stable and his Council10 carried for the twenty years of his tenure. With no ‘home’ for over 40 years, BRTS, at various times, hired or leased all the well known spaces in Brisbane including the Theatre Royal, the original Cremorne Theatre, His/Her Majesty’s Theatre11, Old Bohemia, Albert Hall, Princess Theatre, and Rialto Theatre for its major productions, as well as an assortment of church halls for one-act play evenings, rehearsals and play readings. The ‘venue’ issue emerged as a regular theme in Minutes of Council meetings and in Annual Reports to members, overlaid by a consistently uttered aim to buy property when the Society could afford it, in order to have their own theatre – a home of their own – an objective driven by crippling hire costs. In 1931, for example, the hiring of His Majesty’s for three of the four production seasons, including the sell out season of In Beauty It Is Finished, had benefited the Theatre’s public profile but had “somewhat serious results on the financial position”(Minutes July 21, 1931, UQFL109 Box 3). Hoping that the Society, in Stable’s words “would soon be in a position to acquire property for the purposes of a Theatre”, it became an incorporated body at a Special General Meeting of the membership in 1933, in preparation for just this kind of development. (Special General Meeting Minutes Nov. 27, 1933, UQFL109 Box 3).

Venue expenses reached crisis point in 1934 when the Cremorne, ‘home’ to its productions since 1929, became unavailable due to its reconstruction into a Picture Theatre. After an expensive eleventh hour rescue by the Theatre Royal for its first production, a costly twenty week lease arrangement was entered into with the Princess Theatre, located (not all that conveniently but at least close to the city) on Annerley Road, Woolloongabba (Minutes of Special Meeting of Council, July 16, 1934, UQFL109). Facing a disappointing loss of £104 for the year, Stable began to

10 The term ‘Council’ replaced ‘Committee” on the organization’s Incorporation in 1933. 11 Originally called Her Imperial Majesty’s Opera House when it opened in 1888, it was reopened as His Majesty’s Theatre in 1901, rebuilt in 1929, later named Her Majesty’s and demolished in 1983.

45 seriously search for a building suitable for conversion to a theatre. However, a proposal to the Queensland Commissioner for Railways to convert one of their buildings in Wickham Terrace into a theatre for BRTS came to nothing (Annual Report 1934, UQFL65 Box 3). Instead, the Princess Theatre lease became a much more permanent arrangement, lasting until the end of 1941 and accommodating over eight seasons of fifty-seven BRTS productions.

The cementing of the ideal of a home of their own in the first twenty years of the Society’s existence, although not realized in this era, was an important psychological gesture that looked to the future and was kept on the agenda until it was able to be actioned in the 1950s with the buying of property, the conversion of one of their properties into the first La Boite in 1967, and the opening of the purpose-built La Boite Theatre in 1972.

• Artistic excesses tempered by sound management Probably because of the all-year availability of the leased Princess Theatre and initial fears about competition from the newly formed Twelfth Night Theatre and Brisbane Amateur Theatres, the Council decided to try to increase its revenue by programming an unprecedentedly large season of ten plays for 1936, each on three consecutive Saturday nights making a continuous season of 30 consecutive weeks. It was an extremely ambitious season, with something for everyone plus repeat productions of The Dover Road and the Australian play The Touch of Silk by Betty Roland. Light contemporary plays blended with Goldsmith’s costume comedy She Stoops to Conquer, the Chinese play Lady Precious Stream by S.I.Hsiung, Priestley’s The Roundabout and Shakespeare’s Hamlet12. In his 1937 annual report, Stable justified it as an experiment worth doing but concluded that the lack of audience support (possibly due to the unevenness of expertise among the six different directors) and the extra expense of producing four more plays than usual, left the Society in a financial position “that could only be regarded seriously” – a loss of £222.1.6 (Annual Report 1937, UQFL65, Box 3).

12 Hamlet was played by well known local actor Leo Guyatt and Horatio by a young John McCallum (Covell, The Courier Mail, Jan. 30, 1956).

46 By the end of 1937 this situation of financial loss had been turned around with the Society recording a surplus of £152.27. There were two reasons for this, one related to financial management and the other to artistic policy. At this stage in the Society’s history, it was fortuitous that a very capable financial manager Tom Stephens (husband to Babette Stephens), a solicitor, was Honorary Treasurer. Under his guidance the extravagance of 1936 was not repeated. Instead, in 1937 the number of plays was reduced to six and played for two consecutive nights each, on the Thursday and Friday of each month. Stable directly attributes the turnaround of the Society’s fortunes to Stephens and his Financial Sub-Committee’s very careful financial management and membership increase to 41613 (ibid.).

• Moves towards a ‘house style’ - the ‘one producer’ policy The second reason for the improved financial position was related to a policy change “to entrust the productions of the Society to one Producer” (Stable’s Annual Report 1937, UQFL65, Box 3). It would seem that Stable and his Council were responding not only to the uneven direction of the six different ‘producers’ the year before, but to competition from the other recently formed amateur theatre groups in Brisbane, Twelfth Night Theatre founded by Rhoda Felgate and Brisbane Amateur Theatres (later Brisbane Arts Theatre), founded by Jean Trundle and her husband Vic Hardgraves14: “It was felt that with the increasing interest that was being shown, as evidenced by the formation of a number of other amateur dramatic bodies, the work of the Society should follow a distinct line and be characterised by a definite expression of dramatic values” (ibid.). So, in an endeavour to create a ‘house style’ and to ensure consistently high quality artistic product, the Council made the decision to appoint Barbara Sisley as the Society’s only director for the 1937 season. She directed all eight productions in 1937 and was paid a Producer’s Fee of £58.5.6 for

13 Contributing to the revenue flow was the inaugural Repertory Ball, held at the Belle Vue Hotel and organised by popular new member, Babette Stephens and her committee of ladies. It proved to be a money spinner for the Society and remained a feature of Brisbane’s social calendar for decades, an example of how the Theatre’s constituency was sustained and developed and money raised through social events. 14 Both Rhoda Felgate and Jean Trundle made important early artistic contributions to Repertory but both had their own ideas about the kind of theatre they wanted to bring to the Brisbane public. In 1936 Rhoda Felgate founded the Twelfth Night Theatre as an amateur company which metamorphosed into the professional company TN! which closed in 1991. In 1936 Jean Trundle co-founded the Brisbane Amateur Theatres with Vic Hardgraves. The name was eventually changed to The Brisbane Arts Theatre and continues its vigorous life today as Brisbane’s leading amateur company. Felgate directed sixteen major productions for BRTS (including two which she co-directed with Sisley) between 1926 and 1936.

47 the year’s work (BRTS Revenue Account, 1st Jan. to 31st Dec. 1937, UQFL65, Box 3). It was a positive move for BRTS – “the success which has been attained during the year seems to indicate that the experiment has not been without value to the Society” (ibid.). Although 1937 was the only year that Sisley directed every production, she continued to dominate directing until her death in 1945.

• As war approaches serious venue-related debt increases Despite its financial turnaround in 1937, by the end of 1939 the cost of leasing the Princess had put such a financial strain on BRTS that it owed money to the Bank of New South Wales for a loan and “Sundry Creditors” totalling £550.11.11 (BRTS Balance Sheet as at 31st Dec.1939, UQFL65 Box 3). Anxious about the Society’s inability to overcome its debts, the Council called a Special General Meeting for members in October, 1939. While Tom Stephens, presiding as Chairman, said that “there was not the slightest cause for alarm” the Council asked for the members’ support to liquidate the debt (Minutes of Special General Meeting Oct. 16, 1939, UQFL109 Box 4.10). As some members could afford to make more of a contribution, a Debt Redemption Fund was set up and a small sub-committee appointed to manage it. By the end of the year, £96.6.3 had been raised by BRTS’s loyal constituency. However, the Council realized that to wipe out the whole debt in a few months would not be possible given “the unsettled conditions prevailing at the time due to the war” (Annual Report 1939, UQFL65 Box 3). The tight financial situation was somewhat lessened from 1940 when the lease for The Princess Theatre went not to BRTS but to a motion picture exhibitor whose owners agreed to allow the Society to continue holding its productions there at a considerably reduced cost (ibid.).

Effects of World War Two From 1940 the effects of World War Two really began to impact on BRTS. With key members disappearing from the Council to support the war effort and membership numbers declining, it was an enormous tribute to the Society’s determination and staying-power that each year during the war, a season of six or seven plays was performed. In January 1940, the Chairman Tom Stephens15 informed the Council that “owing to military duties, he would not be available for any executive office this

15 Stephens chaired meetings in Stable’s absence due to his war-related duties.

48 year”. (Minutes Jan. 25, 1940, UQFL 109 Box 4.10). Then, in December 1940, Professor Stable tendered his resignation as President “owing to his continued inability to take an active part in the Society’s work” because of his war commitments16 (Meeting Minutes Dec. 12, 1940, UQFL109 Box 4.10). The Council, strongly opposed to the resignation of their influential President reached a compromise position – he was to retain his position as President on Leave, and an Acting President, Mr F.O.Nixon, the Vice-President, was appointed. The same thing happened the following year: despite Stable not having attended a play or a meeting, and once more tendering his resignation, he was once again re-elected as President with leave of absence (AGM Minutes, Feb. 17, 1942, UQFL109 Box 4.10). George Landen Dann was also temporarily lost to the Society because of military duties.

1942 was the most difficult of the war years for the Society. Subscriptions plummeted to about 70 because so many members were evacuated and others, particularly acting members, joined up in the services. Black-out conditions meant that people stayed away from productions in droves, to the extent that the seasons per play were reduced to one night only. A Saturday matinee was tried, but without success. The Honorary Treasurer, Mr Lloyd, reported a loss of £131.8.4 despite having reduced expenditure to an absolute minimum (Annual Report 1942, UQFL109 Box 4).

On the bright side, the Society’s relationship with the Princess had ceased and a new relationship was established with the Albert Hall, a move well received by members, and one that lasted for 25 years, until 1967. A much more optimistic year was experienced in 1943, and Stable was able to report: The activities and the progress made in that period [1943], have been so encouraging that a feeling of optimism in the current year’s prospects is well Albert Hall circa 1942 (State Library of Queensland) justified. There have been several lean years, due to the war and other lesser reasons, during which the

16 Stable was appointed Queensland’s Chief Censor during both World Wars.

49 membership declined; but I am happy to state that a considerable increase in the number of members marks the year under review. The Financial result … is most encouraging. … For the previous eight years the Annual period has ended with an over-draft and some unpaid accounts. The year under review ended with an appreciable bank credit balance, no current debts…. (AGM Minutes Feb. 15, 1944, UQFL109 Box 4.10)

The good times continued in 1944 making it “the most successful year from a financial standpoint in the Society’s history” (AGM Minutes Feb. 19, 1945, UQFL109 Box 4.10). During this time of stability and financial security, Stable decided that 1945 would be his last year in office, thus ending the longest Presidency in La Boite’s history to date. In fact, this period of stability was to be short-lived: the double blow of Stable’s retirement and Sisley’s unexpected death coupled with post- war difficulties created new challenges for BRT.

PART TWO A Commitment to the Australian Play – the rhetoric and the reality • The influence of Stable and Sisley Stable, a supporter of Australian literature (as outlined earlier in this chapter), was keen to encourage the writing and producing of Australian plays. This aim was embedded in Object 3 (j) of the Constitution: “To encourage the writing of plays by holding of competitions or the offer of prizes or awards, and to provide facilities for the production of such plays as may be considered to possess sufficient merit” (BRTS Constitution, UQFL109 Box 1). The encouragement of Australian playwriting and productions was a common ideal in the major Australian repertory societies but, as Batchelor notes “rare for real commitment to be made effective action” (1995: 69). BRTS did more than pay lip service to this ideal; in the twenty years to 1945 it managed eleven productions of Australian plays and occasionally had one act plays or play readings of new works in the Society rooms17. Whilst BRTS could not claim to be in the same league as the Repertory Club of Perth that produced thirty productions of new Australians works between 1932 and 1942 (King & Simmons in Parsons, 1995: 494), Stable and Sisley were probably right in judging that overloading their repertoire with Australian plays may not have advantaged the Society in the crucial

17 For example, in 1934, an evening of one act plays by Brisbane writers, all directed by Jum Pendleton, included The Days of Roses by George Landen Dann, Weep and You Weep Alone by Alexia Drake and The Ruling Passion by Dr. J.V.Duhig

50 task of building membership. Australia was still in the grip of ‘cultural cringe’ so a heavier emphasis on British and American plays was a safer bet for BRTS’s sustainability. Having said that however, the Australian seasons, especially Landen Dann’s plays, were almost always well received by audiences. For example, Stable wrote in his 1939 Annual Report that the production of Dann’s A Second Moses “provided easily the most outstanding event of the theatrical year in Brisbane” (Annual Report 1939, UQFL65 Box 3). In a not unusual trend in little theatres and repertory societies18, BRTS took a keen interest in promoting the work of member and local playwright, George Landen Dann, producing four of his plays in mainhouse seasons between 1931 and 1947. Indeed, it is clear from my archival research that Sisley was friend and mentor to Dann, encouraging him in his writing endeavours and directing all three of his plays that BRTS programmed during her twenty years as Senior Producer.

The “holding of competitions” part of Object 3 (j) was taken seriously by BRTS, actioned in 1931 through a national playwriting competition19. The public furore surrounding the choice of winning play tested the diplomacy and media skills of Stable and threatened to besmirch the good reputation of the Society. Instead, Stable achieved what would today be called a ‘media coup’, turning the bad publicity to the Society’s advantage through his careful handling of the whole episode. This ordeal was the first of many crises that were successfully negotiated in the history of the Theatre and is analysed in detail later in this section.

• The first Australian productions Repertory’s first Australian play was its 1926 production of A Happy Family by Bundaberg born playwright Vance Palmer20, directed by Rhoda Felgate with herself and Jean Trundle in leading roles. This play, Palmer’s first, written in 1915, had

18 Other examples of such relationships are Canberra Repertory Society and Ric Throssell; Twelfth Night Theatre and Eunice Hanger; The Independent and Sumner Locke Elliott. 19 The playwriting competition was a popular phenomenon amongst Australian repertory societies which gave playwrights their best chance of a production during an era “where the tradition and rewards of writing plays were uncertain and playwrights needed encouragement” (Rees in Parsons, 1995: 457). 20 Born in Bundaberg in 1895, Vance Palmer wrote about seven plays but was best known for his novels, short stories and literary journalism (McCallum in Parsons, 1995: 442).

51 already been produced in Melbourne in the early 1920s by the Pioneer Players21, a group with which he had been closely associated. No other Australian plays were included in the Society’s seasons until the 1929 production of Betty Davies’22 The Touch of Silk, a sensitive portrayal of the troubled relationship between a World War One veteran Jim Davidson and his French wife Jeanne, set against the background of drought-stricken rural Australia. Just the year before, it had premiered with the Melbourne Repertory Theatre Company, so this was swift action on BRTS’s part to acquire the play so quickly. The BRTS Play Selection Committee received the script in May and by September the Executive Committee had agreed that Felgate should direct, and Dulcie Scott, a former professional actress and prominent BRTS performer, was cast in the lead role23 (Minutes, Sept. 20 & Oct. 1, 1929, UQFL109 Box 1). Betty Roland was interested enough in this production of her play to accept an invitation to the opening night at the Bohemia Theatre on 8 November (Minutes 29 Oct. 1929, UQFL109 Box 1). A letter arrived soon after “congratulating the Society on the success of her play The Touch of Silk” (Minutes 26 Nov. 1929).

• Stable’s public commitment to the Australian play After the success of The Touch of Silk, in a letter he wrote to The Brisbane Courier in 1930, Stable announced his Society’s determination to support Australian playwrights by “producing one Australian play each year” although he noted “the great difficulty in obtaining work of a suitable standard” (“Letter to the Editor” in The Brisbane Courier, Nov. 3, 1930, UQFL109 Box 69). His thoughts on a playwright’s need for an experimental space such as BRTS could provide showed a keen understanding of what was missing in the nurturing of Australian writing – a place to try out and refine material before it is presented at a major professional venue:

What the Repertory Movement has done and is doing for dramatic literature in England, The Repertory Movement in Australia can do for Australian drama. At present playwriting in Australia is but rarely attempted, and, when attempted, except on rare occasions, can find no public hearing. This surely is not evidence of lack of dramatic ability in our midst, but means lack of the

21 The Pioneer Players, formed by Louis Esson, Palmer and Stewart Macky in 1922 to promote Australian plays closed in disillusionment in 1926 (Rees, 1978). 22 At this stage of her life, she was married to Ellis Davies and known as Betty Davies. In 1933, after running away to Russia with communist Guido Baracchi, she changed her name to Betty Roland (Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 506). 23 Dulcie Scott’s performance as Jeanne was remembered as a “magnificent success” by Free-Lance in a tribute to BRTS’s ten years of theatrical activity (Teleradio, May 25, 1935).

52 necessary experimental facilities the would-be dramatist must enjoy if he is to succeed. The Repertory Movement can and does offer such facilities; indeed it is anxious to encourage in every way within its power the production of new plays based on national conditions of life. (ibid.)

• Australian premiere of Vance Palmer’s Christine

The second part of Stable’s Letter to the Editor was the proud announcement of BRTS’s coup in premiering the comedy Christine by “the Australian genius” Vance Palmer (ibid.). In a marketing ploy to give the play “as wide a public as possible”, he reduced the admission price to “3 shillings reserved and 2 shillings unreserved” (ibid.). Stable need not have worried. Playing to “large and enthusiastic” audiences (The Brisbane Courier, Nov. 22, 1930), Christine was well reviewed by both The Brisbane Courier and The Telegraph. The Brisbane Courier led with “Theatrical history was in the making at Cremorne last night when the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society staged Vance Palmer’s ‘Christine’” (Nov. 21, 1930). And an extract from The Telegraph’s review read:

It is not often that Brisbane has the distinction of a first production. That distinction was achieved last night …A distinguished gathering was present at the Cremorne Theatre last night and that the play met with unqualified approval was evident from the generous applause which was given at the end of each act and at the final curtain. (The Telegraph Nov. 21, 1930, UQFL109, Box 69)

Dulcie Scott was reportedly brilliant in the role of Christine (ibid.) with well known Brisbane actors including Jum Pendleton, Leo Guyatt, Jim Felgate and a very young Babette Ferguson (later Stephens) in supporting roles. Noteworthy is the sense of importance that Stable seemed to place on this premiere of a Queensland playwright’s new work. Stable’s determination to support such playwrights, modest as that may have been, was significant in the Theatre’s history, the beginning of that long and circuitous journey towards La Boite’s 2003 policy of presenting Australian and, preferably, Queensland-only works. After the 1930 production of Christine, seventy- four years later the Theatre was bold enough to produce an entire season of ‘world premieres’ of Queensland plays24.

24 The 2004 season announced in October 2003 consisted of Zigzag Street by Philip Dean adapted from Nick Earl’s novel; The Mayne Inheritance by Errol O’Neill; James & Johnno by Margery Forde and Michael Forde; and Urban Dingoes by Norman Price.

53 The In Beauty It Is Finished Controversy • BRTS Australian playwriting competition One of the Theatre’s first controversial moments involved its inaugural Australian Playwriting Competition of 1931. It was a strong indication of the Society’s confidence in itself, financial security, and commitment to nurturing Australian playwriting talent that it felt able to launch a nationwide competition with a fifty guinea prize. With virtually no professional outlets for Australian plays, it was left to amateur theatres to encourage new writing and to offer the opportunity of a production, so it was perhaps not surprising that BRTS was inundated with playscripts from all six states of Australia. Stable gave a full account in his Annual Report to the AGM for 1931: The Competition was responsible for the submission of ninety-four plays, forty-nine of which were received from Queensland authors, twenty-one from Victoria, eighteen from New South Wales, four from South Australia, and one each from Tasmania and Western Australia. The Executive appointed Professor J.J. Stable, Dr. F.W. Robinson, and Mrs J.B. Brigden judges. Of the plays submitted six were considered to be deserving of special mention, these being: Slaves of Tradition by Rex J. Rienits (N.S.W.); Restitution by D.L.Waraker (Brisbane); Winkle Intervenes by E.C.Davidson (Victoria); In Beauty It Is Finished by G.L. Dann (Queensland); The Safeguard by Ruth M. Bedford (N.S.W.); The Unfortunate Archibalds by M.S. & N.D. Armstrong (N.S.W.)25. (Annual Report, 1931 AGM, UQFL65 Box 3)

• The controversial dramatic content of the winning play From the ninety-four entries, George Landen Dann’s play In Beauty It Is Finished was unanimously judged the winner as, in the opinion of the judges “it was the nearest approach to the standard aimed at by the Repertory movement” (ibid.). It was most unusual for the time in that the story involved a part-Aboriginal and an Aboriginal character. Described by Brisbane as “a strong realist drama”, the play is set on a lighthouse island off the Queensland coast and examines themes of “isolation, familial

25 Rex Rienits went on to enjoy success in writing radio and television drama in Sydney and London (Rees in Parsons, 1995: 457). His play Lightning Strikes Twice was produced by BRT in 1945; Doris Waraker, a regular theatre critic for the Brisbane Telegraph from the late 1920s to the 1940s, had four plays produced by Brisbane groups (Healy, 2000: 56); Mrs E. Coulson Davidson created a private theatre in her own home in Victoria in the late 1920s to stage her own plays and those of other playwrights (Rees, 1978: 127); Ruth Bedford was associated with the Community Playhouse in Sydney, a tiny theatre dedicated to giving playwrights the chance to see their plays produced. (ibid.); M.S. Armstrong is most probably Millicent Armstrong, the Sydney writer who won an international one-act play competition in the early 1930s with her play Drought, earning it a one night performance in London (ibid: 207). Her one-act play At Dusk was produced by BRTS in 1937.

54 entrapment and prejudice” (in Parsons, 1995: 292). Marion, one of the lighthouse- keeper’s two daughters who take it in turns to escape to the mainland, returns hardened by her experiences and a prostitute. Befriending Tom, a local fisherman who appears to be consorting with an Aboriginal woman, Marion gladly accepts his offer of marriage, then reacts in horror when she discovers he is half-Aboriginal and that the ‘other woman’ is in fact his mother Annie. In desperation she still chooses to leave the island with him to escape the harshness of her family situation. Only the Aboriginal mother is pleased, uttering the words “In beauty it is finished”26. The play, according to Brisbane, asks the question “Is it more degrading to be a whore or a half- caste?” (ibid.). 27

Given the controversy that raged in the Brisbane community during the rehearsal period for this play, Stable’s short report on the play’s three night season at His Majesty’s was an exercise in understatement: The Play was produced at His Majesty’s Theatre on the 16th, 17th and 18th July, 1931, by Miss Barbara Sisley, and the audience at the theatre on each of the evenings testified to the public interest which had been aroused. Your committee believes that certain circumstances not altogether under the control of the Committee were responsible, to some extent, for the interest displayed. There was considerable criticism of the play and its story, but the consensus of the authoritative opinion fully justified both the judges’ selection and the Society’s decision to present the Play. (1931 Annual Report, UQFL65 Box 3)

26 These enigmatic words were explained by Dann in an article in The Saturday Night Telegraph, May 23, 1931: “From the day her son was born, the Aboriginal woman, seeing the child was an outcast because of his taint of black blood, cherished the hope that one day he might win a white wife and so gain the acceptance of the white dominant race. Thus, when the half-caste and the girl flee to the mainland to be married, she is able to say with complete satisfaction ‘In Beauty It Is Finished’ ”. 27 The cast for In Beauty It Is Finished included Dulcie Scott and Hilda Hastie as the sisters Marion and Joyce, Cecil R. Carson as Tom, Edith Rowett as Annie, and Royston Marcus and Mrs P.J. Symes as the girls’ parents David and Mary Edmonds. Edith Rowett ‘blacked up’ for her role as an Aboriginal character.

55 • Dann’s recollection of “the public shindy”

George Landen Dann was only twenty-six years of age when he won the competition, working as a draftsman for the Brisbane City Council and still living at home with his mother and sisters in Kift Street, Sandgate. One press report described “this successful author” as “a keen-eyed, clean-limbed, and good-looking young Australian, such as grace our beaches, tennis courts, and playing fields” (“New Playwright - A Keen-Eyed Queenslander Kept His Work Secret”, undated newspaper article,

UQFL65 Box 3). George Landen Dann, 1931, UQFL65.

Twenty-five years later in a speech he gave to repertory members28, he recalled with wry humour that “the year 1931 is famous in the annals of Repertory. Maybe infamous is the correct word. In that year the Repertory landed into the middle of its first – and only – public shindy - and I was the cause” (Dann,1956, UQFL65 Box 1). The ‘shindy’, he recollected, was initially stirred up by a letter to the press by an anonymous writer who “demanded in righteous dignity why the play shouldn’t be banned” (ibid.). Soon after an article on the play appeared in a “sensational weekly”, and then: … the fun really happened. Letters to the press – for and against – sermons in churches of the same nature – headlines in the daily press almost daily … You can picture the situation. Here was the Repertory Society always cautious not to offend its members by putting on such plays as Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” or Ibsen’s “Ghosts” suddenly plunged into this unexpected tornado. (ibid.)

• The media savaging and Stable’s defence The ‘sensational weekly’ referred to by Dann was Smith’s Weekly29 which, on July 4, 1931, under the headline “£50 prize awarded filthy play – sordid drama of miscegenation”, devoted an entire page to a blistering attack on the play, still several

28 Dann’s full account of the ‘shindy’ his play created can be read in Appendix 3 (b). 29 Smith’s Weekly was published in Sydney, NSW by Robert Clyde Packer between 1919 and 1968. Its sub-title was The Public Guardian (Australian National Library catalogue).

56 weeks away from production (see Appendix 3 (a) for a full transcript of the article). “If this is Australian Art, then it is at a low ebb”, the writer declared. It does not take too close a reading of this piece to gauge the deeply racist and classist positioning of the author: words and phrases such as ‘sordid’, ‘soiled’, ‘unwholesome story’, ‘encouraging smut’, and “The whole story, in its exposure of the most degrading aspect of sex, must strike a chord of disgust in the hearts of those who place Queensland womanhood on a respectable level comparable with that of any place in the world” (Smith’s Weekly, July 4, 1931). The author found the play disgusting because it dealt with ‘the Other’ in Queensland society – working class and indigenous characters. Yet, as Rees observed in 1978, the play seemed dated to him because Dann didn’t in fact challenge the prevailing view of the time that it was disgraceful for non-Aboriginal people to ‘consort’ with Aboriginal people (1978: 164- 165).

The opinion expressed in The Pink Paper summed up the general feeling of the media when it reported that “The Brisbane Repertory Society seems likely to be rent in twain” and could expect “a swooping visit from the censors either during the performance itself or immediately afterwards” (The Pink Paper, Saturday Evening July 4, 1931, UQFL65 Box 3). In the several weeks before opening night, during the sustained attack on the play, Stable gave interviews to the major Brisbane newspapers, calmly and intelligently rebutting the arguments and attempting to diffuse the hysteria through logical argument and an insistence on the facts surrounding the production and the actors taking part. In an interview for The Telegraph Stable refuted the rumour that the play had been banned, pointing out that “as far as he knows, there is no authority in Australia empowered to censor or ban plays” adding that “there is nothing in Mr Dann’s play to warrant any suggestion of its being banned” (The Telegraph, June 17, 1931, UQFL65 Box 3).

His interview for The Pink Paper (Saturday, Evening, July 4, 1931, UQFL65 Box 3) gave Stable an opportunity to discuss the play as a serious work of art, and in so doing demonstrated how conscientiously he defended the artistic integrity of BRTS in going ahead with this production: To the question of what had most impressed him in the play, he replied that it was the sincerity, the earnestness of purpose. The author, said Professor

57 Stable, was in earnest. He had seen the horror in his subject, and had tried to make people realise things as they were. It was a tragedy experienced any day in any large town. What better means was there of driving home actualities than from the stage? It did not harm morally. The subject was sordid but the presentation was not made for the purpose of sordidness; it was to drive home a lesson. The aim of the Society was not merely amusement, but to bring back to the stage something of the influence it should exercise. (ibid.)

• A box office success and serious critical response As ‘Jottings’ commented in The Truth under the heading ‘Bumper Houses’, all the media interest in In Beauty It Is Finished was in fact a guarantee of box office success: London theatre managers long ago discovered that the success of practically any play was assured if it was attacked violently enough by press and pulpit. …The rumor [sic] has gone round that this play is ‘strong meat’ … public interest is quite unprecedented, and there are sure to be bumper houses when the curtain rises. Barbara Sisley is the producer, and she thinks very highly of the play, so that should be good enough for most people. (July 11, 1931)

And this prediction was right. Many of the reviews of the play commented on the large audiences the play attracted – and His Majesty’s in 1931 could easily have accommodated 1,500 per night of the season (Treading the Boards, 1999: 23-27). Certainly no censors swooped onto the stage, nor did outraged patrons leave in disgust. The presence of the Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr. G. Sharp in the front row on opening night and the Chief Justice, Sir James Blair and Lady Blair, prominent as special guests on the final night of the performance, would have done much to mollify any audience anxiety about the suitability of the play for public consumption. In fact the reviews were mostly even-handed and, balancing criticism with praise, defused the heated and extreme nature of the pre-production reporting. After opening night, The Telegraph’s review read in part: … the main objection to the play as being nauseous and sordid because of its thematic material were not sustained. It is true that the heroine is a self- confessed sinner and the hero a half-caste. But the play makes an honest attempt to portray adequately a point of view which does not necessarily coincide with our own moral standards. It is not so much a question of what subject is treated as how it is treated. Sometimes in the play Mr. Dann has been frank, at others he has found a rather fine delicacy of touch … The audience is held gripped until the last curtain, the ending being perhaps as effective as anything in the whole play. (July 17, 1931, UQFL65 Box 3)

Her Majesty’s Theatre 1970 (John Oxley Library, Brisbane)

A more critical review appeared in The Daily Mail. In part, the reviewer wrote, under the heading ‘Bold Experiment’: With both a first play and a first production, the Repertory Society has ventured a bold experiment, but it was one well worth trying …The real defect of the work is that it does not reach the emotions. The fault with this may have lain partly with the performers last night. There was too little acting and too much recital. (July 17, 1931)

Several reviews politicised the issues raised in the play, revealing the deeply racist and conservative under-belly of Australia in the 1930s, which only emphasized how progressive BRTS was in its commitment to produce drama of this controversial nature for Brisbane audiences. Here is one from The Patriot’s review: Despite the excellent acting and good staging, it is rather a pity that the half- caste question should be placed in the limelight when so many happier phases of Australian life are neglected. This is a country advocating a White Australia Policy, and reference to our darker tragedies not only accentuates certain conditions in the minority of Australia’s progress, but is a bad advertisement abroad. The tendency of those overseas to judge us as something unfortunately wild and woolly is very hard to repress, and all books and plays dealing with the aborigine question must increase those judgments. This is entirely unconnected with the presentation and dialogue of “In Beauty It Is Finished” which deserves sincere praise and commendation. We hope at the same time that Mr. Dann will follow his recent fine effort with a drama dealing with a brighter side of Australian life. Calling attention to an acknowledged demerit, and probably throughout the whole Commonwealth not one woman in five thousand would be attracted in any way to a half-caste. The existence of half- castes is unfortunately the white man’s responsibility, but why should we, as a developing literary community, advertise our sins while passing over our many virtues as a nation? Virtues – that is – as applied to the general morals of the average citizen. (July 19,1931, UQFL65)

Edith Rowett ‘blacked up’ as ‘Annie’ in In Beauty It Is Finished, 1931 (UQFL65 G. L.Dann Collection)

• Reflection on BRTS’s first controversy The events of 1931 could have irrevocably harmed the organization if handled differently by the key player, Professor Stable. The story does seem to indicate sensitive, firm and intelligent management, on his part, of the media circus that surrounded the event. His high standing in the community as a professor of English literature at the University of Queensland allowed for his comments and rebuttals to be respected and taken seriously at a time in Queensland when a university education was by no means the norm. By 1931, in a clever strategic move, high status Vice Presidents from the 1925 founding Executive Council - Most Rev. G. Sharp, Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Most Rev. James Duhig, Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane and Dr Lockhart Gibson - had taken on the roles of Patrons of the Society along with His Excellency, the Governor, Sir John Goodwin (In Beauty It Is Finished Program, 1931, La Boite Archives). This was a formidable gathering from the upper echelons of Brisbane society and may well have served to protect BRTS’s good reputation in the community. Then there is the matter of the play itself and its ability in performance to diffuse the unwarranted hysteria and to vindicate Stable’s strong and resolute support for this new Australian work. It enjoyed a sell out season and membership increased from 327 at the start of 1931 to 342 by the end of that year (1931 Annual Report, UQFL65).

This was indeed a testing time for BRTS and a significant moment in its relationship with Australian plays. It did not wish to tempt fate twice with controversy the

60 following year. Yet, in what can only be seen as a case of extreme backlash on the part of BRTS to the events of 1931, that is exactly what they got – more media bashing and complaints from members for the Society’s choice of an Australian play for the 1932 season that was as inane and shallow as Dann’s play had been powerful and challenging.

Stable announced at the 1931 AGM that funds were insufficient for another competition in 1932 because of the high cost of hiring His Majesty’s for three of the four major productions. Instead a call was put out announcing the Society’s readiness to produce an Australian play and to pay the Royalty of 10 guineas. Dann put forth his new play Oh! The Brave Music! but not surprisingly the Executive Committee rejected it, opting instead for an extremely safe choice, Cherry Acres by Dorothy Tobin.

The Telegraph devoted an editorial to “The Choice of Repertory Plays” declaring the play to be: “… as far removed from repertory standards as is an Edgar Wallace novel from the classics” (Sept. 10, 1932). Admitting it was not up to standard, Stable justified it as the only play from those submitted that was suitable for production - which was “not to be wondered at when one considers the limited opportunities given to the average Australian to study the production side of the theatre” (The Telegraph, Sept. 14, 1932).

The close media scrutiny and the public debate that these two productions provoked indicates the high profile BRTS commanded in the community and the high community expectations of its artistic work.

An Ongoing Commitment to Dann’s Plays In 1933, BRTS again invited the submission of Australian plays; thirty-five were submitted but none was considered suitable for production. The following year, abandoning its national competition, the Council instead supported the Queensland Eisteddfod by offering a prize and judging the best plays submitted by Australian playwrights. Two BRTS members won – George Landen Dann and Alexia Drake for their one-act plays The Days of Roses and Weep and You Weep Alone respectively, both of which were given productions in the Society’s Rooms in 1934 (Annual Report

61 1934, UQFL65, Box 3). The Australian play completely disappeared from the BRTS repertoire in 1935 but re-emerged in 1936 with a second production of Betty Roland’s The Touch of Silk directed by Dulcie Scott.

It was not until the late 1930s that the Society appeared to re-embrace its commitment to Australian plays and to George Landen Dann in particular with a 1938 production of his new play No Incense Rising30. Directed by Sisley, it was greeted as a “fine production” and “an admirable successor to Dann’s first play” by The Courier Mail theatre critic (May 6, 1938, UQFL109). The play, set in an Australian coastal fishing town, tells the tragic story of a Norwegian widow whose husband was killed at sea, and her inability to let go of her eldest daughter – “It was a strong, virile play, with an almost Ibsenesque atmosphere of imponderable tragedy” (ibid.). The Telegraph critic, praising the acting and Dann’s “sincerity and courage” in not backing away from the truthfulness of “his tragic and beautifully expressed story” acknowledged how good it was “to hear the call of ‘author’ in a Brisbane theatre, and to see Mr. Dann stand up in his seat in the stalls to acknowledge the warm tribute of the audience” (6 May, 1938, UQFL65).

In a letter to Dann responding to a draft of his next play A Second Moses31 (later renamed Caroline Chisholm), Sisley wrote: “I love the play! It is vitally interesting and the characters, especially the central one, are, to my mind, very well drawn. … You have struck out on a fresh path, and shown what a woman has done for colonization. Congratulations on a very fine piece of work” (Letter from Sisley to Dann, Jan. 8, 1938, UQFL106). Produced by BRTS in 1939 under Sisley’s direction, it was greeted as “by far the best play Mr. Dann has yet written” (The Telegraph, 1939, date unknown, UQFL65 Box 3). Praise was heaped on Sisley for her excellent direction – “a triumph” and “one of her finest achievements” – especially considering the “grave difficulties” of a large cast of twenty-eight actors, period costumes and many scene changes. Daphne Roemermann – “a perfect Caroline” - was praised for the acting strength she brought to this leading role (ibid.).

30 No Incense Rising won first prize in the Independent Theatre’s national play competition in 1937 and premiered there in the same year, directed by Doris Fitton (Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 407). 31 The historical play A Second Moses is based on the story of Caroline Chisholm. First produced by Sisley for BRTS in 1939, it was again produced as Caroline Chisholm as a memorial to her, one year after her death, in 1946. In its published form, the play is dedicated to Sisley.

Scene from Act 11, Fountains Beyond by George Landen Dann, directed by Clare Clarke, at Albert Hall, 1947 (BRT Photo Collection, UQFL109 Box 57).

By the time BRT produced Dann’s Fountains Beyond in 1947, Dann was an established playwright32. Many of his plays (he wrote forty in total) had been produced throughout Australia by little theatre groups (especially within the New Theatre movement) as well as on radio and overseas. BRT was enormously proud of their own Queensland playwright and the program notes for Fountains Beyond are testament to this pride and serve as a good summary of his achievements to date: Of the number of full-length Australian plays presented by the Brisbane Repertory Theatre, no less than four … have been written by George Dann, the Queensland Playwright. With the inclusion of some of his one-act plays, it is perhaps unique in the “world” of Australian Drama, and certainly encouraging to local talent, in that so many works by the same writer have been presented by the one theatre. (Fountains Beyond Program, 1947 in UQFL65, Box 3) The close artistic relationship BRTS had with such a fine playwright as George Landen Dann was principally facilitated though Sisley’s mentorship and Stable’s support for Queensland writing. It may have taken almost fifty years for the Theatre to return to this kind of support for local playwrights but new mentors eventually

32 Although Fountains Beyond was a 1947 production, I have chosen to include it in this chapter in order to complete my analysis of Dann’s contribution to BRTS and vice versa. Awarded a Life Member of Brisbane Repertory, Dann was a dynamic presence on the Theatre’s Council for many years. He died in 1977, shortly after he had attended a La Boite revival of In Beauty It Is Finished. In recent years, his contribution to Australian drama has been honoured through the Queensland Theatre Company’s playwriting competition named after him.

63 emerged with Sue Rider in the 1990s and Sean Mee in the 2000s in their championing of Queensland playwrights.

Other Productions of Australian Plays to 1945 In 1939, Men Without Wives by Henrietta Drake-Brockman33 directed by Sisley was reviewed positively by both The Telegraph (May 26, 1939) and The Courier Mail (May 26, 1939). It would be another three years, however, before any more Australian plays were programmed. In 1942 there were two Australian seasons - Dorothy Blewett’s Quiet Night34 directed by Sisley and Sumner Locke Elliott’s Foolish Yesterday35 directed by Daphne Roemermann. Then no more Australian plays until 1945 when the seasons included Lightning Strikes Twice by Rex Reinits, directed by Roemermann, and Catherine Duncan’s Sons of the Morning, directed by Alex Foster36. After the 1947 season of Dann’s Fountains Beyond directed by Clare Clarke no Australian play was included in a BRT season until 1962 when Babette Stephens directed Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year. That was a gap of fifteen years.

Non-Australian Repertoire 1925 - 1945 An analysis of the Australian repertoire has been highlighted in my documentation of the first twenty years of BRTS’s existence because of its bearing on the Theatre’s eventual transformation into a professional company. This early policy of a commitment to the Australian play was returned to much later in the 1970s when La Boite’s embracing of the ‘new wave’ of Australian playwriting contributed in part to its labelling as ‘alternative’ and to its ability to attract funding, essential in its

33 Its central theme was the loneliness of living in a remote north Queensland cattle station explored through the trials and tribulations of several women characters as well as through the issue of cohabitation of white men and Aboriginal women. 34 Quiet Night by Dorothy Blewett, directed by Sisley in 1942, became the most produced Australian play in both Australia and England (Rees, 1978: 195) possibly because it was a comedy set in a nurses’ room in a hospital. “Not that there was anything very Australian about it” said Rees (ibid.) nor, in his opinion, did it have anything important to say, but “the hospital atmosphere was excellent and the characterization fresh and directly observed” (ibid.). The one review I found (The Telegraph, March 1942) was short and descriptive rather than critical. 35 I could only find one reference to the 1942 production of Sumner Locke-Elliott’s Foolish Yesterday, directed by Daphne Roemermann – a short Courier Mail review declared it was “successful in every department” (May 8, 1942). 36 Barbara Sisley was in rehearsal for this production when she was killed in a road accident. Alex Foster took over as director. The Courier Mail critic called it a “fine Australian play” and commented on the splendid acting, particularly of Franklyn Evans (UQFL65 date unknown). Set on Crete during the German invasion during World War Two, this poetic and patriotic play depicts Australian soldiers caught up in a drama with a Cretan household and a German fighter pilot.

64 transition to pro-am status. In terms of the whole repertoire of major productions however, Australian plays were a mere 11% - or 13 out of the 119 major productions undertaken between 1925 and 1945. Overwhelmingly the repertoire consisted of the serious drama – much of ti contemporary - demanded of the repertory movement, English plays with some sprinkling of Irish, Russian, Norwegian, Spanish, American and Chinese. The repertoire of serious English playwrights included five plays by J.M.Barrie; eight by George Bernard Shaw; two by John Galsworthy; two by W. Somerset Maugham; eight by J.B. Priestley: two by Clemence Dane; three by Emlyn Williams; three by William Shakespeare; one by Oliver Goldsmith. Scattered amongst these more demanding offerings were many light English dramas and comedies – quality well-made plays - by writers such as Sutton Vane, C.K. Munro, Eden and Adelaide Philpotts, Merton Hodge, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gerald Savory, and Frank Vosper.

The non-English repertoire included one season of four one-act Irish plays by W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and J.M. Synge in 1928; one Russian play, Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov, in 1931; four Norwegian plays by Henrik Ibsen in 1928, 1934, 1939 and 1942; four Spanish plays in 1932, 1934 and 1935; and one Chinese play Lady Precious Stream in 1936. An American play finally made an appearance in 1934 with Elmer Rice’s satire See Naples and Die followed in 1939 by the contemporary comedy You Can’t Take It With You by Hart and Kaufman, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in 1941, Ayn Rand’s Night of January 16th and The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman, both in 1944, and Robert E. Sherwood’s The Petrified Forest in 1947.

The programming for most seasons included a demanding piece from the English or European canon, such as a Shaw, an Ibsen or a Shakespeare combined with a popular, well known contemporary English play, such as a Priestley or a J.M. Barrie and several lighter pieces, usually English well-made plays, and occasionally an Australian drama. This mix seemed to have worked well for the membership and it could be said that this balanced repertoire of serious drama, classic works, contemporary well-made plays, comedies and Australian plays, offering something for everyone, was a key reason the theatre thrived as a successful amateur company in this first twenty years of its existence. In terms of critical response, Repertory’s productions of the more demanding plays from the English and European canon in

65 terms of interpretation and acting met with mixed success. The following two examples are fairly typical of that mix.

The Telegraph greeted Shaw’s comedy You Never Can Tell directed by Rhoda Felgate as a “repertory Success” (sic): In the first ten minutes of this show it was clear that it would “go” and it looked improbable that there would be any amateurish work perpetuated – such as too often creeps into repertory performances, which pursuing art for arts sake, so to speak, are not bound by the commercial necessity of conforming to a standard. (The Telegraph, Sept.12, 1931) But of Uncle Vanya, directed by George Eaton, it said “the Brisbane Repertory Theatre has sent a boy on a man’s errand” (The Telegraph, Nov. 21, 1931). Truth, however, congratulated the Society “on having the initiative to stage a play by Tchekoff (sic)” and while it was “well over the heads of many in the audience…it will stand as a gallant attempt to lighten the darkness of Brisbane’s theatrical world” (Nov. 22, 1931). Both Truth and The Telegraph praised the acting of the women, Rhoda Felgate, Gwen Campbell, Beryl Telford and Patricia Trace. Truth commented that “A striking feature of the acting was this: Every woman in the cast was better than any man – another argument to prove that women are more subtle. More sensitive to atmosphere than men. Feminists – please note!” (ibid.) and in The Telegraph, Felgate and Telford’s acting is described as “a benediction …blessed with a true warmth and sympathy which is in general lacking in the other players” (ibid.).

PART THREE Sisley’s Artistic Leadership Professional Background Like the two important women who succeeded her as honorary directors of BRT - Babette Stephens and Jennifer Blocksidge – Sisley was English by birth, but settled in Melbourne with her family in 1896 at the age of eleven (Cook, 1992: 12). The professionalism and high standards that marked her performance work and direction for BRTS were most likely learnt from her time touring as a professional actor with, among others, the Brough Comedy Company which “astonished Australian critics and audiences with the sheer professionalism of its presentations and its subtle, ‘natural’ ensemble acting” (Fotheringham in Parsons, 1995: 107). Robert Brough (who ran the

66 company from 1896 to its demise in 1906) had a reputation for high technical standards and for specialising in quality plays with appeal to the intelligentsia and the social elite (ibid.: 107-108).

It was during a theatrical tour that Sisley found herself in Brisbane in 1916, stranded when her company unexpectedly disbanded (Cook in Parsons, 1995: 531). Soon after, she began teaching drama for the Young Women’s Christian Association and eventually set up her own private studio in the city becoming the first professionally trained speech and drama teacher in Brisbane (ibid.). She taught not only from her private studio but in a number of prestigious girls’ schools including St. Margaret’s at Clayfield, Somerville House at South Brisbane and Stuartholme Convent at Bardon. During the First World War she formed the Barbara Sisley Players to give her speech and drama students real opportunities to perform in plays for an audience.

Sisley was also the prime mover behind the formation of the Brisbane Shakespeare Society. Enthusiastically supported by academics from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Queensland, the Society also included eminent businessmen, lawyers, clergy and members of the medical profession (Cook, 1992: 17). The influential contacts she made through this Society, which included Professors Stable and Michie and the Church of England and Catholic Archbishops (ibid.) were of enormous benefit to her when she made the decision to establish a repertory theatre group in Brisbane. Indeed, my research shows that the success and stability of the Theatre from the 1920s to the 1970s owed a great deal to Sisley’s, Stephens’s and Blocksidge’s ability to move comfortably within these social and political circles and to have the support of key influential individuals in times of change and development.

No dilettante who filled her spare time with artistic pursuits whilst supported by a well-heeled husband, Sisley never married, and supported herself entirely by pursuing her successful career in speech and drama teaching and from fees earned for her direction of BRTS productions. In 1923 she returned to England and Europe to further her professional studies, most notably with the renowned teacher of the dramatic arts, Elsie Fogarty of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London (Barbara Sisley Memorial Notes, UQFL109 Box 125, File 1).

67 This further training might have been the impetus she needed to spur her on to the challenge of creating a repertory theatre in her adopted town. As already mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, it was Sisley’s original idea but one she quickly shared with Professor Stable. That she chose a professor of literature as her collaborator is an interesting comment on her vision for her Theatre; she was obviously interested in producing serious drama and had the canniness to realise the benefit to the stability and potential growth of her organization of having such a respected member of the community at its head. From my research, it is also clear that she saw in Stable a fellow champion of Australian playwriting whose literary judgment she could trust.

‘A tall and striking woman’ – Her Dominant Artistic Presence For the next 20 years, Sisley gave strong artistic leadership to BRTS and for every year of her involvement she served as a powerful and influential Committee/Council member. She dominated the artistic direction, producing 57 of the 128 plays performed between 1925 and 1945 (UQFL65, Box 3) for the “usual producer’s fee of Twenty Guineas” (Minutes of Council Meeting, Feb. 23, 1932, UQFL109 Box 2). Cook describes her as “a tall and striking woman, with a deep and resonant voice who never moved slowly, and was impatient of excuses for work left undone” (1992: 22). As a director, she could be “devastating in biting criticism of players who were not performing well; but having withered them with her comment, she immediately forgot what she had said, and did not bear a grudge” (ibid.). As a former professional actress, she claimed a number of leading roles for herself, never finding it of any concern if she was also directing the plays in which she was acting. Acclaimed roles included Margaret Fairfield in A Bill of Divorcement in 1926; several roles in short plays by Yeats and Synge in 1928; Lady Cecily in Captain Brassbound’s Conversion in 1929; Jennifer in Yellow Sands in 1931; Dona Clarines in Dona Clarines in 1934; and Sarah Churchill in Viceroy Sarah in 1939 (UQFL109 Box 125, File 1).

Brisbane newspaper reviews of her BRTS productions bear witness to the quality in performance and production for which she strove. Commenting on her dual role in the 1932 production of The Romantic Young Lady by Gregorio Martinez Sierra, The Telegraph theatre reviewer wrote: Barbara Sisley, the producer, took the somewhat unusual step of casting herself. This was no error of judgment. As the witty, excessively shrewd,

68 young-at-heart grandmother, with all her faculties about her, and not to be dragooned by the garrulous and privileged old retainer (excellently played by Rhoda Felgate), she gave a splendid performance. It is a fine point, indeed, whether it is as a player or a producer, that she is to be more heartily congratulated. (‘H.W.D.’ in The Telegraph, Oct. 29, 1932)

Her desire for the most professional outcome for every production was behind this single-minded behaviour. Theatre critic for The Catholic Advocate, Nigel Bonsey, gives some sense of her brilliance as a director in his review of her penultimate production for 1937 - Mordant Blossom’s The Crime at Blossoms: I think it was one of the finest plays I have seen produced in Brisbane and I think it was one of the best productions I have seen of Miss Sisley’s. She more than surpassed some of her previous splendid work and very definitely she has added considerably to her already established reputation as a first class producer… (The Catholic Advocate, Oct. 14, 1937 in Radbourne, 1979:328). Of her 1939 production of Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman, The Telegraph theatre critic, Doris Waraker, wrote of Sisley’s obviously intelligent direction of a difficult play: The producer was right to play this piece quietly, entirely devoid of the restlessness which characterises so much stage work to-day. One cannot pay full attention to an author if his characters are eternally moving from chair to couch, from table to fireplace. This is a fact, perhaps, for which some modern playwright should be grateful. Here we have an author whose every word matters urgently and Miss Sisley has paid him due respect. (Waraker in The Telegraph, August 25, 1939)

Set for Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, directed by Barbara Sisley in Albert Hall, 1943. (UQFL109 BRT Photo Collection, Box 57)

69 Although Sisley as Senior Producer dominated directing until her death in 1945, as the years went by more opportunities were given to a restricted number of other talented directors including Clare Clarke, Daphne Roemermann, Kathleen Hirst, Maibry Wragge, and Alex Foster (the only male director). Before 1937 when Rhoda Felgate, a former student of Barbara Sisley’s Studio, transferred her directorial energies to Twelfth Night Theatre which she founded in 1936, she was responsible for sixteen BRTS productions, the second most prolific director next to Sisley. In Teleradio’s ten year retrospective, ‘Free-Lance’ wrote that “Of that noble band of producers I have no hesitation in citing Rhoda Felgate as the most successful – she is young, and without years of experience, but her productions have maintained a standard of excellence that is the result of her own personal studies” (May 25, 1935: 10). BRTS was also fortunate in attracting the long-term involvement of a group of very fine actors including Dulcie Scott (who had worked professionally and was considered a BRTS ‘star’) Jum Pendleton, W.A. Blake, Gwen Campbell, Cecil Carson, Clare Clark, George Eaton, Mervyn Eadie, Rhoda Felgate, Babette Ferguson, Leo Guyatt, Tom McMinn, Royston Marcus, Daphne Roemermann, Betty Ross, Edith Rowatt, Tom Stephens, Rosemary Stevenson, Patricia Trace, and Beryl Telford.

Her Sudden Death - The End of an Era Sisley died as a result of a road accident in 1945, run over by a taxi-cab in Adelaide Street, Brisbane, in the vicinity of her apartment and studio. She died the following day at the Brisbane General Hospital (Press Clippings, UQFL109 Box 69, File 2). Cook recounted the incident: On the 17th November 1945, she [Sisley] was crossing Adelaide Street at dusk on the way to dinner on Wickham Terrace with her long-time friend Mamie Stokes. She must have recollected something she had forgotten, turned quickly to retrace her steps, and was struck by a car, which had no chance of avoiding her. The whole of the cultural world of Brisbane was stunned at her subsequent death. (Cook, 1992: 50)

At her last Council Meeting, just over a week before her death, the Minute-taker noted: Miss Sisley reported that she had communicated with Bentley Kinney, USA, with reference to being kept in touch and advised of new plays; there was a Mr Tom Rothfiled also whom [sic] she thought would undertake a similar duty in England.

70 The last meeting, Mr Erich John [conductor of Orchestra] had asked that his piano be moved from the side of the orchestra to the centre. Miss Sisley stated that she would not have the piano in the centre of the next play and moved that it be placed at the side of the Hall [Albert].

Miss Sisley handed in the names of the cast for Sons of the Morning. Approved. (Council Meeting Minutes, Nov. 8, 1945, UQFL109 Box 4.10)

Her vital contribution is evident even in these few short notes. She was actively seeking new plays from the USA and England and she was as much involved in – and strong- minded about – the minor details of each production (such as where the piano was to be placed) as she was about the casting of major productions. There is a certain poignancy about this last item as she was already well into rehearsal for the Australian play Sons of the Morning by Catherine Duncan when she died.

Given her dominance as a director since 1925, it is easy to imagine that her death, coinciding with the last months of Stable’s Presidency, created some feeling of instability within the Council. Her value to the Brisbane community was expressed by the Council’s desire to create a memorial in her name that acknowledged not only her contribution to BRTS but to the many other cultural activities with which she was involved (Council Meeting Minutes, Dec. 6, 1945, UQFL109 Box 4.10). In her honour, the first play for 1946 was the Barbara Sisley Memorial Play, a production of Dann’s Caroline Chisholm, directed by Clare Clarke. Thereafter, she was honoured first by a series of lectures on theatre-related subjects37, then, after attendance dropped off, by “the staging of a prestige production once a year specifically dedicated to the memory of Barbara Sisley and accompanied by some public account of her life and acknowledgment of her work” 38. Sadly, after 1954, interest waned “among new generations of theatre-goers who knew her not” (Letter from Tom Stephens to Jennifer

37 The Memorial Lectures were: 1949 The Theatre – Then and Now by Mr Frank Clewlow, Director of Drama for the ABC;. 1950 Radio Drama by Mr Ayton Whitaker, celebrated British Broadcasting Corporation producer. 1951 Christopher Fry by Mr Charles Henderson, Examiner in Art of Speech, Trinity College (London). 1952 Art as the Aptness of Self by Professor Murray Turbayene. 1953 The Elizabethan Theatre by Rhoda Felgate, Director of the Twelfth Night Theatre. 38 The Memorial Play became a feature of BRT’s repertoire from 1954 to 1961. Each program contained a photograph of Barbara Sisley and a short biography of her contribution to theatre and the arts in Brisbane. I have not been able to establish a complete list of these plays but the following have been confirmed via my collection of BRT programs: 1954 Arthur Miller’s All My Sons directed by Irene Alexander; 1955 Gordon Daviot’s Richard of Bordeaux directed by Raymond Menmuir; 1956 John Whiting’s Marching Song directed by Babette Stephens; 1958 The Diary of Anne Frank directed by Babette Stephens; 1961 Twelfth Night directed by Babette Stephens.

71 Blocksidge, Feb. 1977, UQFL109, Box 125.1). It was not until March 1977 that a permanent Memorial Clock was unveiled in La Boite Theatre by the Hon.W.E. Knox, MLA, Deputy Premier and Treasurer of Queensland to perpetuate her memory. It was followed by a special performance of In Beauty It Is Finished directed by Rick Billinghurst in the presence of George Landen Dann. The inscription reads: “Barbara Sisley (1885-1945) Teacher and Patron of the Arts. Co-founder and artistic inspiration to the Brisbane Repertory Theatre (1925): To know her was to love her, To name her was to praise her.”

George Landen Dann’s tribute to her is a fitting conclusion to her story, and a reminder of the dominant role women played in the development of theatre companies in Brisbane: She, for many years, was the very soul of Repertory. Everything pertaining to it hinged on her – as is the case with many other theatre groups not only in Australia but in many other countries. There always seems to be a woman at the bottom of each of them. Even the Old Vic, The Abbey Theatre, The Birmingham Repertory and, coming nearer home, The Independent Theatre of Sydney, the Twelfth Night Theatre, the Brisbane Arts Theatre – nearly all of them has or has had the enthusiasm of a woman to foster them through their growing pangs and guide them along the paths they should go. Barbara Sisley was so much a part of the repertory that it was excusable if many people thought that the letter ‘S’ in the Theatre’s initials – BRTS – stood not for ‘Society’ but for ‘Sisley’ and whenever she was seen – and it was quite frequently – receiving with immense dignity the applause due to a producer at the end of a play, there was always the feeling that tribute was not only being paid to her for that particular effort, but for the good fortune that had guided her to Brisbane and made her so enthusiastically and inseparably a part of the Repertory. (UQFL65, Box 3 Repertory Ramblings)

Conclusion Under the organizational and artistic leadership of Stable and Sisley, BRTS quickly developed into an important, high profile amateur company whose constituency came to expect high artistic standards from its productions. Despite several difficult years during World War Two, the Theatre did not stagnate but continued to evolve in a measured and controlled way, providing Brisbane audiences with serious drama and taking pride in its occasional Australian productions, particularly those of George Landen Dann, with whom BRTS was closely identified. In its genesis and early decades, important foundational ideas about standards, repertoire and the need for a permanent ‘home’ were established.

72 CHAPTER FOUR The Babette Stephens Era 1946 – 1968 Introduction1

In relation to the research question, this chapter argues that although BRT2 managed to survive after the double blow of Sisley’s sudden death and Stable’s resignation, it was not until Babette Stephens emerged as a forceful and dynamic presence - as a director from the early 1950s, as Council President from 1957 to 1959, and as Theatre Director from 1960 to 1968 – that the Theatre began, once again, to thrive artistically and evolve as an organisation.

Part One of this chapter addresses key aspects of Stephens’ organizational leadership, particularly in relation to investment in real estate and the establishment of the first ‘La Boite’ in one of the properties. Part Two, which analyses her artistic leadership, argues that although Stephens progressed BRT substantially in terms of overall performance standards, her essentially anglo-centric programming had the potential to retard its evolution. A short biography of Babette Stephens can be read in Appendix 2.

• Stephens’ Emergence as a Powerful New Presence The twelve year interim period between the end of the Sisley/Stable era and the beginning of the Stephens era (as President in 1957) was characterised by a series of hard-working Presidents, Council members and directors, but not by any one dominant personality. These difficult post-war years were consumed by accommodation worries, membership highs and lows, financial concerns in the light of ever increasing costs, and uneven artistic quality in the productions. To have achieved ongoing viability (if not progress) at a time when the whole nation was

1 The photograph of Babette Stephens, circa 1967, was sourced in The Old “La Boite” 1967-1971, Stevenson Private Collection. 2 ‘Society’ was dropped when a new Constitution was accepted in 1946 under the name of The Brisbane Repertory Theatre.

73 adjusting to the social, economic, political and cultural changes of post-war Australia, was a commendable achievement for BRT. The short bursts of energy by Presidents Tom Stephens (1946), Alex Foster (1947-1950), Cecil Carson (1951-1953) and Gwen MacMinn (1954-1956) and their respective Councils were more than enough to keep the Theatre alive although not always prospering. Dependent on membership fees for its financial sustainability, Foster made it a priority to increase membership in those post-war times. He and his Council targeted the upper-echelon of society in its membership drive, sending out hundreds of letters to doctors and solicitors; by the end of 1948, membership had increased to 784 (1948 Annual Report, Feb. 21, 1949, UQFL109). Foster also made a priority of improving design elements, previously a weak point in BRT productions. Freed up from the monopoly Sisley exerted on productions, long-time Council members Daphne Roemermann, Foster and Clare Clarke emerged as major directors, able to give some sense of artistic continuity at least until the early 1950s.3 Yet, nothing really significant happened in terms of change that was to motivate the possibility of a transformed future, until Babette Stephens took a leading role in BRT.

See How They Run by Philip King, directed by Alex Foster at Albert Hall, 1949. (UQFL109 BRT Photo Collection, Box 57)

Although by 1945 Stephens had only directed one play for Twelfth Night and none for BRT, her pre-eminence as an actor, her knowledge of plays, her training in theatre and her high standing in Brisbane society made her a most suitable successor to Sisley. After her death there was really no-one of Sisley’s calibre and background to immediately replace her, but if Stephens was to step into this role, she had to be persuaded to devote more time and energy to BRT rather than to Twelfth Night, with which she had been keenly involved since its foundation in 1936. She had always

3 During the period 1946 to 1955, Alex Foster directed fourteen productions, Daphne Roemermann, twelve, and Clare Clarke, four.

74 been active on the BRT Social Committee, serving as its Chairman [sic] for a number of years, but the organization was eager for her to take a leadership role in the work of the Theatre. She made her come-back in 1946 directing her first BRT play, He Was Born Gay by Emlyn Williams, described as “an outstanding success” (in Orpheus, April, 1947). The following year she played the lead in the psychological drama Black Limelight directed by Alex Foster to excellent reviews, The Courier Mail critic Te Pana stating that “As far as performances went it was Babette Stephens’ night” and The Telegraph’s Doris Waraker commenting that “she gave great pleasure by her sureness, her clever use of voice and gesture and even her stillness” (1947, no dates, in UQFL65 Box 3, G4). Interestingly she did no more directing or acting for BRT until 1951 although she had been elected to the Council in 1949 and became a Vice President in 1950.

PART ONE

Stephens’ Organizational Leadership

• Background to seeking ‘a home of our own’

As indicated in the previous chapter, from very early in the Theatre’s history ‘a home of our own’ was a much longed for goal. Not only had the hiring of theatres for major seasons been a constant drain on finances, but the succession of hired office spaces and the lack of suitable accommodation for rehearsals, storage of sets, props and costume, the library, and set and props construction, was an on-going frustration. The impression from archival records is that the Theatre desired both a theatre of its own and suitable accommodation for rehearsal, production needs, and storage space; realising the financial impossibility of the former, it set its sights on the latter, more achievable goal.

An initial flurry of excitement in response to the Australia-wide debate about the possibility of a national theatre endowed by government4, led the four leading

4 With no history of government subsidy for theatre, post-war cultural leaders argued a case for a government endowed national theatre, largely in response to the failure of the commercial theatre to provide either significant world drama or Australian drama (Rees, 1978: 247). The variations of what a national theatre might have meant (because it never eventuated) was a dedicated building housing a professional theatre company in each capital city or professional companies without a home-base but with a national character and including a national training school (ibid.).

75 Brisbane amateur groups at the time - Brisbane Amateur Theatres, the Australian Theatre Guild5, BRT and Twelfth Night Theatre – all keen for a home of their own, to consider seeking a government subsidy for “the establishment of a permanent legitimate theatre for Brisbane” where all four groups “would be able to maintain a permanent succession of plays and musical comedies” (The Courier Mail “Theatre Stage Plan” 1948, no date, UQFL65 G.L.Dann Scrapbook) which might result in a professional theatre in Brisbane, perhaps located at the Theatre Royal (The Telegraph “Theatre Aid Plea”, 1948, no date, ibid.). Katharine Brisbane noted that playwright and director Eunice Hanger from Twelfth Night was “central to the idea” (Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 44). The whole debate seemed to fade after Tyrone Guthrie’s presentation to the combined theatre groups at Twelfth Night Theatre (Council Minutes May 12, 1949, UQFL109) and his report to Prime Minister Ben Chifley on a national theatre which was eventually rejected by the next Government 6.

So for BRT, “home” was still the Albert Hall which, by the early 1950s, was proving less and less satisfactory. In constant use by BRT, Brisbane Arts Theatre and Twelfth Night Theatre since 1942, it had its limitations in respect to the quality of its stage, dressing rooms and lighting equipment. But the first priority was still to purchase a building for rehearsal, production needs and storage. With no possibility of government support, President MacMinn and her Council launched a Premises Fund Appeal in August 1956 through a brochure sent to BRT’s constituency which unambiguously began its appeal with: “This is an Appeal for money. Our theatre needs premises … We have a tiny office in Chancery Chambers for the Secretary and a telephone – and that is all” (Premises Fund Appeal Brochure, 1956, La Boite Archives).

5 Australian Theatre Guild, which produced mainly comedies, operated between 1946 and 1949 at the Guild Café Theatre, originally Centennial Hall in Adelaide Street (Treading the Boards, 1999: 29). 6 English theatre director Tyrone Guthrie was sent by the British Council to advise the Australian Government on a national theatre. After his two week visit to each capital city, meeting with groups and seeing performances, he made a number of anglo-centric recommendations including the need for an Australian national company to debut in England as a guarantee of appropriate standards. The fall of the Chifley Government and rejection of his report by the new Menzies government ended the ‘idea’ of a national theatre (Andrews & Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 255-256). In 1954 the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust was founded to “establish national drama, opera and ballet companies, employing local artists” (Musa in Parsons, 1995: 72).

76 By the end of 1956, £300 had been raised from a membership of 500, a hard working Social Committee, and the artistic program which had managed a profit for the first time since 1952 (1956 Annual Report, UQFL109 Box 4.10). So, when Stephens succeeded MacMinn as President in 1957, BRT was in a sound financial state. In Stephens’ first two years, the Theatre continued to make a profit, membership increased and the Social Committee contributed another £520 to the Premises Appeal Fund (1957, 1958 Annual Reports, UQFL109 4.10).

• BRT’s purchase of the Hale and Sexton Street properties By 1958 enough money had been raised for Stephens and her Council to engineer a major coup for the Theatre - the purchase of a property for £2,400 in Hale and Sexton Streets, Milton consisting of two adjoining cottages (1958 Annual Report, UQFL109). Although not solely responsible for the achievement of this long term goal7, Stephens provided effective leadership and dogged persistence, spurred on most probably by Twelfth Night’s opening of their little theatre in Gowrie Hall, Wickham Terrace two years before, and BAT’s property plans which eventuated the following year with the purchase of a building in Petrie Terrace. In her own words, she summed up this achievement as “theatrical progress …for in 1958 we have accomplished a great deal” (ibid.). Whilst the inner-city property was big enough to solve rehearsal and storage problems, she noted that “our Major Plays are still not so fortunate” (ibid.).

In 1959, her third and final year as President8, Stephens and her Premises Committee purchased a third adjoining house in Hale Street for £2000. In her final report, she described 1959 as the year that “may perhaps go down in the history of the Theatre as one of, if not the most progressive year in our thirty-five years of life. It was pregnant with incident and achievement. It was imbued with a strong feeling of co-operative effort by which we gained immeasurably in both the tangible and intangible things” (1959 Annual Report, UQFL109). BRT now had accommodation for two sound- proofed rehearsal rooms in house Number 1, props, furniture and effects in Number 2, and Club rooms, wardrobe and downstairs scenery area in Number 3 (ibid.) 9.

7 Her fellow Premises Committee members included Council members Gwen MacMinn, Cecil Carson, Brisbane City Council Alderman Lex Ord, Honorary Treasurer John Townsend, and member Jack Godfrey. 8 An amendment to the Constitution in 1951 dictated that a President’s term of office not exceed three years (Minutes of Special Meeting, Nov. 13, 1951, UQFL109, Box 4). 9 BRT’s office remained at Chancery Chambers in the City, for the convenience of members.

• Stephens appointed in new role of ‘Theatre Director’ In 1960, the new President Cecil Carson and his Council, not wishing to lose Stephens’ valuable presence and influence, created a new position for her, that of Theatre Director with an accompanying annual fee of $250. If the intention was that she would now confine herself to artistic matters, that did not happen. With a substantial fee attached to the position, there was most probably Council expectation that she involve herself widely in the Theatre’s operations. Regardless, she clearly remained as dominant in her new role as she had been as President. It was at this point that Bruce Blocksidge began his involvement with BRT. Employed in his family’s well known Brisbane real estate firm, Blocksidge and Ferguson Pty. Ltd., he was approached professionally in 1960 by BRT Secretary, June Stevenson, for some advice about where they could acquire premises suitable for a theatre. Blocksidge recounts that Stephens and the Council dreamed of owning a theatre comparable to Her Majesty’s in Queen Street “but the reality was that they didn’t have the means to acquire it – that was the simple fact” (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2002: ll.195-196). Flattered to be asked to address several Council meetings on the theatre accommodation issue, he received an insight into Stephens’ power that was no doubt useful knowledge when his involvement increased over the next six years from professional advisor, to Council member, and, finally, President: … I went to a couple of Council meetings and I was amazed to see how it operated. Babette was such a dominant character. Someone would ask a question at a meeting and every head would turn around and say “Babette, what do you think?” And then she would pontificate, shall we say - I don’t mean that unkindly – and then everyone would be persuaded. She was the authority. And I was stupid enough or naïve enough to say “Should it really be that way?” And in a sense, spoke up. Then it got to a stage on certain issues, particularly on accommodation matters, when there would be two opinions, two views. And out of that, shall we say, clash of ideas, new ideas were formulated. (ibid.ll.198-206)

The only dark note in all the optimism about property ownership surfaced in 1962 when Brisbane City Council announced it was considering plans for a ring road in Hale Street. If it were to go ahead then there would be a question mark over the viability of developing their properties because of the probable resumption by BCC of some or all of their land. This did not, however, dampen Stephens’ enthusiasm about improvements to the Hale Street house; the removal of the centre wall gave rehearsal

78 space equal to that available at Albert Hall (1962 Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109). Neither did it stop the Council, when the opportunity presented itself in 1965, from purchasing yet another adjoining property in Sherriff Street to make a total of four in their portfolio. With this extra property, the fear of any possible BCC resumption of land seemed to diminish10. Stephens commented: To own the freehold of four houses situated in one close section is a fine thing, and by the purchase of this additional house, we have, by virtue of the hard work and advice of Mr Bruce Blocksidge, consolidated our position, so that in the event of resumption for the proposed ring road, we still have sufficient land for our purposes, which must surely gain in value. (1965 Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4.11)

• The 1967 opening of La Boite’s first theatre-in-the-round To this point, Stephens had never contemplated producing a mainhouse play in one of the cottages. However, all that changed when Rikki Burke conducted an experiment in the Hale Street rehearsal cottage. She directed a workshop production in ‘the round’ of Moon on the Hill [playwright unknown] with actors Jennifer Blocksidge, Barry Otto, Hazel Howson and Edward Thompson. It was a success. In her 1965 Report, Stephens commented: “This [experiment] was so successful that it is to be hoped that many more such nights may be made possible. This rehearsal room lends itself extremely well to this kind of production” (ibid.). These were fateful words.

In June 1967, one of the most significant developments in BRT’s history took place - the opening of its first mainhouse production in ‘La Boite’, an intimate, 70 seat, box- like space created for the purpose of theatre-in-the-round, in the converted Sexton Street cottage. Stephens had explained to the membership that it was no longer tenable to pay out “great sums of money” in rent and cartage: “The only way one can build a really healthy reserve is by playing long seasons without the crippling expense of these items, and this can only be done in a theatre of our own …” (1966 Theatre Director’s AGM Report, UQFL109 Box 4.11). Then news of the imminent demolition of Albert Hall11 made the issue even more urgent: “This meant that no suitable halls

10 By 1967 the BCC had resolved the matter without threat to the Theatre (Hatcher in The Courier Mail, August 25, 1967). 11 Albert Hall, venue for BRT productions since 1942, was demolished in 1968 to make way for the State Government Insurance Office redevelopment which also housed the SGIO Theatre, home for many years to QTC and its productions (Treading the Boards, 1999: 35 & 65).

79 for theatrical presentations were available to us at reasonable rental within the central city area” (The Old “LA BOITE” 1967-1971, Kaye Stevenson Private Collection).

It was Blocksidge’s idea that one of the cottages could be converted into a theatre space. He had recently been to Hayes Gordon’s Ensemble Theatre in Sydney with his wife Jennifer Blocksidge and had been very impressed with what he saw: “For the first time I was exposed to theatre-in-the-round … in what was virtually an old boat shed” (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2001: ll.241-244). The performance they had attended had audience sitting on all four sides of the stage. Very economic in design, he realized this idea could translate perfectly into one of the BRT properties. Once “the idea of owning a magnificent place in Queen Street or the city” was abandoned, he looked at what BRT owned and the possibilities therein, working on the principle that “you should always ulitize what you’ve got”. For him “it didn’t seem to me to be a terribly big jump to say if you are going to be able to use a building for rehearsals and for meetings and for get togethers for theatrical people, the next step is that maybe you should use it to put on your performances there” (ibid.: ll.225-234).

Of this idea, Jennifer Blocksidge recalled that initially “Babette was totally against it. She felt it was a retrograde step. Now she will never be seen today to say that but in fact she was… she doesn’t really like rough theatre and I think she felt that what we were doing was becoming a rough theatre” (Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, 1978: ll.451-454). Once convinced of the efficacy of the project, Stephens “very strongly identified with it” (ibid.:l. 456), completely embracing the notion and selling it enthusiastically to the membership. The existing rehearsal room in the Sexton Street cottage was targeted for conversion into a theatre space that Blocksidge remembers was, on its completion, exactly 22 feet 3 inches square: [The cottage] was virtually on the street and the entrance was up the centre and on one side we put the box office and on the other the electrics. And at the back we put the wings of the theatre … There were two rows of seats and we actually built the seats out of the timber that we removed from the internal walls. We stripped the walls down and that structure is such, those pyramid walls hold themselves up so you can take out the dividing walls. …all very simple and straight forward. (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2001: ll.249-276)

80 At some point, in the lead-up to the opening of BRT’s new ‘theatre-in-the-round’ in June 1967, the space was christened ‘La Boite’. French for ‘the box’ it was an apt description of the old house’s box-like space that was the humble fore-runner of better things to come. It was Blocksidge who thought of the name. When studying in London, he lived in the Victoria League Student’s Club in Bayswater. Close by was ‘La Boite’, a coffee house, “a little place frequented by well known theatricals – I think Sir Laurence Oliver was one, to drop a name!” (ibid.: ll.266-267).

The first La Boite opened on June 23, 1967 with a production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger12 directed by Babette Stephens and featuring David Clendinning as Jimmy Porter (a role he took over at the 11th hour when Les McWilliams was suddenly taken ill), Jennifer Blocksidge, Michael Gaut, Edward Thompson and Muriel Watson. Equally successful was the next production, the spine-chilling thriller The Man directed by Rikki Burke with Barry Otto in the lead role – “easily his best The Hale Street entrance to the first la Boite (Kaye Stevenson Private Collection) performance to date” (Hatcher in The Courier Mail, July 28, 1967). Except that it did not have an unchanging ensemble of actors and no-one was paid, La Boite began its life very much like a professional English repertory company: it played every week including Christmas and Easter from Thursday to Saturday – when one play was in rehearsal another was in production. Stephens joked that with the demise of the famous Windmill Theatre in London, La Boite could with impunity, adopt their famous slogan “We Never Close” (1967 Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4.11).

The excitement surrounding this big year in the Theatre’s history is captured in both President Bruce Blocksidge’s 1967 Annual Report and Babette Stephens’s Theatre Director’s Report (1967 AGM Minutes, Feb. 26 1968, UQFL109 Box 4.2). Among

12 Look Back in Anger had already had a very successful season earlier in the year at Albert Hall.

81 other things, both stressed the new and different group of people now attracted to La Boite – a new audience and a new set of directors and actors was emerging. Said Blocksidge: “We are getting support now at La Boite from people who have never come to our plays before” (ibid.). He called the change that had taken place “dramatic” and noted that all productions, running continuously since opening night in June, had made a profit. In fact, he reported that the gross income from plays was up 115% on what it was the previous year (ibid.). Declaring that “our new venture has made a very big impression on Brisbane’s theatre scene”, Stephens’ report commented particularly on the exciting new demands this little space made on actors, directors and audience (1967 Annual Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109 Box 4.11): … in the round, nothing, but nothing can be faked. Newspapers read by actors are read with equal interest by members of the audience, and no longer can a cast convincingly make an enthusiastic meal of mashed banana. … I believe that both from an acting and directing point of view this kind of theatre is undoubtedly the best and most rewarding exercise possible. (ibid.) Special thanks is directed to Bruce Blocksidge “who it must be told, not only worked on the building but obtained so much for us from city firms for, in many cases, absolutely nothing” (ibid.).

The booklet The Old “LA BOITE” 1967-197113, a detailed account of the risky decision to create an experimental theatre space in Brisbane, indicates the strategic thinking behind the move, noting that “There was no existing theatre-in-the-round in Brisbane … as the earliest form of theatre known, it would be a valuable asset to Brisbane and could well hold an important place in our slowly developing theatre scene …theatrical experience in a city the size of Brisbane, should not be limited to proscenium theatre and theatre restaurant…theatre trends overseas showed an increasing demand for flexible spaces … economically a theatre –in-the-round was within our reach” (Stevenson Private Collection).

• The significance of the first La Boite The significance of this moment in La Boite’s history and later capacity to make the transition to a professionally staffed amateur theatre before transforming itself into a

13 This booklet as published by BRT in 1972 to commemorate the five years in the first La Boite. Kindly lent to me by Kaye Stevenson, a copy also exists in the Fryer Library BRT Collection UQFL109.

82 fully professional company, cannot be underestimated. At a time of great cultural, as well as social and political, change in Australia, BRT chose to be part of cultural change rather than opting for the status quo. The alternative theatre space that was ‘La Boite’ excited the imagination not only of existing members but of a sector of the Brisbane public that had not previously been interested in BRT’s productions at Albert Hall. A new, younger audience and a new group of directors and actors (as well as established BRT directors and actors who relished the new challenge) were attracted to the intimate, warts and all, feel of La Boite. The working class drama Look Back in Anger which opened La Boite was in stark contrast to the essentially conservative fare generally offered up by BRT and signalled a change in repertoire that slowly progressed to more radical, non-mainstream and even Australian plays as the influence of Babette Stephens faded and that of Jennifer Blocksidge emerged. Yet, at this time, it was Stephens, Bruce Blocksidge and the Council’s ability to envision a different kind of future for BRT and to take positive but measured and financially achievable steps that allowed the Theatre to dynamically evolve in this unexpected, imaginative way.

The “in the round” symbol adopted in 1967. The French spelling had disappeared by 1985 (La Boite Archives)

La Boite’s Theatrical Life 1967 to 1972 During the short span of its life (1967 and 1972), there were thirty-eight productions at BRT’s La Boite. Very much an actor’s space, it attracted talented performers such as Barry Otto (who took roles in eight plays), John Stanton, Hazel Howson, Ron Verburgt, Judith McGrath, Muriel Watson, Kaye Stevenson, Ian Thomson, Frank Gallacher, Jennifer Blocksidge, Russell Kiefel, Eileen Beatson, Lesley Ricketts, Trevor Smith (now Stuart) and John Scott, many of whom went on to have successful professional careers. There was no shortage of directors either, eager to master the particular demands of this new space. Over the five year period twenty different directors worked in the space, including Babette Stephens, Bill Pepper, Jennifer Blocksidge, Ron Verburgt, Rikki Burke, Gary O’Neil, Jane Atkins, Lesley Ricketts,

83 Robert Arthur and Graeme Johnston. Certainly, the repertoire did not change overnight; rather, with each set of seasons, more challenging, contemporary works by playwrights such as Harold Pinter, Peter Shaffer, Brian Friel, Edward Albee, Jean Paul Sartre and Peter Handke, were slowly creeping in, as well as the occasional Australian work (see Appendix 8). This was yet another example of BRT’s characteristically measured approach to change; a more progressive approach to programming was underway, but introduced gradually, giving its constituency time to adapt and accept such changes. It was not until Jennifer Blocksidge had established herself as Theatre Director that, under her influence, more profound changes occurred in the Theatre’s repertoire.

Other Organizational Achievements Yet another achievement during Stephens’ Presidency -“Perhaps the most gratifying thing” - was the enormous increase in membership that she and her Council achieved: at the beginning of her term in 1957 it was 509 and at the end it was 920, the largest membership in the Theatre’s history (1959 Annual Report, UQFL109, Box 4.10). Considering the recent introduction of television and general predictions of a downturn in audiences for all theatre events, this was a remarkable achievement. In her 1960 Report she commented that, “We anticipated that our Door Sales would be considerably reduced and we were right, but we did not anticipate that even before the season was half over the figures would commence the upward climb!”(ibid.1960). That BRT thrived when “large-scale commercial theatre withered as it lost audiences to television” (Brisbane & Enright in Parsons, 1995: 20) was a great tribute to the effectiveness of Stephens’ leadership, her personal following and public advocacy of BRT14.

Another innovation was her revitalisation of young people’s involvement in BRT. Committed to training in stage techniques for would-be actors and directors, Stephens reshaped the old Activities Committee, which had previously provided experience for young people through play readings and one act plays, to become ‘Workshop Theatre’. No longer the “Cinderella” branch of the Theatre, which she felt it had become, she promoted it as a training ground for young players and “a seed-bed for

14 BRT was not the only Brisbane group that withstood the threat of television. Both BAT and Twelfth Night Theatre also thrived in the 1950s (Radbourne in Parsons, 1995: 103; Batchelor & Anthony ibid. 618).

84 potential performers for the Major Plays” (1958 Annual Report, UQFL109). Between 1957 and her final year as Theatre Director, Workshop produced sixty-five one-act plays and ten three-act plays (Annual Reports 1957-68, UQFL109).

PART TWO Stephens’ Artistic Leadership • Early tensions about the non-programming of Australian plays Even though Stephens was not appointed Theatre Director until 1960, her artistic influence was felt, but not always appreciated, from the early 1950s. In July 1951, Daphne Roemermann and her husband Carl, both active members since the 1930s, resigned over the matter of Stephens’ selection to direct the Commonwealth Jubilee play and the unsuitability of the choice of play for this celebration of Australia’s fifty years since Federation - the ‘costume’ play Berkeley Square by English playwright John L. Balderstone (Minutes of Meeting June 14, 1951, UQFL109 Box 4). This issue caused enough of a stir in the Council that President Carson called for a vote of confidence in the way he had dealt with the matter. Clare Clarke abstained because she wanted the Roemermann’s letter of resignation openly discussed (ibid.). If this had happened, the Council would have heard how disappointed the Roemermann’s were that Clare Clarke’s motion on the need to reinstate the Australian play, carried at the last AGM, had not been honoured. Her motion read: “… that consideration be given to the inclusion of one Australian play in each year’s programme and more particularly this year [1951] in view of the Jubilee celebrations”. It would be safe to surmise that both Roemermann and Clarke, supporters of Stable and Sisley’s commitment to the Australian play, recognized in Stephens no such commitment, and feared, as was to happen, its almost complete disappearance under her influence as President and Theatre Director. By 1953, Stephens had succeeded Clarke as head of the Reading and Casting Committee, a most powerful position as this committee was responsible for the choice of plays and their casting, in conjunction with individual directors.

The Australian play ‘drought’ was finally broken in 1962 with a highly successful season of Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year, already produced in every other State in Australia, but never before in Brisbane. Directed by Stephens, it did such

85 “remarkable business” that she would have extended the season except for the unavailability of Albert Hall. She was proud of the fact that BRT brought this contemporary Australian play to Brisbane having “obtained special permission from the Elizabethen Theatre Trust for its performance” and “presenting it as a Professional Production, the Amateur Rights being unavailable” (Theatre Director’s Report 1962, UQFL109).

It was an innovative move for Stephens to choose a new work (it had only premiered in 1960) with working-class characters dealing controversially with Australia’s big ‘one day of the year’ – Anzac Day. Katharine Brisbane calls the play “a turning point in the postwar movement away from British gentility towards examination of the knotty working-class roots of Australian life” (in Parsons, 1995: 418). Despite its great success, it was not a turning point for BRT and ‘British gentility’ was to continue to be the favoured ‘genre’, along with some popular American plays, for as long as Stephens and Birdwood-Smith continued to preside over play choices. Indeed, it was another six years before any other Australian plays were produced - David Turner’s Semi-Detached (the last play at the Albert Hall) in 1967 and Brisbane artist Doug Anders’ one act play Road of Silence in 1968.

• Stephens’ English-dominated repertoire Unlike the earlier, more intellectual leaders, Sisley and Stable, who read Australian plays and had a commitment to producing them (however randomly), nothing in Stephens’ background would have inclined her towards a sense of obligation towards Australian drama. Born in London in 1910 into an upper-middle class family, Phyllis Babette Ferguson was exposed from an early age to “every possible style” of theatre by her grandmother and “every historical thing” by her grandfather (Stephens Interview, March 12, 1991: ll.14-18). Her mother was a professional singer, her step- father worked for a major London theatrical manager/producer and Babette was trained in elocution and dancing (ibid.: ll.34-46). She was English through and through, and although having lived in Australia since 1925, the repertoire that she chose for Brisbane Repertory Theatre was mainly British and drew heavily on what was successful in London’s West End. The exception was her growing respect for American plays which, very occasionally, she programmed into her seasons. What Stephens was interested in were plays that would draw an audience and have high

86 entertainment value. Unlike Sisley and Stable’s seasons, there were no Ibsens or Shaws or risky Australian plays included that might be possible box-office disasters, although there were Shakespeares (one per year from 1959 to 1962) chosen in an endeavour (not always successful) to attract the large school audiences.

In her President’s Report on the 1957 productions, she proudly highlighted for the membership the artistic and financial success of “… two comedies and a drama from England, a comedy and a drama from America and a costume play from France”. This season, predominately ‘light-weight’ fare balanced by the presence of Arthur Miller’s challenging play The Crucible directed by Stephens, was characteristic of BRT repertoire well into the 1960s. In addition to The Crucible, it included Relative Values by Noel Coward, Waiting for Gillian by Ronal Millar, Colombe by Jean Anouilh, Meet a Body by Frank Launder and Sydney Gilliatt, all directed by Gloria Birdwood- Smith, and King of Hearts by Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke directed by Babette Stephens (1957 Annual Report, UQFL109).

Whatever one thinks of her lack of interest in the Australian play, Stephens’ programming was successful at the box office and consistently well received by local reviewers. In those pre-government subsidy days, amateur groups could programme what they liked, answerable to nobody except their constituencies. It was Stephens’ talent for choosing good quality, audience-pleasing works, often proven successes from London’s West End, and achievable within the many constraints posed by an amateur organization, that kept BRT’s reputation high and the organization artistically successful during her tenure.

Jane by S.N. Behrman directed by Gloria Birdwood-Smith at Albert Hall, 1955 (QPAC Heritage Collection)

87 • The two producer ‘policy’ Between 1946 and 1955, twenty-six different directors were given the opportunity to direct the sixty-eight major seasons, all of which were staged at Albert Hall. Such an approach gave little chance of maintaining the high directorial standards achieved pre- 1946 and, if allowed to continue, would have turned BRT into just another little theatre of widely varying standards of production. However, from 1953 directing was increasingly dominated by just two women - Stephens and Gloria Birdwood-Smith - until, in 1956, they directed all six major productions, Stephens directing four and Birdwood-Smith two. This monopoly on directing continued, with very few exceptions, until 1966. As both women were key members of the Reading and Casting committee, and Stephens was Theatre Director from 1960, their dominance of the whole artistic field, from choice of plays, to casting, to direction, was strong. The only explanation I could find for their direction of all productions in 1956 was President MacMinn’s comment in her Annual Report that the plays were presented by only two directors because of “the shortage of first class Producers and the need to train or obtain more” (1956 Annual Report, UQFL109 Box 4.10). She did recognise however that “The standard set is one of the highest we have achieved” (ibid.).

It would seem that once elected President in 1957, Stephens consolidated what might have been the happenstance of the previous year’s dominance by two directors into a deliberate move to ‘quality control’ productions, reminiscent of the decision made in 1937 to appoint the highly skilled and artistic Sisley as the sole director. On both occasions Sisley and Stephens sensed the need to improve quality and to develop more of a ‘house style’ that would always guarantee the audience a polished and entertaining evening at the theatre. Both Stephens and Birdwood-Smith came to their directing and acting roles (as both took roles from time to time) at BRT from professional backgrounds. Stephens’ long career in theatre began with her involvement with BRT but when she came to her ‘Rep’ leadership roles her working life had extended professionally well beyond it into radio and journalism. Alongside her BRT involvement, she continued to pursue a professional career in television, film and stage, particularly with QTC. She was a much sought after public speaker, TV games panellist, drama adjudicator, and active member of many worthy organizations. Gloria Birdwood-Smith had worked professionally as an actor in many character roles

88 with Will Mahoney’s Company15 at the Theatre Royal, Brisbane in the 1940s and had directed, performed in and choreographed numerous productions for The Musical and Theatre Guild of Queensland during the ‘40s and ‘50s (QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection; The Sunday Truth, “See How They Run … At Albert Hall, Next Week”, Nov. 12, 1961). Both women were talented directors and, despite the limitations of working with amateurs on-stage and back-stage, produced high standard, audience pleasing productions.

• Babette Stephens – Theatre Director 1960 to 1968 The new position of ‘Theatre Director’ with an annual fee of £250 attached, was especially created for Stephens by a Council no doubt keen not to lose her high- profile and influential presence after her three year term as President was completed. The attachment of a fee for directing was not new – in Sisley’s day, she and others earned up to £20 per production – but the innovation was the professionalising of the role with its own title and annual fee. This was an important step in BRT’s gradual evolution into a professional company and a strong signal at this stage of its development that it aligned itself with professional standards.

Jennifer Blocksidge supplied another angle on Stephens’ rise to Theatre Director which hints at a Council trying to lessen her stranglehold on power at BRT. When asked in interview by Jennifer Radbourne did she know why the Council decided to create this new position, Blocksidge responded: I’ll say it but I’ll ask your discretion …and it has been reported and I wasn’t personally involved in any of it. As I understand it, Babette had been President for a very long time and there was quite a lot of feeling that she couldn’t be ousted from that position because of the value she was to the company and so on and so forth. And I think, in order to get some balance to proceedings and to make it possible to perhaps balance any kind of controversy that might come up later, they created the position of Director because they felt that her main strength was on the artistic side and balanced it by keeping the position of President in the Constitution for someone else. (Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, July 17, 1978: ll.133-141 )

15 Will Mahoney, a vaudeville star, managed the Cremorne Theatre with his singer wife Evie Hayes before re-launching the Theatre Royal in 1945 with a production of Peter Pan. His efforts at bringing back legitimate theatre to the Theatre Royal ended in financial disaster (Treading the Boards, 1999: 17).

89 In fact, Stephens’ term as President was no more than the three years stipulated by the Constitution but there is no doubt that her influence had been considerable since the late 1940s. As Theatre Director she continued to dominate to the point where the role of Council President was in danger of becoming a figurehead position. Archival records show that between 1960 and 1968 Theatre Director’s Reports were delivered at AGMs but there is no evidence to show that as standard practice Council President’s gave formal annual reports16. The Very Reverend W.P.Baddeley, Dean of Brisbane, for example, who served as President between 1961 and 1963, was certainly little more than a figurehead. In welcoming him to his new role, Stephens introduced him as coming from a family “bristling with Theatre stars” and that “his wide practical knowledge of the Theatre is going to be immeasurable use to us” (AGM Minutes Feb. 20, 1961, UQFL109 Box 4). How effective the Dean’s tenure was is unclear from the records but suffice it to say that at both Annual General Meetings that he should have attended as President, he was absent; Gwen MacMinn took the Chair on both occasions (AGM Minutes Feb. 19, 1963; Feb. 17, 1964, UQFL109). He was good at rhetoric and an important figure in Brisbane society, and perhaps that was all that was needed, given that the real leadership during those years was in the hands of the Theatre Director. In fact, Jennifer Blocksidge corroborated this, stating that after Stephens moved from President to Director, the three-year rotating President’s role became one which “allowed for people like Bill Baddeley for example, to come in as President who was completely inactive – he was a figure-head President” (Jennifer Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, July 17, 1978: ll.148-151). However, this was not the case with Bruce Blocksidge, who, even before he was elected president in 1967, had had an important influence on Stephens’ thinking about BRT’s evolution into a different kind of theatre from the one she had held dear for many decades.

A consequence of the directing domination by Stephens and Birdwood-Smith was the apprentice-model actor training made available to amateur actors through the rehearsal and production process under the guidance of these two experienced directors. By1960 the Theatre had nurtured some outstanding talent whose next move was into the professional theatre. With no professional opportunities available

16 The one exception is the Annual Report delivered in February 1965 by President Lex Ord because Stephens was overseas.

90 anywhere in Brisbane, Barry Creyton, who had had lead roles in the 1960 productions of Nude with Violin and Twelfth Night (both directed by Stephens) went off to join J.C.Williamson and The Mavis Bramston Show. Elaine Cusick obtained work on television and with Union Theatre in Melbourne, Judith Arthy’s professional career took off with a role in The One Day of The Year in Sydney, and Ray Barrett found early fame in London. Nonnie Stewart opened in New York to enthusiastic press reports for her role as Mary Stuart in My Beginning (1961 Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4.11). Timothy Cohen and Rosalind Seagrave, who had performed lead roles in Birdwood-Smith’s 1960 productions Touch of Fear and Affairs of State respectively, joined the Elizabethan Trust School in 1961 and the following year, along with Wilfred Camps, were accepted into NIDA (1960 Theatre Director’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4.11). In a gesture that reflected the pride Stephens and the Council had in these young people, a decision was made to award a Brisbane Repertory Theatre Scholarship to Rosalind Seagrave which paid her NIDA fees for 1962 (ibid.). Said Stephens: “This is the first time such an event has occurred in the history of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre, and it is with very much pleasure that I am empowered to announce it” (ibid.). Seagrave graduated from NIDA with honours and went immediately into her first professional production, playing Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret (1962 Annual Report, UQFL109 Box 4.11). This was the beginning of BRT’s serious reputation as a ‘training ground’ not only for actors but for all aspects of theatre work, a function that continued until it became a professional company in 1993.

• Membership increase By 1964 – the year that Babette Stephens took leave from BRT to travel overseas - rising costs impelled the Theatre to raise the Membership Subscription for the first time since 1953. Such a move was never undertaken lightly as maintaining and growing Membership was crucial to BRT’s ongoing existence. On this occasion a Special General Meeting of members voted to increase the Membership fee from £2.2.0 to £3.3.0 (1964 President’s Annual Report, UQFL109). It was remarkable that the fee increases since the Theatre’s beginning in 1925 had been so modest. From £1.7.6 in 1930 (the first indication of a fee from my research) to £1.12.6 sometime in the 1940s, to £2.2.0 in 1953, then £3.3.0 in 1964 was modest indeed, considering the enormous increase in costs over the same period.

• Gloria Birdwood-Smith’s ‘fall from grace’

Whilst Stephens was overseas for part of 1964/1965, Gloria Birdwood-Smith made a move that was calculated to re-locate, or at least, ‘trial’ BRT at an auditorium in a commercial building located at the Petrie Bight end of Adelaide Street (a most down- market address in the 1960s). She and her brother Alex Francis-Smith had leased this auditorium and turned it into a theatre - the TAA Theatre17. Gloria Birdwood-Smith circa 1962 (La Boite Archives) Wanting a guaranteed success for the opening show in this new venue, she had persuaded Stephens to let her do a musical, only the second time the Theatre had attempted this particular theatrical genre18 (McKee, 2004 : 225). She chose Calamity Jane, a clever choice as this musical had been made popular by the 1953 film version starring Doris Day. An experienced musical director, she cast Rowena Wallace19 in the lead, supporting her with an experienced team of versatile performers which included Barry Otto (QPAC Heritage Collection, Calamity Jane Program). She had a hit on her hands. It seemed that BRT members and the general public were willing to abandon the usual Albert Hall venue and venture into Brisbane’s seamier side to attend a hit musical.

Stephens was back from overseas in time to witness this event and graciously made special mention of its success in her 1965 Theatre Director’s Report: “A large cast, music, acting, singing, costuming, setting, this is a gargantuan task at any time, and under the conditions that non-professionals work, still more admirable” (UQFL109). She had serious misgivings about this move into TAA Theatre however, suspecting a takeover bid from Birdwood-Smith. As McKee reported, based on his interviews with

17 The TAA Theatre was an auditorium located within the TAA building, used in the 1960s by BRT and the Brisbane Choral Society TAA – Trans Australian Airlines (later named Australian Airlines) was the foremost domestic carrier until 1992 (Treading the Boards, 1999: 83 and http://www.airchive.com cited August 8, 2003). 18 The first musical was 1066 And All That by Reginald Arkell, directed by Barbara Sisley in 1940. 19 Rowena Wallace was first introduced to theatre at Twelfth Night, then went on to work at Brisbane’s Channel 7, before finding fame in a Sydney production of You Can’t See Round Corners which launched her enduring career on stage, television and film (http://members.lycos.co.uk/rowenawallace/backgrou.htm).

92 Stephens: “She suspected that Gloria Birdwood-Smith was using the theatre as part of a broader plan to wrest control of Rep. away from her. Babette was discovering that life at the top could be precarious!” (McKee 2004: 226). Despite these reservations, Stephens allowed the next three productions to have their seasons in the TAA Theatre.

Calamity Jane at the TAA Theatre spelt the end of Birdwood-Smith’s directing career with BRT. To say that Stephens ‘got rid of her’ for her ‘treachery’ in attempting to ‘use’ BRT for her own ends in her co-leased TAA Theatre, cannot be substantiated through my research. However, there is no doubt there was a parting of the ways and a severe cooling of what had been a close artistic relationship. In an interview Stephens gave in 1991, all she said of her former colleague was “My 2IC was Gloria Birdwood-Smith who left the theatre…anyway, it wasn’t good, and she left. Otherwise she would have taken over when I resigned” (Stephens Interview with Lumer and Stephenson, April 2, 1991: ll.1285-1288). If Birdwood-Smith and not Jennifer Blocksidge had succeeded Stephens, then it is debatable whether BRT would have survived the coming years. With her theatrical interests focussed mainly on English comedies, thrillers and musicals and with no discernible interest in Australian plays, she did not have the kind of vision for a BRT future that could embrace change in both its repertoire and its theatre space. Post-BRT, she focussed her attention on her TAA Theatre productions and remained active in Brisbane theatrical circles for some time, devoting a number of years in the early 1970s to directing for the Brisbane Youth Theatre, before moving to Melbourne.

With the TAA Theatre episode well and truly over, Stephens programmed all plays for the 1966 season back in Albert Hall. Now that the directing monopoly of Stephens and Birdwood-Smith was broken, the way was open for a new set of women directors, who had honed their skills on Workshop productions, to take on major productions including Lesley Ricketts, Tina Flor, Rikki Burke, and Jennifer Blocksidge who directed a children’s show, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

93 Stephens’ Resignation At the beginning of 1968, Stephens became ill and recuperated abroad for most of the year. Feeling unable “to give to the theatre the amount of time, concentration and dedication that I have in the past” she announced her retirement during her final Theatre Director’s Report in early 1969, thanking “all those marvellous people with whom I have been associated for the betterment of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre who have worked so tirelessly for the standard of unpaid professionalism” (1968 Theatre Director’s Report, 24 Feb. 1969, UQFL109). In the same year, in recognition of her outstanding work for BRT, she was conferred a Life Member (McKee, 2004: 300) and in 2000 Sue Rider had the honour of naming her a Living Treasure of La Boite Theatre (Ignite 5, 2001: 4). In a tribute to her after her death in 2001, Sue Rider acknowledged the magnitude of Stephens’ contribution to theatre in Queensland and the enormous respect La Boite Theatre has for her part in its development: Babette never retired and her services to theatre brought her many distinctions: MBE, AM, Matilda Award, QTC’s Lifetime Achievement Award…Her yardstick was excellence. She had definite views but was never stuck in the past…Babette, thank you for all that you did for us, for your courage, your toughness, your passion and your love. (Ignite 5, 2001: 4)

Conclusion In this era, Stephens’ impressive contribution to BRT’s development as an amateur company which aspired to professional standards was linked to both her effective organizational leadership and her inspiring artistic leadership, limited as this was by her anglo-centric inclinations. Although it has been argued that Stephens drew the Theatre dangerously away from the integrity of purpose that characterized Stable and Sisley’s approach to repertoire, in terms of striving for high quality product, she was in accord with her predecessors. She championed plays that had great appeal to the prevailing tastes of an Australia still in the throes of ‘cultural cringe’ and attracted warm and widespread support through her charismatic personality. As the two dominant directors, Stephens and Birdwood-Smith shared with Sisley professional theatrical backgrounds which enabled a continuation of professional standards of direction (always, of course, within the constraint of amateur players and theatre workers). The success of her artistic leadership can be gauged by the number of actors from her era whose professional careers developed through their BRT experiences. It

94 is a mark of the dynamic nature of the Theatre’s evolution that other forces emerged to ensure that Stephens was not allowed to retain her powerful dominance when to do so may have crippled BRT’s chances of shaping its future in accord with the just- emerging New Wave of Australian Theatre.

It was the success of her organizational manoeuvres that more than anything defined Stephens’ legacy to BRT. Her leadership role in the acquiring of a four-property portfolio, which enabled a theatre plus rehearsal, storage and building spaces to operate all within the one Hale Street precinct, gave BRT a powerful financial base and exciting, experimental artistic presence from which to confidently pursue its next big steps in its evolution – the 1972 opening of the purpose-built La Boite and, within four more years, its transition to pro-am status.

95 CHAPTER FIVE The Blocksidges and Billinghurst Era 1969 – 1979 Introduction In the decade following the end of the Babette Stephens era, three people – Bruce Blocksidge, Jennifer Blocksidge and Rick Billinghurst - emerged as defining forces in a period of change and development unprecedented in La Boite’s history. Significant outcomes of their organizational and artistic leadership were the opening of Australia’s first purpose-built 200 seat theatre-in-the-round; a dramatic change in repertoire; the building of a national profile and reputation as an ‘alternative’ theatre company; and the accomplishment of La Boite’s first major status change, the historic transition from an amateur group to a pro-am community theatre.

Part One of this chapter examines President Bruce Blocksidge’s role in steering to completion the award-winning ‘La Boite’ building, destined to become an iconic theatrical landmark in Brisbane, and in moving La Boite towards a more professional administrative mode of operation. Part Two focuses on how Director Jennifer Blocksidge changed La Boite irrevocably from the safe and conservative theatre it was under Stephens’ leadership to a much riskier, more challenging and contemporary enterprise. It also examines the practical steps she took to develop the Theatre in a more professional artistic direction through building a financially important relationship with the Queensland Government, introducing the professional Early Childhood Drama Project, and encouraging the appointment of the Theatre’s first professional Artistic Director. Part Three considers the profound change Rick Billinghurst’s appointment as La Boite’s first professional artistic director exerted on the Theatre. It examines how it evolved under his leadership into a well funded community theatre with a reputation for ‘alternativeness’ and the programming of new Queensland and Australian plays, and how a major review of all activities confirmed La Boite’s pro-am status but also opened up the possibility that it might become Brisbane’s professional ‘alternative’ theatre company in the future.

96 PART ONE President Bruce Blocksidge’s Leadership Role • The decision to build a new theatre-in-the-round ‘La Boite’, in the converted cottage in Sexton Street, had served BRT well, but a 70 seat theatre in an old building with “most shocking conditions” was not economically viable in the long term (AGM Minutes, Feb. 25, 1970, UQFL109, Box 4.2). Blocksidge’s principle of asking “what have you got and what Bruce Blocksidge, 1990 (La Boite Archives) can we build with what you’ve got?” (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2002: 231-232 ) led him to recognize the potential for re-development of the Hale Street properties; his suggestion of demolishing some of the cottages (including the first La Boite) and building an architect-designed theatre right on their own property was enthusiastically accepted by BRT’s Council. Although his three year term of office as President expired at the end of 1969, Council considered it expedient to bend the rules to enable him, as initiator of the Building Programme, to guide the project through to its completion as BRT’s President.

Early in 1970 Blocksidge announced that the proposed new building would be constructed as an in-the-round performance space. In response to the disappointment of “older members” who would have preferred a more conventional space, he explained that the decision was based not only on the proven success of the first La Boite, but on serious economic considerations: “… it is within our power to build a Theatre in the Round at the present time and not a proscenium one” (AGM Minutes, Feb. 25, 1970, UQFL109, Box 4.2). As Council Vice President and Alderman Lex Ord noted, BRT, “entirely free of debt again” due to Bruce Blocksidge’s “tremendous achievement” over the three years of his presidency, was now in a sound financial position to undertake this new challenge, and to shoulder new debt (ibid.).

97 Real Estate Director Bruce Blocksidge’s clout in the City was a benefit to BRT at this time of great progress, exemplified by the ease with which he was able to call upon useful professional people to join his New Theatre Committee (AGM Minutes Feb. 23, 1971, UQFL109). Through his own expertise given freely and his capacity to interest so many business and professional people in contributing their professional services for a nominal fee or for nothing, he saved the building project a considerable amount of money. One such person was Honorary Architect and BRT Councillor Blair Wilson, whose plans for the proposed new theatre - modest and achievable - were tabled at the AGM in early 1970. Although ready to start immediately it was not until towards the end of 1971 that the Queensland Government finally approved the project and agreed to contribute substantial financial support, allowing the actual building to commence. In just 27 weeks the clay-brick theatre was completed1 (President’s Message in A Refined Look at Existence program, 1972, Lumer Private Collection).

• Queensland Government support According to Bruce Blocksidge, it was Theatre Director Jennifer Blocksidge’s well- crafted funding application which secured a Queensland Government $40,000 subsidy towards the new theatre, with an agreement that it be matched dollar for dollar by BRT2 (The Courier Mail, Sept. 24, 1971, UQFL109 Box 70). Bruce Blocksidge recalled that her submission “got a very sympathetic hearing, it was well received” and that “Sir Gordon Chalk was the one who was able to persuade the government to come to the party” (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2002: ll.324-327). In his public announcement of this generous support, Bruce Blocksidge commented that it was “an act of enlightened statesmanship for the Government to do this sort of thing, because Queensland has got past the subsistence level of existence” (op.cit.).

This was not the first time Jennifer Blocksidge had won State Government funding for BRT. In 1969 she had been granted a modest $1,000 for Workshop Classes

1 As the original La Boite faced demolition even before the 1971 season in the cottage had finished, the final production, Alex Buzo’s Rooted, was left without a theatre-space. The problem was solved by performing the play in a tent erected in the grounds of the Theatre. 2 BRT’s $40,000 contribution came from a $30,000 Bank of Queensland mortgage to be re-paid over 15 years, $6,000 from BRT’s building fund account, and $4000 “either borrowed or guaranteed by the theatre’s finance committee” (The Telegraph, Oct. 23, 1971).

98 through the newly formed Office of the Minister for Education and Cultural Activities3 of which Sir Alan Fletcher was the Minister and Arthur Creedy, a lover of theatre and a keen La Boite supporter, the Director of Cultural Activities. However, in this case, the $40,000 subsidy was directly sponsored by the Treasurer, Sir Gordon Chalk, and, on the advice of Fletcher and Creedy, an annual grant was also secured to assist in meeting the running expenses of the Theatre (President’s Message in A Refined Look at Existence, Program, 1972, Lumer Private Collection). Without Chalk’s belief in and financial support of the building project it is hard to imagine how La Boite could have been built. When this former Leader of the Queensland Liberal Party, Deputy Premier, and Treasurer died in 1991, his importance to the organization’s evolution was recognized: “Sir Gordon never missed an opening night and indeed without his backing and support at a very crucial stage of La Boite’s development things could have turned out very differently for this theatre” (La Boite News and Views, May 1991, Rod Lumer Private Collection).

The newly completed La Boite Theatre, Sexton Street entrance 1972 (La Boite Archives)

• La Boite Theatre opening and first seasons The new theatre was built on three levels. Entering from Hale Street was level one incorporating dressing rooms, a large work-room, small kitchen, office space, and toilets; level two, the ‘front’ of the building, was entered via Sexton Street and comprised the box office, foyer, and courtyard; and level three contained the auditorium with central stage, tiered seating on four sides with flexibility to remove one bank of seating, and an elevated sound and lighting box.

3 Queensland was then in the unique position of being the only State Government in Australia to have created a Cultural Activities section. Interestingly, in 2004, education and the arts again joined forces with the announcement of the Queensland Department of Education and the Arts under the Hon. Anna Bligh MP.

La Boite Theatre was officially opened on Sunday June 4, 1972 by the Theatre’s Patron, the Governor of Queensland, Sir Colin Hannah, in the presence of the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Sir Gordon Chalk, The Hon. Max Hodges, Dame Merlin Myer4, and members of the Theatre (President’s Message in A Refined Look at Existence, Program, 1972, Lumer Private Collection). In his President’s address on this occasion, Bruce Blocksidge emphasized the “community of effort” from organizations and private individuals that made possible “the realisation of a dream” (ibid.). The opening ceremony was followed by an interpretative movement piece Labour and Achievement designed and directed by Graeme Johnston, and the first act of the opening play.

La Boite Interior, circa 1973 (La Boite Archives)

The Gala Premiere Performance took place on June 10 in the presence of the Vice Patron Hayes Gordon5, Director of the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney, whose theatre had provided the model for BRT’s first theatre in the round in the old converted cottage. This very first production in the new building was an Australian play, A Refined Look at Existence by Rodney Milgate6 directed by Jennifer Blocksidge. Other productions in this first season in the new venue were Arthur Miller’s The Price

4 The Sidney Myer Charity trust donated $1,500 to the project (President’s Message in A Refined Look at Existence, Program, 1972, Lumer Private Collection). 5 Other Vice Patrons were Sir Gordon Chalk and John McCallum, the Brisbane-born actor who, in partnership with his wife Googie Withers, enjoyed a long stage and film career in England and Australia. 6 The play had its first season, directed by Robin Lovejoy and Rick Billinghurst, at the Jane Street Theatre, Sydney in 1966 (Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 376; Souvenir Programme, 1972).

100 directed by Jane Atkins, and Michael Boddy and Company’s Biggles directed by Gary O’Neil. The three plays “were chosen as a trio to contrast with each other and to show the flexibility and potential of the new theatre” (1972 Director’s Report, UQFL 109, Box 4). After her first visit to the new theatre to review The Price, Katharine Brisbane commented on what “an interesting space” it was, describing it as: … literally a ‘box’. The arena is square, with steeply raked seating and gives a satisfying feeling of being enclosed in the same space as the characters and their problems, while at the same time being securely above them. This makes for an excellent play-audience relationship. (The Australian, September 8, 1872 in Brisbane, 2005: 212)

Hale Street view of La Boite (QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection)

For his brick, concrete and timber design of La Boite Theatre, architect Blair Wilson was awarded the 1972 Clay Brick Award. Both he and Bruce Blocksidge were subsequently awarded the Theatre’s highest honour of Life Membership for their roles in the planning and realisation of this unique Australian theatre building (Nomination Form, Feb.20, 1973 UQFL109, Box 6.10).

Steps Towards Administrative Professionalization • First Executive Officer appointment With the completion of the new building came significant administrative responsibilities beyond the scope of the Council and the Honorary Director Jennifer Blocksidge. Consequently, in 1973 Lloyd Nickson was appointed as the Theatre’s first Executive Officer. Remaining for two years, he was succeeded by Terence Phillips as Administrator, a position he held until 1976. This new position was an

101 important stepping stone in the Theatre’s move towards administrative professionalism.

• A developing entrepreneurialism BRT’s Council responded entrepreneurially to its new asset - a desirable theatre space - and began a policy of income-producing rentals. QTC found it a very attractive and suitably intimate space for their 1973 season of four Australian plays7, their 1973 Schools Company’s in-house work, and for two major productions in 19758. However, the inconvenience of having to move out when QTC moved in proved too damaging to BRT’s own planned programmes and outweighed the “assured income”, “fellowship and exchange of audiences” that the arrangement offered; so any further requests by QTC were regretfully refused (1975 Director’s Report, UQFL109). Many other rentals were more easily and conveniently accommodated and included the ABC, Contemporary Music Society; Kedron Park Teachers College, a Cat Lovers seminar, Gail Wiltshire’s production of The Wizard of Oz, the music group Railroad Gin, and Playlab for rehearsed readings.

Significant income was also generated by the Social Committee, a hard working group of volunteers now headed up by Chairperson Muriel Watson who made a sustained contribution to the theatre in this role between 1969 and 1979. The social activities that surrounded the Theatre had always been important and valued not only for the income they generated (which was substantial) but for the good media exposure BRT received from the reporting of its social events, and for the ‘club’ feeling they generated, creating interest and therefore membership, especially from women. Other income bearing activities included the increased range of educational activities that Jennifer Blocksidge was committed to and introduced: Middle Stagers and Beginners on Stage, begun in 1973; Saturday Morning Children’s Workshop; and Daytime Classes in Communication for ‘housewives’ conducted by Blocksidge and June Lynch in 1973 and 1974 (Director’s Reports 1973, 74, 75, UQFL109).

7 President Wilson in Paris by Ron Blair directed by Alan Edwards; White With Wire Wheels by Jack Hibberd directed by Don Batchelor; The Chocolate Frog and The Old Familiar Juice by Jim McNeil directed by Murray Foy. 8 The Removalists by David Williamson and Da by Hugh Leonard.

102 PART TWO Jennifer Blocksidge’s Artistic Leadership Blocksidge, like Stephens before her, gained the essential training that launched her into a professional career in acting, directing and radio through her association with BRT. Although born in India in 1932, she was, like Stephens and Sisley, of English parentage. Qualifying as a Drama teacher from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama (where Sisley spent a year studying in 1924) she set off for a teaching position in Australia where she met her husband, Bruce Blocksidge. Although she acted in many La Boite plays,

Jennifer Blocksidge, circa 1972 directing was her passion: between 1967 and 1982 (La Boite Archives) she directed fourteen mainhouse BRT productions. Her professional acting career blossomed after her involvement with La Boite ended and between 1981 and 1992 she performed many major roles for TN! Theatre Company and QTC. She died on November 11, 1995. A short biography of Jennifer Blocksidge can be read in Appendix 2.

Her Role as Artistic ‘Change Agent’ On Babette Stephens’ resignation, Blocksidge exerted her influence on the future direction of BRT as Honorary Director9 from 1969 to 1975, then as President of the La Boite Council from 1976 to 1978. As well as the significant accomplishment of opening a new theatre building, she took BRT forward in other very significant ways as well. She wooed and won both State Government and Australia Council Theatre Board funding; she influenced change in programming, particularly in relation to the steady emergence of increasing numbers of contemporary Australian plays in her seasons; she master-minded the setting up of ECDP (Early Childhood Drama Project) the first professional wing of the theatre; she opened and sustained debate on the

9 Blocksidge’s position, unlike her predecessor’s, had no annual fee attached (Minutes of 1975 AGM, March 15, 1976, UQFL109, Box 4).

103 amateur/professional direction of the theatre; she re-vamped Workshop as a legitimate training ground for aspiring actors and directors; she attracted a new, younger audience and a new generation of performers and directors; and she fulfilled her wish, endorsed by the Council, for a full-time professional artistic director for La Boite with the appointment of Rick Billinghurst to this position in 1976.

As Sean Mee commented at yet another “new beginning” for La Boite, the launch of Season 2004, the first in The Roundhouse in Kelvin Grove: The longevity of this Company is testament not only to their [generations of theatre workers] tenacity and passion, but also that each generation had the foresight and the courage, often against stiff resistance, to take that necessary step, to compel the Company to go beyond its own comfort zone and make a place for itself in the future. (Mee, 2003: 1) These words describe Blocksidge who could be said to have foisted change on BRT’s constituency, at least part of which was resistant. It took grit just to offer herself as Stephens’ replacement as Theatre Director. Jane Atkins, a Councillor and emerging director at the time, recalled the difficult changeover as “not pleasant”: There was a certain acrimony and it was never a happy relationship afterwards. Babette of course would never be second to anyone. She expected people to step back and let her through and Jennifer was not prepared to let her do that. They were two very strong ladies. (McKee, 2004: 300)

Her tough-minded approach and strong artistic vision challenged and changed BRT. An explosive cultural shift in Australian theatre was well under way by 1970 with the New Wave generation of playwrights, directors and actors challenging the essentially anglocentric nature of theatre up to this point, and in which Stephens had specialised. Somehow, Blocksidge, although trained in the English theatre tradition herself, was able to shift BRT into the brave new territory of risky contemporary Australian and world theatre, attracting a new audience and new, young members keen to be part of the ‘70s theatre action. The late 1960s and early 1970s were dynamic years not only for La Boite Theatre but for Brisbane theatre in general. Two new ventures into professional theatre occurred in Brisbane at this time: Bryan Nason’s 1969 production of Royal Hunt of the Sun was the first production of the Queensland Theatre Company that officially opened for professional theatre business under the artistic direction of Alan Edwards in 1970; and Twelfth Night Theatre opened its new building in Bowen

104 Hills as a professional operation in February 1971 under the artistic direction of Joan Whalley.

Against this background of developing professionalism, BRT’s new La Boite theatre space emerged, exciting directors and actors from the professional theatre and at the same time creating dilemmas for them because of its amateur status. This was a major issue that confronted Blocksidge, the Council and the Theatre’s constituency. She believed that the long term goal must be professionalism in its fullest sense but had the good sense not to rush the process; the risk of alienating the membership was very real during the 1970s as the amateur/professional debate hotted up causing divisions in the Theatre.

First Challenges to BRT Orthodoxies • Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming – a sign of things to come In her first year as Director, her determination to challenge the membership with her play choices was evident, as was the good sense that made her refrain from too much change too quickly. The one confronting play included in her 1969 season was Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. In this choice she won the support of Dr Rob Jordan from the University of Queensland who made it compulsory study for his students (the researcher included), but she found opposition from older members. She said in her first Director’s Report: “We regret their embarrassment but feel that if we are to grow as a Theatre of any stature, we must take our yardstick from world theatre – and not just ‘play it safe’ in our somewhat isolated corner of the country” (1969 Director’s Report, 25 Feb. 1970, UQFL109, Box 4). She emphasised that “our aim was not only to entertain but also to stimulate and to offer for discussion plays of artistic merit” (ibid.). She was, in essence, returning BRT to its original mission of producing plays of literary or dramatic merit and educational value. The other choices for 1969 of three British plays, two European and two American plays10 were much more to the liking of the older members and gave the kind of variety and entertainment value that BRT members had come to expect during the Stephens era. Sensibly, at this early

10 British plays: Double Image by MacDougall & Allan directed by Lesley Ricketts; Billy Liar by Waterhouse & Hall directed by Babette Stephens; Mrs Mouse Are You Within? by Frank Marcus directed by Lindsay Otto. American plays: Come Blow Your Horn by Neil Simon directed by Rikki Burke; The Owl and the Pussycat by Bill Manhoff directed by Wilf Buckler. European plays: The Promise by Aleksei Arbuzov, directed by Bill Pepper; Tango by Slawomir Mrozek directed by Jennifer Blocksidge.

105 stage, Blocksidge was measured in her approach to programming changes, realising she walked a fine line between alienating parts of BRT’s constituency and pursuing a new kind of more challenging repertoire for a new kind of performance space. The most significant programming innovation of the next few years was her re- introduction of the Australian play to BRT’s repertoire.

• The return of the Australian play In 1970 she programmed Hal Porter’s Eden House directed by Gary O’Neil, the first three act Australian play to appear in a BRT season since the 1962 production of The One Day of the Year. She followed this up in 1971 with three more Australian plays: Queenslander Joan Priest’s While Bennie Waited directed by Robert Arthur, Thomas Keneally’s Halloran’s Little Boat directed by Gary O’Neill, and Alexander Buzo’s Rooted, also directed by O’Neill.

That her choice was an Australian play to open the new theatre was a significant indicator of the direction she intended to take BRT. When asked by Peter Charlton, reporter with the Brisbane Telegraph, why she chose Milgate’s A Refined Look at Existence (directed by Blocksidge), she gave as her first reason “… it is an Australian play for the opening of an Australian theatre, and a unique one at that” (The Telegraph, June 3, 1972). In her programme notes, she signalled that audiences could expect to see more and more Australian plays in future seasons: Theatre has been the “orphan” art of Australia. Today there is a growing awareness of the importance of “doing our own Theatrical Thing” rather than relying on the label “It’s good – it’s imported”. Hopefully, Repertory Theatre will be part of this awareness. The atmosphere and size of La Boite should lend itself well to this sort of venture. In this we need your help. Come and tell us when we succeed – but more importantly tell us when we fail. Only then can we help Australian Theatre to grow and flourish. (From The Director in A Refined Look at Existence, Program, 1972)

As well as its ‘Australianness’, there were other reasons for this particular choice related to the theatricality of the piece and its potential to show off the flexibility of La Boite’s performance space: … it is not a play of any one mood or style. There is laughter in it and tears … there are obvious characters and obscure ones. Also because its shape is particularly suited to “the Round”, both in its setting and in its emotional pattern. Hopefully, the flexibility of our Theatre’s shape will be apparent in this first production. If, as we claim, we have something unique to offer

106 audiences, then I wanted them to see why. Finally, this is a theatrical play. I feel that even if you dislike it, you can hardly ignore it! (ibid.) Based on the Greek story of the Bacchae and set in a mythical Australian country town called Dirch River, the play took the audience on a journey from scenes of domestic disharmony, to murder, to a pop concert complete with a rock band playing original music, to a horrifying conclusion. Charlton, in his review, called it “a disturbing play” that has “something very pertinent to say about twentieth century life” (The Telegraph, June 12, 1972): You leave the theatre overwhelmed by the immense spectacle of the final act – the reverberating shot, the sudden, sharp death, and the sad, worldly-wise soliloquy by Donny at the end. By comparison with what has passed before – the commonplace, almost hackneyed first act, the literally absurd second act – the third is overpowering. … Jennifer Blocksidge’s blocking is excellent, considering the inherent difficulties of presenting what is almost three plays in one. (ibid.) He praised the performances of Kaye Stevenson, David Chandler, Michael Williams, Ray Meagher, John Dwyer but most praise was heaped on Bille Brown for his performance of the pop star, Donny “who makes this play work both as a piece of entertainment and a chunk of theatre” (ibid.). David Rowbotham’s review was far less enthusiastic. With a headline that stated “New theatre needs stage elevation” he spent some space recommending the theatre add an arena platform “to give the actors some physical equality with the audience” (The Courier Mail, June 19, 1972). Of the play itself, he said it “must come in for some questioning” concluding that it was “a decidedly strange (and oh yes, interesting) evening in a new, unique theatre” (ibid.).

The new Australian smash-hit from Nimrod Street Theatre, Biggles by Michael Boddy, Marcus Cooney and Ron Blair, directed by Gary O’Neil, brought to the new La Boite a rougher, more larrikin style of theatre that found great favour with younger audiences. The first play to be performed in the thrust in the new theatre, the sexually explicit The Chapel Perilous by Australian writer Dorothy Hewett was directed by Jane Atkins to such great acclaim that the two week season of this Major Workshop play was extended another week (1972 AGM Director’s Report).

Blocksidge’s 1973 Season - Confirmation of her Programming Intentions The 1973 season confirmed her programming intentions in its mix of Australian, American and English plays, some challenging and some pure entertainment. The

107 season began with Peter Clarke’s production of American playwright Arthur Kopit’s Indians. With a cast of forty-four and with complex artistic requirements, this production was ambitious in every way. It was described by Jennifer Blocksidge as “praised and criticised with more vehemence than any other staged during the year” (1973 AGM Director’s Report, UQFL109). The English play Three Months Gone by David Howarth, directed by Jane Atkins, attracted media attention for its sexual content. Sunday Sun writer Brian Johnston (April 22, 1973) wondered why “our usually vigilant moral guardians” had allowed “two men to go through embraces – kissing each other openly right on the mouth”, but nevertheless praised it as “an hilarious, delightful, touching and truly entertaining evening of adult theatre that earns a much better audience than it is getting at La Boite” (ibid.). Also sexually explicit was Australian playwright Alma De Groen’s The Sweatproof Boy directed by Gary O’Neil. Two new Australian plays, very poorly attended, completed the ‘challenging’ plays in the season: Horses by Finola Moorehead directed by Lesley Ricketts, and Mike Giles’ Rest and Recreation directed by Gary O’Neil. Comedy and lightness was provided by Noel Coward’s Hay Fever directed by Graeme Johnston and Bill McIllwraith’s The Anniversary starring Babette Stephens (in her final role for BRT), directed by Jennifer Blocksidge. Of Stephens’ impact, Blocksidge reported: “… her presence on stage ensured us not only rave reviews, but full houses, often consisting predominately of women and obviously new to live theatre” (1973 AGM Director’s Report).

Babette Stephens in The Anniversary, 1973 (QPAC Museum Heritage Collection)

Declaring Her Hand on Artistic Policy and the Amateur/Professional Debate The choice of plays had changed so radically since Babette Stephens’ departure and the move into the new theatre that, by the beginning of 1974, Blocksidge found it

108 necessary to formalise into an artistic policy the philosophical shift that underpinned these repertoire changes. Emboldened by the success of her seasons, yet disturbed by the ongoing criticism by older members who remembered with nostalgia the undemanding Babette Stephens’ seasons, she opened her 1973 Annual Director’s Report with a strong confirmation that “a theatre group that had chosen to specialise in the construction of its new home could also afford to specialise in its choice of plays” (AGM, March 3, 1974, UQFL109, Box 4): Concerning … the policy governing our choice of plays – which is to promote the interesting rather than the commercial in theatre, with preference given where possible to Australian plays - has led to criticism from some older members who often do not enjoy the out-spokenness of some new writers, and to praise from those concerned at the local emphasis on theatre as entertainment by escapism, and the remoteness of Brisbane theatre from that of the south. My answer to that criticism is that, as Director of Repertory, it is not my moral duty to protect young audience members from the crude ideas and expressions sometimes seen in theatre today. It is through the ideas of the playwrights and the interpretations of the directors and actors – to provide them with the opportunity to look at life with all its horrors and confusions, its ironies and idiosyncrasies, its tragedies and its triumphs, and to send them from the theatre a little wiser and more aware than when they came in. I aim to do this – not through protection – but through proper advertising and healthy discussion. My answer to the praise is that if we are to be ‘the place to go to see the red meat of theatre’ – I quote the Australian theatre critic Katharine Brisbane – then their continued support is vitally necessary in order that we may continue to afford our policy. (ibid.) The same older members who didn’t want to see ‘red meat’ and didn’t much like the new preference for Australian plays, were also concerned that BRT preserve its amateur status. At this same meeting Blocksidge chose to show her hand and declare that “for financial reasons … and for reasons of diplomacy, we must remain amateur for the time being, but our eventual aim must be professionalism in the fullest sense” (ibid.). It was as older members suspected – she aspired to take the Theatre on a course that they felt was never intended by those who had gone before her. Graeme Johnston’s11 words on the matter probably sum up what many members thought on the issue of professionalism - resistance at first, suspicion of Jennifer Blocksidge’s motives, then a certain amount of acceptance of the inevitability of professionalism and grudging admiration for her vision:

11 Graeme Johnston directed, designed costumes, ran classes, and served as a Councillor (for several years) for La Boite between 1971 and 1984. He had box-office successes with Fetch Me A Figleaf (1974), Macbeth a rock opera (1976) and Grease (1977). In 1975 he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Boite’s first Shakespeare in-the-round.

109 Jennifer Blocksidge … had the other thing, and I didn’t really like it you know, she wanted to be professional. La Boite Theatre was amateur. It was its great strength. It lasted from 1925. It started off as a sort of theatre club but it lasted all that time being amateur and that was its great strength I think …. Jennifer inherited this system but she didn’t like it … She moved heaven and earth to make it professional. It was she who was the driving force behind the ECDP and then when Rick Billinghurst came in, he shared her vision of turning professional and they put forward a vision of the theatre which was strongly objected to by the Council. And the Council was very strong in those days. It was like, it felt like eighteen months but I don’t think it was that long of constitutional reform and meetings and fights. It was very exhausting. But I believe Brisbane Repertory came out of that stronger, even though it was accepted at the end that eventually we would turn professional. I think that was Jennifer’s great achievement whether you like it or not. (Johnston Interview, September 27, 2003: ll.32-49) Under pressure from the professional community she could not afford to pay, she may well have yearned for a professional La Boite but her philosophy of safe and organic development superseded any such ambition at a time when anything other than amateur status was not possible: Increasingly often, I have had professional directors and performers come to me and express a desire to work at La Boite. With more and more professional work available, sometimes only short-term but paid, it is increasingly hard to maintain a reasonable standard of performance at La Boite as actors ‘turn professional’. Our satisfaction must come from the knowledge that we have made it possible for them to reach the point where they can make this decision with confidence …. we shall continue to aim at professional standards while paying no one. (1973 Director’s Report March 3, 1974, UQFL109, Box 4)

Steps Towards Artistic Professionalism • Professional directors However, during 1973 Blocksidge had already taken two steps towards professionalism. The first was a successful application to the Theatre Arts Board of the Australia Council for a special project - BRT received a grant of $900 Lindsay Smith from APG (Australian Performing Group) to direct Captain Midnight V.C. (ibid.). By March 1975 she was able to announce that the Australia Council had given two more grants for professional directors – for Tim Robertson to direct The Floating World by John Romeril and Nick Enright for Edward Bond’s Saved (1975 Director’s Report March 15, 1976, UQFL109, Box 4). Unfortunately, The Floating World

110 12proved impossible to cast, especially the lead role – all “part and parcel of an amateur theatre” (ibid.). However, Enright’s contribution proved invaluable; it was this kind of quality professional contact with BRT’s actors, directors, designers, sound and lighting crew and audience members that started to ‘raise the bar’ in terms of what standard could be expected at this little theatre. Blocksidge said of his internship (ibid.): Nick’s visit was one of great reward for the theatre. His ability to mix with and to assist members was remarkable. He became a friend and teacher to us all, and we were extremely sorry when his time at Rep. came to an end. How his production of Edward Bond’s Saved gave the Theatre one of its most controversial nights in its history will be discussed later in this chapter.

• The emergence of the Early Childhood Drama Project – BRT’s first professional ‘wing’ The second step was a pilot scheme for Pre-School Theatre. Noticing how under- utilized the performance space was during the day, an actor, Peter Morris, suggested the idea of a children’s theatre to Jennifer Blocksidge which would bring school audiences into the theatre during school hours (The Courier Mail April 3, 1975). In her typical fashion, she planned carefully for this new venture. Initial discussions with the Education Department led her to the conclusion that “pre-school children not committed to strict curriculum would most benefit from such a scheme” (The Courier Mail February 26, 1975). She targeted two people whose support would be crucial for the project to go ahead - Arthur Creedy, Director of Cultural Activities and Gerald Ashby, Director of Pre-School Education for Queensland (Director’s Report March 3, 1973, UQFL109, Box 4).

Her discussions with Creedy and Ashby proved fruitful and a grant was forthcoming to employ three actors for four weeks to plan and create two programmes in-the-round for pre-schoolers. She received enthusiastic support for the idea from the Kindergarten Teachers Training College, the Creche and Kindergarten Association, and the Directors of kindergartens around Brisbane. The pilot scheme, properly evaluated by teachers, actors, BRT’s Council, and the Queensland Education Department, was a success and gave Blocksidge the ammunition she needed to submit

12 It was successfully produced at La Boite the following year (1976) with Errol O’Neill in the lead and directed by Rick Billinghurst.

111 a plan and a budget for a year’s program to the Queensland Education Department and the Theatre Board of the Australia Council (ibid.).

By March 1975 she was able to report that the State Government had granted them $15,000 and the Australia Council $5,500 “to launch our first Professional Theatre in Pre-School Education” (Director’s Report, March 22, 1975, UQFL109, Box 4). That it was self-funding was important, as La Boite’s Council was wary of this Blocksidge- driven venture into professionalism: “The Council in those days said they could not in any way tolerate the existence of ECDP unless it was funded separately and completely self-supporting” (Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, July 17, 1978: ll.337-339). The arrangement with the Education Department was that seconded teachers would have their wages paid by the Department. Called ‘The Early Childhood Drama Project’ (ECDP) it was up and running in 1975 under the leadership of Phil Armit, a trained teacher from the early childhood sector. Its immediate success was heartening to Blocksidge who was able to proudly proclaim after its first year of operations that it was “the first true Theatre-in-Education Team to be working in Queensland and specialising in Pre-school and Grade 1 children” (Director’s Report, March 15, 1976, UQFL109, Box 4). ECDP’s early days were not free from detractors within the Theatre community however, and their concerns were undoubtedly related to the professional versus amateur debate already underway. Blocksidge responded: Some of you have asked what the ECDP has got to do with Rep … It’s educational and we aren’t a school; and it’s professional and we’re amateurs. My answer to you is this. It has everything to do with Rep. – its professionalism is ensuring that the basic introduction that children in this community are given to theatre – and particularly this theatre – is as good and as sound as we can make it … Get ‘em young – and keep ‘em! (ibid.)

Over the years, ECDP’s reputation for its touring and in-house programmes grew, as did its team numbers and range of activities – “The work being carried out by this group is unique in Australia” said Michael FitzGerald in 1976, then the Australia Council’s Youth Officer (Director’s Report March 15, 1977, UQFL109 Box 4.4). It continued to be part of La Boite until 1982 after which it broke all ties with the Theatre and re-invented itself as KITE, a renowned company that still continues the

112 work in early childhood drama begun almost thirty years ago13. Commenting on how it developed, Blocksidge said: “ECDP…has been an organic growth into professionalism which happened accidentally and safely. But everything we do has to be of the same nature – it has to be safe and organic” (Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, July 17, 1978: ll.346-347).

ECDP members on tour in pre-schools with Dig, 1978 (Comans Private Collection)

Consolidation of her artistic policy • Problems of rights and casting In her final two years as Director, Blocksidge did not deviate from her artistic policy to produce challenging plays from contemporary world theatre and the best new Australian plays that she could obtain rights for. As had been the case since the theatre began in 1925, every endeavour was made by the Production Committee to decide on the season of plays by the beginning of the year, but in those days - before the now mandatory October or November ‘season launch’ - a lot more flexibility was tolerated and last minute changes to plays simply had to be endured. Blocksidge cited two reasons for what might look like a haphazard approach to designing a season: the “running battle” for rights and the problems of casting. Both dilemmas were part of the cost of being an amateur theatre. Competition for rights came from the two

13 ECDP members to 1982 included Warren Meacham, Monica Gilfedder, Tricia Circosta, Robert Fitzwalter, Liz Ferrier, Sean Mee, Gillian Hyde, Gaynor Ashbolt, Chris Burns, Paul Haseler, Christine Hoepper, Liz Kelman, Marjorie Forde, Sally McKenzie, Joe Woodward, Delwyn Trigger,Peter Penwarn, Desley Kirkegaard, Linda Sproul, Penny Wissler, Robyn Sutton, Brian Cavanagh, Roger Rosser.

113 professional companies in Brisbane – QTC and Twelfth Night Theatre. Unavailable rights compromised her choices for new Australian works in both 1974 and 1975 (1974/1975 Director’s Reports, UQFL109, Box 4). Indeed, two plays in 1975 that were box-office failures - Utopia and Sport of My Mad Mother – were second choices “made when the new Australian plays first chosen by the committee were unavailable due to their being held under consideration by professional companies in Brisbane”14 (ibid. 1975). While she appeared resigned to this annoyance – “this is a frustrating and disappointing fact that we have to learn to live with” (ibid.) - it must have strengthened her resolve to hold on to her vision for a fully professional La Boite Theatre Company. As to the second problem of casting difficulties, Blocksidge predicted that this would only become worse as the best actors were siphoned off into the professional companies (ibid. 1974).

• Innovation and experimentation: successes and failures While she called the eclectic mix of plays for 1974 “a right old mixture” (1974 Director’s Report) she was proud of the fact that six of the ten major plays were Australian, compared to three out of eight the year before. Most controversial of them all was Jack Hibberd’s Captain Midnight V.C. directed by guest director Lindsay Smith which Blocksidge described as “a production that provoked violently opposed comment – ‘shocking waste of good talent’ was one, and ‘the most exciting theatre in years’ was another” (ibid.). Rowbotham did not like it. Under a headline reading “Play’s Virtue – It’s Short”, he wrote “the kid-actors who pour their energies into political pudding plays like this one, simply have no experience of the complexities they are tackling” (The Courier Mail April 18, 1974). On the other hand, Bruce Campbell of the Nation Review commented: “Lindsay Smith has done a remarkable job fashioning a rough amateur cast into a sparkling, rough ensemble … It is provocative and stimulating” (3 – 9 May 1974). Whilst it did well at the box office, Blocksidge was more interested in the new aesthetic that Lindsay Smith brought to the theatre:

14 This would have been particularly annoying given that QTC produced few Australian plays at this time, and then only proven box-office successes such as David Williamson’s The Removalists (1975). Twelfth Night Theatre produced only one Australian play in 1974, Williamson’s Don’s Party, and two in 1975, Williamson’s What If You Died Tomorrow? and How Does Your Garden Grow? by Jim McNeil.

114 Two things about the production stood out for me. The first was the use made of the shape and the spaces of the theatre; the second was Lindsay’s idea of Open Rehearsals where the audience became involved in discussion with the actors. As you are all probably aware – closer audience/actor contact is a particular aim of mine, and I was delighted with Lindsay’s idea. I noticed also while overseas recently, that at many theatres discussions with audiences are part of the regular programme. (1974 Director’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4) It was this embracing of innovation and experimentation by Blocksidge that contributed to La Boite’s growing reputation as the place to go for the most exciting and risky theatre in Brisbane. In this most conservative State, fast gaining a reputation as a ‘police state’15, ‘risky’ was a good word to attach to another of Blocksidge’s 1974 productions – John Hopkins’ This Story of Yours, which she directed. An English play, its theme is police violence and the climactic scene involves a police officer beating to death a suspect brought in for questioning (Cullen, 1982: 70). After attending opening night, the Queensland Commissioner of Police, Ray Whitrod,16 cancelled the Queensland Police Academy’s group booking, despite Blocksidge’s letter to him explaining why this play might raise important issues for the cadets (ibid.). The cadets weren’t the only ones to stay away – it was a box-office disaster, described by Blocksidge as “definitely a 10 per center” (1974 Director’s Report).

Just as risky was the demanding, but much praised A Stretch of the Imagination by Jack Hibberd, directed by Bruce Knappett and starring Barry Otto17. Contributing to the ‘right old mixture’ was Graeme Johnston’s highly successful production of BRT’s first Australian musical in the round, Fetch Me a Figleaf by Ray Kolle and David McCallum. Described by Blocksidge as “definitely a 99.9 per center” (ibid.) it recorded an audience attendance of 4,480 (Cullen, 1982: 60). Yet another ‘first’ in 1974 was, in retrospect, the beginning of a trend to foster Queensland writing, that, thirty years later, governs artistic policy: the production of Jill Shearer’s play The Trouble with Gillian was the first time a new, full-length work by a Queensland writer had been premiered in the new La Boite .

15 By this stage a deeply conservative Queensland State Government was entrenched in Queensland under the leadership of National Party Premier, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (in power from 1968 to 1987). Bjelke-Petersen gained a reputation for using the Queensland Police Force for political purposes, particularly in relation to political protests and street marches. 16 Whitrod subscribed to the conservative politics of the day only to a point, eventually resigning in frustration (Evans & Ferrier, 2004: 320). 17 Otto was about to become nationally well known as an actor through his work from 1976 with Nimrod and Old Tote Theatre Companies in Sydney (Brisbane in Parsons, 1995: 421).

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To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Brisbane Repertory Theatre and also International Women’s Year, in 1975 BRT mounted its third production of Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women directed by Rikki Burke18; it proved to be the biggest box office success for the year (Director’s Report, March 15, 1976, UQFL109 Box 4). Representing the kind of theatre that had characterised popular BRT productions in the 1960s, this ‘return’ to the ‘good old days’ with such success must have given plenty of ammunition to Blocksidge’s detractors. Yet Blocksidge followed The Women with a play “that provoked one of the most interesting nights in the theatre’s history” (ibid.). During a performance of Nick Enright’s production of Edward Bond’s Saved, dozens of people, led by a group of fifty Lions Club members who had a group booking for that performance, walked out during a violent scene in the play in which a baby in a pram is stoned to death by a group of youths. As The Courier Mail reported the incident (April 16, 1975), the leader of the walkout called to other members of the audience to show their feelings for the play by joining in the exodus, and about 150 eventually followed. “It was a shock to us” said Blocksidge. “We had warned the group the play was meaty and the leader had accepted the warning” (ibid.). Reflecting on this difficult and very public experience, she turned the incident around to be one that spoke of the true value of theatre, which, according to Blocksidge, was to provoke and challenge: To us… it was one of those rare and precious occasions that happen too seldom, when communication was made as a result of protest – both for and against – which led to animated discussion and exchange of ideas among all concerned (actors, audience and administration) and resulted, in some instances, in a change of attitude. (BRT Newsletter No.5, 1975, Lumer Private Collection)

However, Blocksidge acknowledged that it was a salutary lesson about accepting group bookings for social or fund-raising events when the play is blatantly unsuitable for a group expecting a fun night out at the theatre (ibid.). Ivor Wren, theatre critic for The Australian, made no mention of the sensational walk-out in his review of Saved, concentrating on the play itself and the quality of the production: It is not a nice play. It is not even an enjoyable play in the sense that it is entertainment. But it is an outstanding success on two counts – the

18 Previous successful productions in 1961 and 1965 were both directed by Babette Stephens.

116 perspicacity of the script and as good an example of perceptive direction and first-class ensemble playing19 as I have seen at La Boite. (The Australian, May 6, 1975)

She described 1975 as “a messy year” (Director’s Report, March 15, 1976, UQFL109 Box 4) of successes and failures, but chose to interpret the failures as a necessary and positive consequence of BRT’s new role as risk taker in theatre stating that “… if a theatre is not to become moribund, with a programme based only on other people’s safe proven successes, it must be prepared to take risks and to fail, in the hope of finding its own kind of success … I have no regrets concerning our failures” (ibid.). Indeed, a significant achievement of Blocksidge’s directorship was the escalation of media interest in her challenging and risky programming, which led to La Boite’s emerging national profile as an exciting ‘alternative’ theatre company; its plays were regularly reviewed not only by the Brisbane papers - The Courier Mail, The Telegraph and The Sunday Mail - but also by the national newspapers The Australian and Nation Review, while it lasted20.

The Transition from ‘Amateur’ to Professional Artistic Direction Whatever else 1975 was, it marked the end of an era for BRT – with Blocksidge’s decision to resign and the Council’s resolution to replace her with a professional director, it was the last year of ‘honorary’ artistic directorship, of voluntary artistic guidance that had lasted for fifty years (AGM Minutes, March 15, 1976, UQFL109, Box 4.3). Blocksidge announced in her final AGM Director’s Report that her seven years as Director were over and her recommendation for a full-time professional director to succeed her had been realized with Rick Billinghurst’s recent appointment (March 15, 1976, UQFL109, Box 4). Reading between the lines of her summary of her time as Director, it is obvious that the Theatre had got as close to a full-time ‘professional’ artistic director with Blocksidge as had been possible to achieve and it was through her efforts that BRT was well poised to take the next step into professionalism with Billinghurst’s appointment. At her final AGM, she stated: “I am proud that the new Director will be a professional one, and I am proud that the

19 The ensemble consisted of Peter Kowitz, Pauline Walsh, Eileen Beatson and John Spooner (The Australian, May 6, 1975).

20 Nation Review existed as a national newspaper between 1976 and 1981 (http://www.utas.edu.au/library/info/subj/newspapers.html#alpha, cited Sept. 16, 2004)

117 position I am handing on to him is, I believe, a vital, alive and progressive one” (ibid.).

In fact, the issue of a professional director had been ‘in the wind’ ever since 1971 when State Government financial support for a new building was confirmed. In the same media announcement of this good news, Bruce Blocksidge had also declared the Theatre’s intention “to appoint a full-time theatre director” (The Courier Mail, Sept. 24, 1971, UQFL109 Box 70). Whilst Jennifer Blocksidge filled this gap in a voluntary capacity until the end of 1975, during her tenure she and La Boite’s Council were moving the Theatre inexorably towards further professionalization.

At the AGM in February 1975, Blair Wilson (whose architectural services to La Boite had so sparked his interest in the organization that he was elected Council President in 1973) pre-empted further development in this area in his President’s Report to members. He couched his comments within an historical context, citing three ways La Boite had successfully developed over the last fifty years. The first was its enormous contribution “to the cultural life of our community”; the second was as “a very fertile breeding ground for many actors, directors and producers who have gone on to distinguished careers in professional theatre”; and the third was through its historical reliance on the free services of an army of volunteers - “This continuous and consistent success of this theatre has depended in the past almost absolutely on the generous and voluntary efforts of its members” (AGM Minutes, Feb. 23, 1975, UQFL109 Box 4.3). Now, he stated, with a theatre worth well in excess of $110,000, property in Hale, Sheriff and Sexton Streets worth in excess of $25,000, a bank debt of $37,000 to be paid off over the next 12 years, an annual budget in excess of $50,000 or $1,000 per week, a State Government grant for 1974/75 of $15,000 and professional expectations by artists and patrons, BRT had to commit itself to becoming a fully commercial enterprise - and that would mean more professional staff to run an increasingly complex business and facility “…we cannot rely forever on the constant personal sacrifices that so many of our members volunteer” (ibid.). Reminding members that “we now have a technically complex facility in La Boite that requires nothing less than technically competent and continuous attendance”, he predicted that soon the full-time administrator would need to be joined by a full time technician, and that “without going any deeper, and without suggesting any priorities,

118 similar remarks can be applied to Artistic Direction and Production Management” (ibid.). Within a year, the Council had advertised for the services of a professional artistic director and by 1977 a production manager had also been appointed.

The combination of Jennifer Blocksidge’s energetic artistic direction and Presidents Bruce Blocksidge’s and Blair Wilson’s business-like approach spelt financial success for the theatre, so La Boite was well placed to afford new professional positions. Indeed, the 1975 Treasurer’s Report announced an embarrassingly high reserve of $37,000. “Some of us may feel self-conscious about the current level of our reserves” said the Treasurer, but “this cushion will be particularly valuable in 1976 during the transition from honorary director to salaried director”. He also noted that: “We have been very spoilt by Jennifer Blocksidge’s generosity in donating her talents and her working hours to the theatre” (ibid.).

PART THREE

Rick Billinghurst - First Professional Director

Rick Billinghurst (La Boite Archives)

• BRT’s first ‘outsider’ In a clever political manoeuvre, at the same meeting that she stepped down as Director, Blocksidge put her hand up for President (in the wake of Blair Wilson finishing his three year term), and was elected to a role she remained in until the end of 1978. She and the Council must have been well aware of the need for the kind of

119 continuity she could provide as BRT adjusted to its first encounter with a complete artistic ‘outsider’ and a professional one at that – Rick Billinghurst. For the first time, someone with no prior links to the Theatre had been invited into their midst to do an important job. As artistic director subsequently succeeded artistic director, their ability or otherwise to acknowledge, be sensitive to and work with the ‘culture’ of La Boite and its long history, emerged as a key factor in their success or failure.

It was fortunate that Blocksidge and Billinghurst respected each other and that Billinghurst approved of the artistic policy already in place. It is doubtful he would have had a happy time if he had resisted the changes Blocksidge had achieved and patently wanted to see further developed. As it was, he strongly supported her policy of producing new Australian plays and experimental works from world drama – of ‘risky’ and innovative theatre. He fully supported and encouraged ECDP during his tenure and built on the various education enterprises she had set up such as Middle Stagers and Beginners on Stage. He seemed to be the right person for the job at this crucial moment in BRT’s history.

• Theatrical background Described by journalist Hugh Lunn as “one of Australia’s most talented theatre directors” (The Australian Feb. 25, 1977), Billinghurst graduated from NIDA’s Technical Production course in 1966 and quickly built up a substantial directing portfolio through his work with the Jane Street Theatre, the Independent Theatre School, “Q” Theatre, The Pro Musica Society, Young Elizabethan Players, NIDA, QTC, Adelaide University Theatre Guild, Darwin Theatre, and as a former associate director of the Melbourne Theatre Company (Michael Nason Private Collection). He first came to Brisbane in 1969 to teach Drama for Twelfth Night Theatre and to direct for the Arts Theatre (The Courier Mail, August 4, 1969), followed by another visit in 1970 to direct The Tempest for Twelfth Night. Disillusioned with Australian theatre as he had experienced it in Melbourne, he moved to Brisbane in 1973 and took up a position as a storeman. He liked his new environment, finding it “culturally deprived … Refreshingly so. I love the naivety. The lack of all the clap-trap that goes with, for instance, going to the theatre, particularly the opening nights in Melbourne and all those hangers-on who go to a play to be seen” (ibid.). In Brisbane he directed several plays for QTC before successfully applying for the La Boite position.

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• How the position was advertised Given the Council’s seeming commitment to hiring a professional artistic director, it is interesting to note the way it advertised the new position. The 1975 AGM Minutes record that applicants would be asked to state “whether they were seeking appointment in an honorary, part time or full time capacity” (March 15, 1976, UQFL109). This was dictated by the BRT Constitution which gave Special Powers to the Council to appoint either an Honorary or paid employee (Redrafted Constitution of Repertory Theatre, 1978, in Radbourne, 1978). There was another reason however that Blocksidge revealed in interview: “At that stage it was left open [i.e. honorary or paid] because the Council did not want to commit itself” and a decision was made to interview for either position, “to see the quality” even though Blocksidge had strongly advised Council against another ‘Honorary’ position (Blocksidge Interview with Radbourne, July 17, 1978: ll.627-643). And as for ‘part-time’, how unrealistic that seemed in light of Blocksidge’s admission that “I had been spending up to twenty hours a day sometimes there …they were getting a professional training for nothing” (ibid.: 628-630). Whatever early Council insecurities abounded about the nature of the position, with applications flowing in “from overseas, interstate as well as from Queensland” (1975 AGM Minutes, UQFL109) no doubt the issue of ‘honorary’ or ‘part-time’ fell by the wayside as Council found itself surprised by the amount of interest in the full-time professional position. After “a great deal of consideration and thought by the Council”, Council member Graeme Johnston moved a motion that Billinghurst be appointed and it was unanimously agreed that he be invited to accept the position of full time Artistic Director (ibid.). He was given a probationary period of six months to be followed by a three year contract that began on March 15, 1976 on a salary of about $10,000 per annum (Council Minutes Feb.2, 1976, UQFL109).

Billinghurst’s Organizational Leadership • ‘Tooling up’ to market ‘La Boite Theatre’ Billinghurst wasted no time in using his professional experience to make some basic changes to how La Boite operated – he called 1976 a year of ‘tooling up’ (Director’s Report, March 15, 1977, UQFL109 Box 4.4). The first area he over-hauled was marketing, publicity and promotions. Prompted by his strong belief that there was a

121 far larger audience out there for La Boite’s kind of theatre than had previously been imagined, he increased contact with newspapers, radio and television, revamped the advertising material, installed theatre location signs in Hale Street, and developed catering as part of the Theatre’s service. However there were two very significant changes that he got Council agreement on in his first year as director: the first was to market the Theatre’s public image as ‘La Boite Theatre’ and not ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’; the second was to introduce a subscription scheme as a block ticket selling method (ibid.).

The first of these changes was initiated by Billinghurst’s question to the Council: What was he to market – ‘La Boite’ or ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’? In response, the President Jennifer Blocksidge developed a paper called President’s Report on Dichotomy of Names (Minutes of Executive Council July 16, 1976) in which she agreed there was confusion in the public’s mind about the relationship between the two names (ibid.). She explained that the original decision to name the 1967 cottage theatre ‘La Boite’ but to retain the name ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’, whose theatre it was, had been agreed on for two reasons: firstly, to protect BRT if the ‘in the round’ experiment had been unsuccessful; and secondly, to maintain its identity when it performed elsewhere (at the time, BRT was sure it would be performing in various other venues such as in the new SGIO Theatre in Turbot Street) and saw it as important to continue to be known as ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’. When the new theatre opened in 1972, the decision to continue with ‘La Boite’ was based on the outstanding success of the cottage theatre. She noted, however, that “the careful and responsible decision confirmed in 1972 has caused a bad case of schizophrenia and it took our new Artistic Director to point this out to us” (1976 President’s Report, March 15, 1977, Box 4.4). Apparently, part of the community identified the Theatre only as ‘La Boite’ and another part, only as ‘Brisbane Repertory Theatre’. After “an incredible amount of argument”, the Council made the following decisions : • To market ‘La Boite Theatre’ • To change the letterhead to read ‘Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre’ • To legally remain the Brisbane Repertory Theatre. (ibid.) For a lot of members, their strong identification with the name ‘Brisbane Repertory’, or ‘Rep.’ as it was affectionately known, was painful to give up. Never one to back

122 away from change, she nevertheless realised that such profound change must be managed sensitively for fear of alienating the very people the theatre depended on – its constituency - so many of whom served as volunteers: “I am convinced we must accept – I know with sadness and nostalgia on some people’s behalf – that La Boite Theatre is here to stay, and it is La Boite Theatre that we, as members of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre must be proud to sell (ibid.).

• Introduction of a Subscription Scheme The second change was Billinghurst’s introduction of a subscription scheme. Since 1925, the way to ‘belong’ to the Theatre was through paid membership which entitled you to reduced booking costs and entrée to a range of other activities. This new scheme did not negate membership which remained in place for “participants in the theatre’s activities or the whole-hearted theatre supporter” (Director’s Report March 15, 1977, Box 4). The subscription scheme was deliberately aimed at attracting new audiences to La Boite. Abandoning the old way of putting together a season of plays, Billinghurst professionalised this area by announcing and publicising six month Subscription Seasons comprising a set number of plays which could be subscribed to up to six months in advance. The early announcement of the Subscription Season worked well for group bookings and general public too. And it professionalised operations for La Boite staff, giving production, administration and publicity “the chance to co-ordinate efforts at two specific points in the year, prior to each season” (ibid). The first trial subscription season – five plays for $12.59 - attracted 217 subscribers (ibid.), and began in July 1976 with William Archibald’s The Innocents directed and designed by David Bell (Council Meeting Minutes, May 27, 1976, Box 5). • Success in ‘selling the product’ Overall, Billinghurst’s first year in the job was an outstanding success. According to the report from the Honorary Treasurer, Geoff Clarke (in which he also acknowledges the excellent financial management of the Administrator Terence Phillips), total income increased by 22% from $70,297 to $85,406. The largest single contribution to this increase came from attendance at major plays, from $26,026 in 1975 to $40,585 in 1976 (Hon. Treasurer’s AGM Report March 15, 1977, UQFL 109, Box 4). Clarke gave Billinghurst full credit for this positive state of affairs, commenting that: “The year has confirmed the wisdom of his appointment and his drive has been directed not

123 only towards perfection in artistic performance but also in ‘selling the product’ and increasing the general public’s awareness of the aims and activities of this theatre” (ibid.).

Of course, this kind of rapid growth did not come without extra expenses. Billinghurst’s salary alone accounted for at least an extra $10,000, and production, advertising, printing, repairs and maintenance increased substantially from 1975. In fact, expenditure increased by 43% from $59,676 in 1975 to $85,406 in 1976, resulting in a surplus of only $255 (ibid.). The State Government grant of $21,500 proved to be a crucial element in the Theatre’s solvency in 1976 – without it, the treasurer reported, La Boite’s “many activities would have to be curtailed” (ibid.). Whilst the situation was by no means dire, the Council nevertheless formed a finance committee “to explore other possible sources of income for the further development of the Theatre’s activities” (ibid.).

• Asserting his authority – administrative restructuring If Billinghurst had carefully refrained from ruffling too many feathers in his first year in office, this did not seem to apply in 1977 when his will and his vision for La Boite resonated strongly in Council meetings and in a remarkable paper trail throughout the year that resulted in his perhaps most memorable contribution to La Boite, The Energy Wheel.

The first sign of a growing impatience was with the paid support staff, signalled in early 1977 when the minutes reported his anger at the lack of support for the subscription scheme (Council Meeting Minutes, March 1, 1977, Box 5). Season 1 was not selling well – only 186 had signed up as subscribers as opposed to 217 in 1976. Given the very strong marketing angle of the first-time inclusion of the works of three Queensland playwrights, he could not understand the staff’s reluctance to recognize the value of marketing or to spend money on it. He complained that: The season should and could be fully subscribed otherwise the subscription scheme should be dropped. Concern is too much with careful spending – this time and energy would be better spent promoting the product and looking to increasing income. (ibid.) At the following Council Meeting he complained that the operation of the box office was “entirely inadequate” (April 5, 1977, UQFL109, Box 5). Indeed, staffing had

124 been raised as a serious issue by Blocksidge at the 1976 AGM. Four secretaries had come and gone during 1976, the new office junior proved inadequate, and job specifications for Terence Phillips’ job as Secretary/Administrator were unclear (1976 AGM President and Director’s Reports, Box 4).

So began what Blocksidge called the Year of Paper and Reports ( President’s Report, February 22, 1978, UQFL109, Box 4), produced in an effort to address a range of problems concerning staffing and administration as well as to develop a major policy statement that could represent La Boite and its future plans to major funding bodies.

The Administrative Staffing of the Theatre Report, initiated and then compiled by Billinghurst and Phillips, came up with three areas inadequately covered by present staff: marketing and public relations; supervision of the theatre’s facilities and activities after 5pm; and office overload (Marketing La Boite Theatre, Sept. 21, 1977, Box 8). Without, it seems, consulting Billinghurst, the Council advertised a new position which would cover all three inadequate areas, plus production management. So unrealistic were the set of responsibilities required in this one person that they now appear laughable: Responsibilities should include marketing and public relations, advertising, recruitment of volunteers, training of persons having direct contact with the general public (such as front of house volunteers), procurement of materials and construction of sets for theatre productions and possibly assist in preparation of production budgets in conjunction with and approval of the Administrator. …appointment would be provisional …reviewed in 6 months. (Special Council Meeting Minutes, July 21, 1977, UQFL 109, Box 5) Remarkably, over 70 applied for the job, two were short-listed and David Bell was appointed as “an Assistant to Artistic Director and Public Relations” on a salary of $120.00 a week for a six-month probationary period (Council Minutes, Sept. 20, 1977, UQFL109, Box 5). Not only was the title clumsy, but, as Billinghurst furiously pointed out, marketing La Boite should be “the central administrative responsibility of the theatre” and not tacked on to an ‘assistant’s’ position (Marketing La Boite: Part II, Sept. 23, 1977, Box 8).

He then made two recommendations. The first was that the ‘old’ position of Secretary/Administrator be superseded by a new position of Business Manager. He accompanied this recommendation with a job specification detailing responsibilities

125 in the three areas of finance, administration and marketing. The second recommendation was for the appointment of a Production Manager (trainee) whose responsibilities lay solidly in technical production and as production assistant to the Artistic Director – and nothing to do with marketing!

A Special Meeting of Council then voted that David Bell be invited to fill the new position of Production Manager under the same conditions as he had been previously hired (Oct. 18, 1977, UQFL109, Box 5). At the same meeting, it was agreed to notify Terence Phillips that his job was to be abolished but to invite him to accept the new position of Business Manager. Both these decisions were taken after President Jennifer Blocksidge had asked the staff to leave the meeting.

At the next Council meeting, Billinghurst vehemently protested at this dismissal of key personnel from the meeting room (himself, Phillips and Phil Armit) whilst important decisions were made. He said “precedents of a dangerous nature were being set”, not only by the Council acting without consultation but also that “the filling of a new position is approached without public advertisement” (Council Meeting Minutes, Oct. 18, 1977, UQFL109, Box 5). As it happened, Phillips had found the months of debate over his job confusing (and no doubt emotionally and physically draining) and handed in his resignation. It was duly advertised and Robert Kemp was appointed as from January 1978.

Whatever difficulties had been encountered in sorting out the staffing and protocol issues at La Boite, Blocksidge confidently reported at the 1977 AGM that: “It is my belief that the Brisbane Repertory Theatre at La Boite is now strongly supported by a sounder administrative structure than ever before” (1977AGM President’s Report, UQFL109, Box 4). As well as putting in place a production manager and business manager, Billinghurst also insisted on the development of a clear financial policy and clarified Council’s role in relation to professional staff and financial matters (ibid.). Yet another important initiative was the setting up of a Management Committee to run the day to day affairs of La Boite and to be responsible for future planning. This

126 committee comprised four of the five professional staff21: the artistic director, youth director (leader of ECDP), production manager, and business manager (ibid.).

• The Energy Wheel Billinghurst’s greatest achievement in 1977 was undoubtedly the Council’s adoption of his Energy Wheel concept – “a blueprint plan for the future artistic direction and development of the Theatre towards greater community contact” (AGM Director’s Report, 1977, UQFL109, Box 4). It developed out of his strong philosophical position about the role of art in the lives of ordinary people: …I believe that the officially designated Arts in Australia (e.g. Theatre) as they exist today still suffer from a lack of meaning for the wider community, being either divorced from most people’s thinking or remaining as a segregated/elitist part of the more affluent and educated person’s lifestyle. Unless there is a widespread campaign to touch the ordinary person through education in the arts I feel that these Arts are in danger of becoming one of the more esoteric, yet publicly funded forms of religion available in this country. (Billinghurst Document: La Boite Theatre ‘The Energy Wheel’ - Rationale, 1977, UQFL109, Box 8) In his rationale for this model, he stated that “Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre, having organically developed a range of services partially oriented towards community contact, ie. Middle Stagers, ECDP etc.”, was now in a position “to make potent their effect for participants at La Boite, as well as for its audiences” through “an ‘energy wheel’ of contact” (ibid.).

In wanting to bring art to the people, he took the existing activities of the theatre and showed how, with the addition of one more (Adult TIE), all age groups of the community could be catered for at La Boite. In circular formation, the Energy Wheel design showed the following key elements of his community concept: Element 1: ECDP - drama programmes for children aged four to six Element 2: FEATS22 - drama activities for children seven to twelve Element 3: Middle Stagers - young people aged twelve to twenty-one Element 4: La Boite’s House Theatre - youth and adult participants Element 5: Experimental/Workshop performances – youth and adults Element 6: Classes - youth and adults Element 7: Adult Theatre in Education (TIE) – community organizations etc.

21 The fifth professional staff member was office secretary, Gail Podberscek. 22 FEATS stood for Fun for Everyone Adventure in Theatre Show.

127 At the core of the wheel was what he called Resource Centre composed of all the professional staff plus paid tutors, actors, playwright in residence, resident designer, technical assistants and the cleaner. He saw it as: … a centre continually expanding outwards by the training of and through the amateur people participants of the theatre towards the wider community. This expansion is envisaged as non-exclusive to any one of the seven services provided by the theatre, rather it will enable a continual cross-fertilisation of discovery, ideas and practice to flow throughout the theatre and on into the community and back into the theatre. (ibid.)

Pursuing his ‘community theatre’ ideology, he insisted that his wheel was designed “to enshrine the creative energy of the amateur” (ibid.). The two professional wings of the theatre (ECDP and the projected Adult TIE company which never eventuated) were “a direction through which people can move if they discover a vocation in theatre” (ibid.). He envisaged the normal work of ECDP expanding to include short programmes for “disadvantaged sectors of the community eg. migrant children, handicapped children etc.” (ibid.). FEATS was to be transformed from the usual Saturday morning classes to “an almost free performance/participation series of locally developed events for the children of the surrounding neighbours of Brisbane” (ibid.) – with ECDP support. Middle Stagers would take their work to “hospital bedsides, shopping-towns, and other forgotten areas of the community” (ibid.). Adult TIE was envisaged as moving into outer Brisbane metropolitan community organizations “to attempt contact with people whose understanding of theatre and its relation to their own lives is healthily absent” (ibid.).

An analysis of the energy wheel, with the benefit of hindsight, would have to suggest that this was a wildly over-ambitious concept of trying to be all things to all people; and a recipe for speedy burn-out for key personnel, especially members of ECDP. The immediate consequences of this new artistic concept were, however, remarkable. Operationalized in 1978, the energy wheel had the extraordinary effect of drawing in 40,745 audience members to see 550 performances of 32 productions. Half of the audience were children and, of these, most were under eight (AGM Director’s Report Feb.28 1979, UQFL109, Box 4). Billinghurst reported: Through the work of ECDP, FEATS and our Youth Group, the Middle Stagers, La Boite is ensuring that Theatre is a present and hopefully living experience for thousands of young people - not only in Brisbane but in some of Queensland’s country and regional centres. (ibid.)

128

Forming the basis of La Boite’s submission to the Australia Council for 1978 funding, the energy wheel worked its magic when the organization was awarded a significant increase in funding from previous years. For the first time, the Australia Council granted $10,000 towards the Artistic Director’s salary and $4,000 for a writer-in- residence; and ECDP was granted $23,500 for actors’ salaries, an increase of $7,000 from 1977 (Hon.Treasurer’s AGM Report, Feb. 28, 1979, UQFL109, Box 4). Add to this the State Government funding of $27,500, and total funding from grants in 1978 reached $65,000 – a significant increase from the 1977 total of $43,600 (ibid.).

Billinghurst’s Artistic Leadership • Artistic policy Six months into the job, Billinghurst produced a paper entitled La Boite Theatre is a People Place (UQFL109 Box 8.5) in which he outlined many elements of his artistic policy, giving particular emphasis to the amateur status of the theatre and to the training and educational function of La Boite: I feel that Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite should always remain as an amateur body however ‘professional’ it becomes in its manner of doing. …

Our training of writers, directors, actors, designers, production support people and musicians should excite people towards the future possibilities of theatre.

… Understanding of our aims and ideals can best be gained through the attention of children. Their introduction to theatre requires special care and deserves our finest efforts in communication; children give future meaning to our present aspirations. (ibid.) He came into the job supporting Jennifer Blocksidge’s artistic policy, stating in interview that he “admired Jennifer’s artistic policy” and that he’d “virtually only expanded what Jennifer set up” (Billinghurst Interview with Radbourne, July 21, 1978: ll.76-80). His paper elaborated on how his artistic policy was enacted though his programming of plays. He wrote that, although practicalities sometimes overcame the plan, the mainhouse play pattern that he strove to implement was (op.cit.): Play 1: opener that sets the overall mood of the season Play 2: a hard edge work that is more serious and experimental in intent Play 3: a ‘popular’ choice – a chance for party bookers Play 4: an experimental and possibly local work Play 5: a popular classic revival.

129 Not surprisingly, it was the ‘hard edge’, ‘experimental’ and, sometimes, ‘local’ work which proved most unreliable at the box-office.

• The Floating World - his La Boite directorial debut The first production Billinghurst directed established his credibility both as a talented director and one who would not be backing away from controversial material. That he chose an Australian play for his La Boite directorial debut was a strong indicator of his commitment to Australian playwriting. His choice was John Romeril’s new play The Floating World, which had premiered at Melbourne’s Pram Factory in 1974 (Fotheringham in Parsons, 1995: 231). The play’s context was a cruise-ship voyage to Japan by a former prisoner of war, Les Harding, who had experienced and witnessed the extreme brutality of the Japanese guards on the Burma-Thailand railway (ibid.). Now a classic Australian play, in the 1970s “its subject matter and profane language made it a controversial piece, staged only by alternative companies” (ibid.). Rowbotham enthused that it was not only a smash bit for La Boite but “it signifies that Rick Billinghurst’s new appointment as the theatre’s first fulltime paid director is more than likely to be justified. Mr. Billinghurst has directed this play with exciting professionalism”(The Courier Mail, April 24, 1976 p.9). He praised the “magnificent” performance of Errol O’Neill in the lead role and commented on the message of the play as “not a play of hate for an erstwhile enemy, but of infinite compassion for a young man who was once caught in it” (ibid.).

• His groundbreaking season of Australian plays In relation to La Boite’s artistic development, Billinghurst’s ‘experiment’ in 1977 with The Queensland Playwrights’ Season has special significance. Funded by The Utah Foundation, the season included a revival of George Landen Dann’s In Beauty It Is Finished and four premieres of new works – Lorna Bol’s Treadmill and Jill Shearer’s The Kite, Nocturne and The Boat. As The Courier Mail announced: “For the first time ever, plays written by Queenslanders will dominate the subscription season of a Brisbane theatre” (The Courier Mail, Jan. 10, 1977). Playlab’s President, Rod Lumer, recognized the importance of this moment in La Boite’s history23:

23 Playlab, the oldest State support group for play development, was founded in 1972 by Barbara Stellmach and a group of Queensland playwrights. Playlab Press, established in 1978 by Rod Lumer,

130 The Queensland Playwrights’ Laboratory (PLAYLAB) in attempting to help our playwrights has long realised the need for a major theatre to acknowledge the existence and worth of local playwrights and we are grateful that Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre is making this positive contribution to the cultural self-esteem of our state. (Letter to the Editor (Copy) Jan. 10, 1977, Michael Nason Private Collection)

This was the picking up of a thread originally spun between BRTS and George Landen Dann in the 1930s – a relationship between the Theatre and Queensland plays and playwrights was reignited in this experiment. In La Boite’s first Newsletter for 1977, Billinghurst and Blocksidge wrote: The Queensland Playwrights’ Season is the beginning of a programme to establish the importance of the Queensland regional writer. Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre has incorporated within its charter, the practical development of the Queensland Playwright in the belief that exciting theatre essentially grows from a primary concern with its surrounding community, and that begins with the local writer.

La Boite plans to include many more things of Queensland in its programmes, to mirror Queensland society including contemporary politics. Queenslanders now realise their state is full of drama, and we predict Queensland theatre will grow, through its popularity with local audiences, over the next year or two. (Newsletter 1977 – not dated, UQFL109, Box 125) Was the season a box-office success? Apparently not, as Don Batchelor reported in his survey of Queensland theatre for 1977: It [the season] was rightly hailed as a highly significant and laudable venture by people close to theatre. Publicity for the season was excellent. The advertising budget was three times the average; yet ticket sales were discouragingly low – 33% of capacity in fact. (Batchelor in Theatre Australia, February 1978: 38) In conjunction with this season, at Billinghurst’s suggestion a Queensland Playwrights’ Conference was hosted by La Boite and organized by Playlab, with two guest speakers: Katharine Brisbane addressed the problems of publishing new plays, and Alan Edwards considered on the problems of performing new plays (Fotheringham in Theatre Australia, June 1977). Edwards’ attitude that responsibility for public money precluded QTC taking risks with locally written plays was challenged by Billinghurst who argued that “companies receiving large public subsidies had a responsibility to put those funds at risk …and that one major use of risk funds should be to present the work of new – particularly local – writers” (ibid.). has published over 70 performance texts by Queensland writers (http://www.playlab.org.au/ cited 27 November 2005)

131 Fotheringham could not see much future for Queensland writers, commenting that “Playlab’s doing as much as it can” and “La Boite can afford to take on something as uncommercial as three untried local plays only when it gets special subsidy to do so” (ibid.).

Nevertheless, the ‘plan’ to include more local plays was not to be derailed and more home-grown products took to the stage in 1977. Under Billinghurst’s instigation, John O’Toole (appointed playwright-in-residence in 1978) co-scripted and co-directed with Richard Fotheringham, John Bradley and Lorna Bol, La Boite’s first documentary theatre piece – a political play called Happy Birthday East Timor24. In a National Times article by Adrian McGregor about this production, Billinghurst said that after the Queensland Playwrights’ Season he had “wanted to involve domestic writers in a socio-political theme. ‘I thought Australians had their head in the sand about Timor while we railed about Idi Amin and Chile’, said Rick” (McGregor in The National Times, Dec. 5-10, 1977). Its dramatic content included an interpretation critical of Indonesia’s recent invasion of East Timor plus television footage shot by the group of Australian journalists who were later murdered. According to Batchelor (in Theatre Australia, 1979: 14) “it was hardly theatre of entertainment…nor did Brisbane flock to see it…but it was a tribute to Billinghurst’s social conscience, courage and cool- handedness that the attempt was so significantly made”. Theatre critic for The Australian, Colin Robertson panned it as “… so bogged down in political bias that it becomes meaningless. The little round theatre turns so many degrees left it almost goes into orbit” (Nov. 22, 1977). Yet it was this kind of risk-taking with repertoire that gave La Boite a particular kind of ‘edgy’ attractiveness for both artists and audiences in Brisbane.

Of all the Queensland productions in 1977, Man of Steel, a musical by Queenslanders Simon Denver and Ian Dorricott and directed by Jo Denver and Jan MacLean, was the only one which did well at the box office25. This lack of audience support may have accounted for a pulling back on Queensland product by Billinghurst. In 1978 there

24 It was politically ‘suspect’ enough for the Special Branch of the Queensland Police to mingle with the opening night crowd in the foyer.

25 Man of Steel had an extraordinarily successful afterlife as one of the most produced musicals in secondary schools in Australia.

132 was only one, albeit very successful, production – John O’Toole’s Mr Herod’s Christmas Pageant directed by Jennifer Blocksidge. Then, in 1979, two more mainhouse premieres of Queensland works took place with John Bradley’s Irish Stew and Denver and Dorricott’s Sheer Luck, Holmes!, both directed by Sean Mee.

Also a box-office failure in 1977 was Nowra’s Inner Voices directed by David Bell which Billinghurst insisted was “not due to the standard of production, rather to the twin areas of esoteric script and our failure to find the right mode of marketing to reach the play’s potential audience” (Council Minutes, Dec. 6, 1977, UQFL109, Box 5). Batchelor, reviewing the play on a night attended by only twenty audience members, could only muster irritation as the evening progressed “partly with the play for not adequately synthesising its disparate elements, partly with the production for being so humourless, and largely with the cast for making much of the script incomprehensible” (in Theatre Australia, Dec. 1977, p.37).The box-office hits of the 1977 season were Grease directed by Graeme Johnston and Bullshot Crummond (an hilarious parody of 1930’s B-grade detective movies) directed by Rod Wissler, which Fotheringham panned, noting: “It’s barely an hour long … is often plain silly, and is so evanescent that you’re left with the thought ‘Why Bother?’ before you’re across the foyer homeward bound” (in Theatre Australia, March-April 1977, p.17).

• La Boite’s pro-am status supports risk-taking policy Audience rejection of serious Queensland and Australian works was not peculiar to La Boite. In the same year, QTC’s venture into Australian works with John Power’s The Last of the Knucklemen also failed at the box office (Batchelor, op.cit.). Serious non-Australian works fared little better at La Boite: Seneca’s Oedipus directed by Rick Billinghurst, “a superbly whole production” according to Batchelor, averaged about 70 audience members per performance (ibid.). Yet La Boite’s 1977 season, which also included Edward Bond’s The Sea, Sam Shepard’s The Unseen Hand and Snoo Wilson’s Everest Hotel, added up, in Batchelor’s view, to “the most vital and enterprising set of plays in Brisbane this year” (ibid.). The great advantage of an essentially amateur theatre like La Boite was that, to a certain extent, risks could be taken in the pursuit of experimentation and quality; a small cast, box-office failure like Inner Voices could be balanced with huge cast, sure-fire box office success like Bullshot Crummond, Grease and Man of Steel. Yet, amateur at this time in La Boite’s

133 history did not equate with second rate. Fotheringham summed up David Bell’s production of The Sea as “a genuinely outstanding one” with particularly fine performances from Bev Langford and Michael McCaffrey (in Theatre Australia, February-March 1977, p.18). Such a production, he said (ibid.): … testifies yet again to the health of the La Boite organization; to the wisdom of their policies of training young people in every aspect of the presentation of a play and the ensemble commitment this has engendered; and to their ability to stand on their record of good work and so draw to their ranks experienced and talented actors and directors who for one reason or another are earning their salaries outside the profession.

At this time, La Boite really had it all its own way in terms of being the only theatre company in Brisbane able to take risks and develop a reputation as the place to go for ‘alternative’ theatre. As Batchelor commented, any professional management that went ahead with a season such as La Boite’s in 1977 “might properly be called irresponsible and foolish” (ibid.). Alan Edwards, artistic director of QTC, could not afford, according to Batchelor, another Knuckleman in his seasons – QTC was a professional company at the mercy of subscribers, public opinion and funding bodies. Even Twelfth Night Theatre was now suffering a similar fate since it turned professional: from its feisty early days of productions like Norm and Ahmed and Ham Funeral, both of which caused uproar in the community, Twelfth Night was no longer taking any risks in a 1977 season that included Something’s Afoot, Mrs Warren’s Profession and Aren’t We All? (ibid.).

• Risky, innovative theatre of 1978 Writing for The National Times, theatre critic Barry Oakley reviewed La Boite’s first production for 1978, the Australian premiere of English writer Peter Gill’s innovative play Small Change. He commented on the excellence of Billinghurst’s direction: Director Rick Billinghurst has orchestrated these complex relationships of form, speech and movement with a masterly sense of rhythm, and his cast perform the difficult self-investigations with great concentration and timing, led by Eileen Beatson’s resigned, powerful reading of the character of the formidable Mrs Hare. (Oakley in The National Times, February 13-19, 1978 p.43)

On La Boite’s position artistically in relation to QTC’s, he wrote (ibid.): This is an enterprising production from an enterprising theatre, which has consistently shown it offers more than an alternative to the Queensland

134 Theatre Company – if the frontiers of Brisbane drama are going to be extended, it’s in La Boite’s little space that it will happen. While the QTC is planning an unadventurous piece by J.B.Priestley, La Boite will shortly be doing a play by Snoo Wilson, who, like Peter Gill, is in the forefront of the British avant-garde.

David Rowbotham, theatre critic for The Courier Mail panned it: “Small Change at La Boite Theatre might be sufficient for an academic crap-game. But it is not likely to obtain a purchase on the public” (Feb. 6, 1978). The production managed only 42% occupancy during its season (Hon.Treasurer’s AGM Report, Feb. 28, 1979, UQFL109 Box 12).

Snoo Wilson’s The Beast, directed by David Bell, represented the extremes to which La Boite, under Billinghurst’s artistic direction, was not afraid to go. The play’s characters “sniff cocaine, shoot heroin, roll around naked, take fits, practise the occult, talk kinky and funky language” (Rowbotham in The Courier Mail, March 4, 1978). Robertson saw it as Billinghurst “sticking pins into Queensland’s smug theatrical hide”, or in this case, using a machete rather than a pin (The Australian, March 10, 1978). Tickell described it as “not a play for the weak of heart”…”an affront to mankind” … “but the superb acting more than saves it” (The Telegraph, March 8, 1978). Batchelor praised Bell’s visual treatment – “everything and everyone looked fantastic”- but found the lack of constraint by the actors turned the acting into “a splurge; ugly, but not faintly diabolical…the only truly diabolical thing all night was the spoken French” (in Theatre Australia, May 1978).

Just as unpopular with the critics was Brisbane writer Stephen Sewell’s new play The Father We Loved on the Beach by the Sea, directed by Jeremy Ridgman. Robertson summed it up as “the work is a germ of an idea which needs a lot of rewriting to turn it into a play” (The Australian, 24 July, 1978). Under the headline “Four-letter father flops”, Tickell described it as “substandard theatre” (The Telegraph, July 26, 1978) and Rowbotham said of it “La Boite Theatre is doing the playwright, the players, and itself, a disservice”. His main criticism was, like Robertson’s, its unreadiness for a public production, declaring “it should have been withheld until Mr. Sewell was able to match the craft of writing and construction with the play’s human and political intent, and practised actors were available” (The Courier Mail, July 24, 1978). Whilst Fotheringham did not disagree with this criticism, he drew attention to the absolute

135 appropriateness of this kind of production at La Boite: “… putting on the work of new local writers is surely one of the most vital functions La Boite performs, and the category obviously deserves a special and sympathetic critical response” (Theatre Australia September 1978 p.28). He blamed the play’s poor audiences (34% occupancy) on the unsympathetic damning it got from both The Australian and The Courier Mail (ibid.). Another voice that publicly supported La Boite and this production was Veronica Kelly, a lecturer in the department of English at the University of Queensland: I was impressed by the scope of the play and admired the production. …New theatre writing is best encouraged by the experience of production, and La Boite has an admirable creative record in fostering the growth of talent not only in actors and directors, but in playwrights as well. (The Courier Mail, Letters to the Editor August 2, 1978)

The failure of Sewell’s play was balanced by the critical and box-office success of Young Mo, a recent work by Steve Spears, which garnered positive reviews from The Courier Mail (April 15), The Telegraph (May 2) and The Australian (May 2) ensuring excellent audiences – the production scored 85% occupancy. Young Mo, directed by Rick Billinghurst and featuring Rod Wissler as Mo was described by Rowbotham as “the night out for everyone”, and judged it “excellently written and conceived. And happily, joyously acted” (The Courier Mail, April 15, 1978). Later in the year, yet another Steve Spears play, King Richard, was included in the season and also favourably reviewed. Fotheringham declared it “one of the major theatrical events of this year” and made much of the fact that the fiction of the play was imitating the fact of that week’s announcements of political and police corruption in Queensland (in Theatre Australia, November 1978, p.36)

Not so unanimously well-received was Wissler’s production of Tales from Vienna Woods by Odon von Horvath. Headlining his review with “Ponderous play and a deplorable length” Rowbotham called it “an example of ‘theatre for the few’” (The Courier Mail, August 21, 1978). Jeremy Ridgman saw its relevance to Queensland society in his generally very positive review: As the country’s economic fortunes tremble and Queensland unflinchingly submits to the instigation of a branch of the National Front, it seems not inappropriate that La Boite should choose to mount Horvath’s until recently little known study of 1930s Austria, a society slowly crumbling under inflation and burgeoning fascism.

136 (Theatre Australia, October 1978, p.30) He commented that if Wissler’s “strong, stylised approach is not extended to the acting perhaps it can be put down to the perennial problem of the availability of mature talent at La Boite” (ibid.). Robertson thought “the whole thing somehow worked (at times)” and “…by some theatrical magic that is very real at La Boite, Rod Wissler conjured up a feeling of the Nazi Germany to come…” (The Australian, August 25, 1978).

In the same category of ‘mixed reviews’ was Jennifer Blocksidge’s production of John O’Toole’s new work Mr Herod’s Christmas Pageant. The play, which presented a political spin on the traditional nativity story, was written and workshopped during O’Toole’s term as writer in residence at La Boite, made possible by a grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council (Artistic Director’s AGM Report, Feb.28, 1979, UQFL109, Box 12). Robertson did not like it: La Boite’s experimental concept makes it the most interesting theatre in Brisbane and I have no objection to hearing Mr O’Toole’s personal philosophy and ideas in genuinely entertaining fashion. Unfortunately such is not the case. Mr O’Toole presents his personal philosophy in such heavy- handed, humourless, joyless style, that there must be some doubt as to whether he even believes in the Easter Bunny, much less Santa Claus. (The Australian, December 4, 1978) Whilst admitting there were flaws in the show, Batchelor saw it as “a richly resonant piece of writing whose implications have been disturbing me since I saw the show… La Boite continues to serve us well by challenging our preconceptions, even quite sacred ones” (Theatre Australia, February 1979).

Three classic works went some way to balance the experimental and risky works that often took such a lashing from the critics during 1978. They were Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer directed by Graeme Johnston, which topped audience attendance for La Boite’s ’78 season with 85% occupancy; Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan directed by Fred Wessely (53%); and Shaw’s Heartbreak House directed by Richard Fotheringham (58%). The biggest box-office success of the year was not a La Boite production at all, but Nimrod’s production at La Boite of Ron Blair’s The Christian Brothers directed by John Bell - it enjoyed 99% occupancy. As Billinghurst described it, this production was “our first effort at entrepreneurial co-operation with

137 our sister theatre NIMROD in Sydney” (Artistic Director’s AGM Report, Feb. 28, 1979, UQFL109, Box 12).

Based on the media response – albeit mixed - to their 1978 productions, Blocksidge was able to confirm the significance of La Boite “not only locally but interstate” (President’s AGM Report, Feb.28, 1979, UQFL109, Box 12). Summing up the Queensland scene for 1978 in Theatre Australia, Veronica Kelly gave much more weight to La Boite’s significance: One of Brisbane theatres bizarreries is that QTC – the state subsidized company – has always implicitly had its artistic pace set by La Boite which, putting aside for the moment the latter’s vital professional wing in the early Childhood Drama Project, must be a rarity in Australian theatre in that it is an amateur theatre which most nearly challenges the state company.

Whatever the future holds, confidence is placed in La Boite for sensitivity to what it has done, can do and must do. My prayer for La Boite is that it never cede its perch in cultivating and displaying Australian talent; the adventurous Queensland Playwrights’ season of 1977, Steve Sewell’s The Father We Loved on the Beach by the Sea and the premiere of Spears’ King Richard this year, shine like spotlights in a naughty world. Without La Boite, the heart sinks to one’s thongs. (Theatre Australia, January, 1979)

In reviewing his season Billinghurst said: 1978 saw the agonies and unresolved debates surrounding La Boite’s standards intensify – usually aroused by the judgmental nature of our local columnists comments in making or breaking our shows.26

It seems that we require some criteria to judge for ourselves the nature and purpose of “standards” in our kind of theatre. …

With 208 performances of 18 House Theatre productions in 1978 it is more than likely that the orthodox ‘standards of performance’ will be variable given the combination of a whole range of factors that constitute a theatre performance on any given evening at La Boite.

These factors include our theatre policy in programming, the understanding of our audience and participants in relation to this policy, the number, nature and rapid turnover of talents needed to support this policy, our democratic system

26 Indeed, Billinghurst had been so riled by Rowbotham’s negative reviews during the year that he recommended to the La Boite Executive Council that his invitation to opening nights be withdrawn. Whilst the Executive agreed the reviews had been damaging, they refused to support his motion and instead recommended it voice its concern to the editors of The Courier Mail (Minutes 12 September, 1978, UQFL109, Box 5).

138 of open casting, the experience of our directors and teachers, the experience of the actors 27and even the building itself. (Artistic Director’s AGM Report, Feb. 28, 1979, UQFL109 Box 12)

Further insight into Billinghurst’s determination to programme so many innovative, experimental and risky productions is revealed in his interview with Jennifer Radbourne. Quoting Peter Brook’s categorisation of theatre as the deadly, the rough, the holy and the immediate (1972), he said that what La Boite was doing was: … trying to incorporate the last three without the first one. I think too much of what is called ‘theatre’ these days is ‘deadly’ and it lurks everywhere, even in the most worthy productions. Hopefully we’re not too worthy in what we do. We try to keep our feet in the gutter and our head in the clouds. (Billinghurst Interview with Radbourne, July 21, 1978: ll.14-18) But he admitted that expanding the Theatre’s horizons in this way and introducing audiences to other forms of theatre meant it “had to sacrifice audience numbers for development” (ibid.: ll.34-35): This role in the community of trying to excite people into other forms of theatre hasn’t been supported though, either through government grant or anything like this because it is a much riskier policy than if you were to put on a series of Neil Simons etc. where you’re guaranteeing an audience who are going to have a night of entertainment. This is not to say that we dismiss entertainment as a valuable thing but we are always trying to programme plays that have entertainment and a bit of meat as well … (ibid.: ll.35-41)

A Major Review of All Activities As it turned out, 1978 was a watershed year for La Boite in that the Council conducted a major review of all the Theatre’s activities and came up with a long set of recommendations. Change was afoot in the leadership area too. Jennifer Blocksidge finished her term as President and was succeeded by Owen Sturgess. Although

27 Amongst the actors who performed at La Boite between 1969 and 1979, many of whom had or would later have professional careers in theatre were: Robert Arthur, Jane Atkins, Eileen Beatson, Jennifer Blocksidge, Lorna Bol, Bille Brown, Chris Burns, Peter Clarke, Murray Cullen, Bronwen Doherty, Mark Doherty, Dianne Eden, Les Evans, Jennifer Flowers, Frank Gallacher, Eugene Gilfedder, Monica Gilfedder, Peta Gottschalk, Gus Guthrie, Paul Haseler, Graeme Hattrick, Mark Hembrow, Margaret Hickey, Christine Hoepper, Gillian Hyde, Peter Kowitz, Shirley Lambert, Bev Langford, Tony Longland, Kym Lynch, June Lynch, Michael McCaffrey, Greg McCart, Patsy McCarthy, Sally McKenzie, Les McWilliam, Ray Meagher, Sean Mee, Victoria Nason, Errol O’Neill, Barry Otto, Bruce Parr, Gil Perrin, Kay Perry, Beth Prescott, David Pyle, Lesley Ricketts, Margaret Savage, Greg Silverman, Marguerite Steffensen, Babette Stephens, Kaye Stevenson, Hugh Taylor, Jacqui Teuma, Genevieve Thackwell-James, Ian Thomson, Pat Thomson, Gillian Tye, Pauline Walsh, Robyn Warrick, Terry Whitehead, Rod Wissler, Beverley Wood, Joe Woodward.

139 Billinghurst’s three year contract was up in early 1979, he readily agreed to the Council’s request that he stay on for a further six months, finally surrendering the position in September 1979.

Jennifer Blocksidge described 1978 as a time of assessing “where we had come from, where we are now, and where we want to go” (President’s AGM Report, February 28, 1979, UQFL109, Box 12). Sub-committees composed of Councillors assessed and made recommendations in these four areas: artistic policy; the financial situation; the constitution and the administrative structure; physical resources and needs (ibid.). The time was ripe for a review: after three years of professional artistic direction, Blocksidge was able to say that La Boite had become “significantly more than just a ‘little’ theatre run only for the benefit of its members” and that, thanks to press coverage from The National Times, The Australian and Theatre Australia, La Boite could now claim national as well as local significance (ibid.). For her, the most significant question that had to be answered was “where do we want to go?” (ibid.):

Artistic Policy Issues and Recommendations • Serious debate on becoming a professional company The issue of whether or not to pursue further steps towards the creation of a professional company was one Blocksidge was determined to keep on the agenda. In fact, the professional/amateur divide was the ‘hot potato’ issue that was the clear sub- text to this major review, especially in relation to artistic policy. The President’s call for reports on all sections of the Theatre’s activities was a response not only to Billinghurst’s 1977 set of papers but also to significant dissatisfactions voiced by many people involved with the Theatre. As the 1979 Report on Artistic Policy stated: In recent years, the artistic policy has been projected towards the community rather than its members. Consequently, some of the hard core of the membership have been disenchanted with policies and failed to renew their membership. The experimental nature of plays and the intimacy of a theatre in the round have influenced members both positively as well as negatively. (Report on Artistic Policy, Feb.1, 1979, UQFL109, Box 6) Some members and Councillors regretted the restriction to participation in all the theatre’s activities which was a consequence of the new building, the setting up of ECDP as La Boite’s professional wing, the involvement of professional staff in the theatre’s administration, the appointment of a professional Artistic Director, and the

140 increasing dependence on external funds (Report from Sub-Committee Set Up To Report to Council: The Long-Term Artistic Aim of the Theatre, 1979, UQFL109, Box 6). Compounding all this was La Boite’s growing reputation under Rick Billinghurst’s artistic direction of presumed professionalism in all aspects of the Theatre and the consequent expectation by the public of consistent professional standards of artistic work (ibid.), patently impossible to realise given the theatre was still a long way from being a fully professional company. Interestingly, the physical constraints of the building were seen as a major obstacle to a financially viable professional theatre, a factor that did not deter La Boite in 1993, but certainly became one of the major issues that provoked the change of venue to the 400 seat Roundhouse in 2003 : Apart from the theatre shape, its size or seating capacity is about half that which is regarded as economic for a professional theatre. The size of La Boite deters any shift in artistic policy towards professional theatre. (op.cit.)

The Artistic Policy Sub-committee28 further backgrounded their recommendations in a statement about the nature of the La Boite Council, defining it as: … basically a conservative body and while enjoying the reputation and significance of the theatre’s programme, it remains, by and large, unprepared to engage in new moves or take risks that: (a) It does nor fully understand artistically or philosophically (b) Introduce a new financial ball-game (c) Could have political consequences (d) Would further limit access to ‘would be’ participants. (op. cit.)

In their deliberations, the Artistic Policy Sub-committee considered a number of options for the Theatre’s future which included La Boite as a training theatre, a community theatre, a totally amateur theatre, an actor’s laboratory (based on the Grotowski model), Australian theatre, playwright’s theatre or as an alternative professional company (ibid.). In a blatant criticism of the ‘old guard’ elements of the Council who represented the ‘amateur’ sympatherisers within the membership, the Report prefaced its recommendations by stating: So long as the Council insists on open participation for all members, it will remain impossible for an artistic goal or dream to be fully controlled, developed or realised. It is time Council decided which of the following is its main priority:

28 Members of the Artistic Policy Sub-Committee were Owen Sturgess, Jennifer Blocksidge, Eileen Beatson, Lorna Bol, Graeme Johnston, Leigh Wayper

141 (a) To keep the theatre activities open to all participants and remain satisfied with the variables this produces to provide its standard and energy, or (b) To realise an artistic goal that it believes is necessary within the theatre scene by controlled development and by ensuring that participants are qualified to achieve it. (ibid.)

To examine the burning issue of whether or not to ‘go professional’, another sub- committee was set up consisting of Jennifer Blocksidge, Graeme Johnston, Alrene Sykes, and Jan Vanderiet (Council Meeting Minutes August 6, 1979, UQFL109 Box 6). It came to the following conclusions (ibid.): 1. Based on the present structure of House Theatre activities, the cost of any one production of a moderate size, with a professional cast and crew, would be likely to increase to approximately $7,000. 2. The substantial increase in financial support necessary, would be unavailable at this point in time. 3. The present activities – elements as shown on the Energy Wheel – would have to be considerably altered to accommodate such a move. 4. The goal of professionalism would jeopodise our policy of encouraging new writers, particularly new writers and writing that illuminates the new.

It recommended that no significant change be made to the professional/amateur structure of the Theatre, given the present financial impossibility of ‘going professional’, but strongly recommended the issue be kept on the agenda for the future. This was a cool-headed and sensible approach to a hot issue and exemplified Blocksidge’s ‘controlled development’ approach which kept La Boite thriving but out of the deep waters of certain financial ruin if a hot-headed, emotionally-driven decision for professionalism had happened.

• Recommendations on new works and a future professional company Out of this rigorous process of review came a set of artistic policy recommendations from the Artistic Policy Sub-committee urging the La Boite Council to focus programming on new works, particularly by local writers, and to accept the pathway to a professional company. These 1979 key recommendations set in place long-term artistic goals which continued to underpin La Boite’s artistic policy for two more decades. The recommendations were: (1) That the theatre focus its future and programme on the encouragement of new writing – particularly by local writers.

142 (2) That the … [new] Artistic Director be forward thinking with a vital interest in new forms of theatre, new ideas and the encouragement and development of local writing. (3) That this Council confirms that it will plan to make Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre the recognized alternative professional company, should the opportunity arise. (4) That Council work towards professionalism as the only way to ensure proper recognition of the theatre’s artistic goal.(ibid.)

To support these recommendations, the sub-committee suggested that future seasons should consist of approximately 67% new writing and 33% productions of plays that illuminate, from classic works to contemporary works like Edward Bond’s Saved (ibid.). It recommended contact with publishers be built up29; that La Boite act as agents; that the theatre be hired out to groups engaged in similar programmes; that La Boite entrepreneur suitable productions from elsewhere; and that it plan to tour appropriate productions throughout Queensland and interstate (ibid.).

Administrative Policy Issues and Recommendations The Administrative Sub-committee’s 30 review found that the present organizational structure of Members, Council, Executive Committee, Management Committee and Staff was not working and that this failure was based on ineffective communication at all levels (The Administrative Committee Report, 1979, UQFL109, Box 6). One significant contributing factor was the infrequency of Executive Council Meetings, only eleven out of the prescribed twenty-four having taken place in 1978 (ibid.). There was sloppiness in the creation of agendas and distribution of minutes and the Management Committee’s role seemed to have broken down - this Committee, composed of the Artistic Director, Business Manager, Production Manager and the leader of ECDP, was supposed to be responsible to Council for the day to day decisions as well as long-term planning for the Theatre’s future. To rectify this situation, recommendations were made to clarify the role of the Council, Executive Committee, Management Committee and the professional staff, and their relationships with one another.

29 In 1980, 3 Political Plays was published by University of Queensland Press. It comprised three plays which all had their premiere performances during La Boite’s 1978 and 1979 seasons: Steve J.Spears King Richard, Stephen Sewell’s The Father We Loved On A Beach By The Sea and John Bradley’s Irish Stew. 30 Members of the Administrative Sub-Committee were Phil Armit, Eileen Beatson, Bruce Blocksidge, Lesely Ricketts and Fred Wessely

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• Financial issues and recommendations The catalyst for this Report from the Finance Review Committee31 was the deficit experienced by La Boite in 1978. To improve the financial situation, recommendations were made that included: a strong recruitment drive for members; balancing “popular” with “experimental” plays to improve audience attendance; and reviewing the organizational structure, processes of delegation and responsibility, and financial controls as a matter of urgency (Report of the Finance Review Committee, Jan. 26, 1979, UQFL109, Box 6).

At the end of a period of intense activity and change, strong leadership was able to reign-in those shambolic elements of the Theatre’s organization that, in the hands of less sensitive or less ‘professionally oriented’ people, could have crippled La Boite and could have left it, in 1979, exhausted, confused about its identity and dying on the sword of internal strife. Instead, Jennifer Blocksidge exerted her fine leadership skills and masterminded a detailed review of all activities at just the right moment in the Theatre’s history. Through this process of self-examination she and the committee members helped to do three important things: to professionalize the organizational and financial structure; to claim in a formal way the artistic territory of alternative theatre company specialising in new works, especially of Queensland writers; and to confirm the long-term goal of the organic growth towards a fully professional theatre company.

Billinghurst’s Last Hurrah Before he concluded his artistic directorship in September 1979, Billinghurst had one final season in which to consolidate the artistic policy he had pursued since 1976 and that had been formalised in the artistic policy report. In that year, his ‘new writing’ productions were reported as outstanding critical and box-office successes: Irish Stew by Brisbane writer John Bradley, directed by Sean Mee, reached an overall attendance level of 72.5% and the musical Sheer Luck Holmes by locals Simon Denver and Ian Dorricott and also directed by Sean Mee, excelled at 78% attendance rate (President Sturgess’s AGM Report Feb.19, 1980, UQFL109 Box 12). Rowbotham said of Irish

31 Members of the Finance Review Committee were G. Clarke (Chairman), Jennifer Blocksidge, Blair Wilson, Owen Sturgess.

144 Stew: “This play is one of the most stunning, and stimulating surprises I have encountered in theatre in this city – or anywhere in Australia” (The Courier Mail, Feb. 15, 1979). It received uniformly excellent reviews in The National Times (Cotes, February 24, 1979), The Australian (Robertson, Feb. 8, 1979) and Sunday Sun (Bentley, Feb. 4, 1979), and, although he had some reservations about the play, Ridgman’s review in Theatre Australia was positive overall (April 1979, p.30).

Two more Australian works were box-offices risks: Visions by Louis Nowra, directed by John Milson, and the Australian Performing Group’s The Hills Family Show directed by Richard Fotherinhgam, both of which received mixed reviews. In his critique of Visions, Robertson noted Milson’s “deep understanding of the playwright” and “an outstanding performance from Sally McKenzie as Madame Lynch and Jennifer Blocksidge as a most effective peasant girl…” (The Australian, 30 April 1979). Tickell was far more enthusiastic – “Louis Nowra’s brilliantly perceptive play, Visions, which Brisbane Rep. currently is performing, is magnificent” (The Telegraph, 29 April 1979). With The Hills Family, however, Tickell declared that “La Boite’s amazing run of theatrical luck” had ended, describing it as “ridiculous in concept, thought and deed and no matter how hard some of the cast try, it continues to remain ridiculous and boring” (The Telegraph, July16, 1979). Yet, Rowbotham loved it: “I have not seen anything so madcap for years … Mock vaudeville, a goldmine of laughs, it is happening at La Boite Theatre. And it is a smash hit” (The Courier Mail, July 16, 1979). The paying public agreed with Rowbotham with a 60.62% attendance rate while Visions floundered at 31.1% (1979 AGM Artistic Director’s Report). Balancing these new works and Australian plays, were strongly supported seasons of Fallen Angels directed by Eileen Beatson and They Shoot Horses Don’t They? directed by David Bell and designed by Mike Bridges. Telegraph Theatre Critic, David Tickell awarded Best Play for 1979 to Fallen Angels, Best Actresses to Dianne Eden and Kay Perry for their roles in Fallen Angels, Best Director and Best Actor to David Bell and Errol O’Neill respectively for They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Tickell declared “Brisbane Repertory at its exciting venue…is the undoubted success of 1979. The company consistently came up with stimulating, exciting and entertaining theatre” (The Telegraph, Nov.1979, date unknown UQFL109).

145 Overall, 1979 was a very successful year artistically and financially for Rick Billinghurst and La Boite Theatre. The Treasurer, pleased to report a substantial financial improvement, cited three factors to account for this “return to a profitable state”: a 100% increase in net income from the main house and entrepreneurial shows; a substantial increase in grants to cover increased administrative expenses associated with ten paid staff members32; and expenditure control in both house theatre and administrative areas (Hon. Treasurer’s Report, Feb.1980, UQFL109, Box 12).

Conclusion Rick Billinghurst’s contribution to the growth period La Boite enjoyed during the 1970s was enormous, yet, as has been argued in this chapter, it was the partnership with Jennifer Blocksidge that ensured this success. Without her sensitive leadership of the whole La Boite community and her personal mentorship of Billinghurst, he might have found his time at La Boite far less fruitful than it was, and it is even arguable that he might not have lasted the three and a half years of his artistic directorship. In a retrospective article on Billinghurst’s contribution to La Boite, Batchelor (1979: 14) made this very point, and, in doing so, revealed much about the man himself, whose success at La Boite depended so much upon a protector of sorts and a mediator : The whole time Billinghurst was there [La Boite], the place was always simmering, and much of the heat generated was between artistic director and board [the La Boite Council] over such things as style and image, the personnel used in the production, the programme and consequent limitations on audience, the vexed question of professionalism in a situation where only a few people are paid, and the insistent problem of how to balance the attractions of a subsidy against the loss of independence it represents.

Since Billinghurst is no diplomat, an explosion in this area was avoided largely by the skill and generous vision of Jennifer Blocksidge who played a key bridging role inside and outside the theatre, allowing his values to flourish. (Batchelor in Theatre Australia, Volume 4, Number 4, p.14, 1979)

Batchelor’s article emphasised two great strengths that Billinghurst brought to La Boite. The first was “the belief that theatre should address itself to social, moral, political and theatrical issues which challenge the local community” (ibid.), hence, his programming of ‘alternative’, non-commercial, experimental plays in amongst

32 1979 Grants: $31,267 from the Queensland Government for general running expenses; $18,500 from the Australia Council for artistic director and production manager salaries; and $25,500 from the Australia Council for ECDP actors’ salaries (UQFL109 Hon. Treasurer’s Report to 1979 AGM)

146 seasons that included more assured box-office successes. Second was his skill as a director: I rate him in Australia’s top ten; but it is a talent which goes unnoticed because it is not flashy. As an artist he is mature with refined instincts and clear insights. Given his personal image it is fascinating that his directorial style is totally without bravado – instead he is highly disciplined, economic and founded on the text. (Batchelor, 1979: 15)

Of his departure, Billinghurst told Rowbotham it was an amicable one: “I simply felt that, having more or less crammed six years of work into three, I need a break, a period of recharging” (The Courier Mail April 4, 1979) And Rowbotham, who had so often been a negative voice in his theatre criticism of La Boite’s more experimental productions, wrote: “Good luck to one of the most spirited workers in Australian theatre. Rick Billinghurst is an uncompromising innovator” (ibid.).

When Malcolm Blaylock, who took up his position as artistic director in October 1979, addressed his first AGM a mere four and a half months after his arrival, he was able to confirm the Theatre’s unique status in Queensland and distinctive status nationally: La Boite enjoys a national reputation as a company which actively supports new and innovative works. By this policy La Boite has been able to generate an atmosphere which is at once exciting, stimulating and provocative in a field of arts often characterised by fear of any but the tried and true money-spinning formulae. Whilst La Boite continues to pursue this policy, theatre at least in Queensland, is in no danger of becoming a moribund institution. (Artistic Director’s Report, February 19, 1980, UQFL109)

The La Boite symbol on Hale Street external wall (QPAC Heritage Museum)

147 CHAPTER SIX The Blaylock, Ross, Bridges & Routh Eras 1979-1985 Introduction This chapter considers the eventful period between 1979 and 1985 when the initial consolidation of La Boite as a flourishing pro-am theatre was followed by a premature push towards professional status and loss of funding which could have closed the organization except for the determination of its Council and constituency to keep the Theatre ‘alive’. Artistic and organizational leadership in this period alternately took the Theatre forward and plunged it into crisis.

Part One is an analysis of the organizational and artistic leadership of Billinghurst’s successor, Malcolm Blaylock (1979 to 1982) within the context of his consolidation of La Boite as a professionally-run community theatre. Part Two considers the controversial contribution of Andrew Ross (1982-1983) to La Boite’s premature move towards professionalization and the demise of ECDP. For a range of reasons, Ross alienated parts of the constituency in his endeavour to push the Theatre towards a professional status it was not ready for but which La Boite’s Council asked him to pursue. Part Three of this chapter examines the aftermath of the 1983 financial and identity crises and the contribution of three individuals - Mike Bridges, Mary Hickson, and Helen Routh - who stepped forward to artistically and organizationally manage La Boite through the worst crisis in its history to date.

Five different Council Presidents held office between 1979 and 1985, none of whom remained in office for the entire three year term – Owen Sturgess 1979-1980; Jennifer Blocksidge 19811; Mac Hamilton 1982; Charles Grahame 1983-1984; and Helen Routh 1985 – although Blocksidge’s guiding hand continued to influence La Boite’s evolution during this period.

1 After Owen Sturgess elected not to undertake the third year of his three year term as President, Jennifer Blocksidge reluctantly agreed to step into the role for a year (1980 President AGM Report, UQFL109 Box 14.9)

148 PART ONE Malcolm Blaylock 1979-1982

Malcolm Blaylock, appointed artistic director in September 1979, seemed to suit La Boite. Temperamentally very different from his predecessor Rick Billinghurst, he had the knack of getting on well with everyone involved with the Theatre, from the Council and professional staff, to the amateur actors and technical crews. Graeme Johnston commented particularly on his relationship with the non-professional personnel

Malcolm Blaylock, circa 1980 of the Theatre, stating “He liked amateurs and he La Boite Archives could work with amateurs and he was one of those rare people who could encourage amateurs to do things” (Johnston Interview, 27 Sept. 2003: ll.43-46). Soon after his arrival in Brisbane, he was described by Arts writer Barbara Allen as “unpretentious” (Time Off, Dec. 1979 p.32), a quality which stood him in good stead during his two and a half years at La Boite. His relationship with the President, Owen Sturgess, and the Council, was arms length and mutually respectful: “they let me do what I wanted to do and there was no question that the Board would actually interfere in actual programming” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.118-120).

In a Theatre Australia profile on him, Fotheringham commented that Blaylock arrived in Brisbane at a time when La Boite was “enjoying a run of success which must have seemed hard to surpass, let alone redirect” but he also warned of competition from the professional TN! : “John Milson was already moving the reborn TN! Company into the same kind of repertoire” (Feb. 1980: 14-15). The onus was on Blaylock to create a unique profile for La Boite which he attempted to do through showcasing Australian plays and an idealistic initial aim of making it “a mecca of local playwrights” (ibid.). In fact, Blaylock had some success with Australian plays during his three years at La Boite but left without feeling he had much success with good quality, new Queensland plays.

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His Ideological Position on Theatre There was no mismatch between La Boite’s artistic policy and Blaylock’s own theories about what theatre should be. He believed in theatre that was innovative and posed questions. He fully endorsed La Boite’s policy of supporting “new writing and writing that illuminates the new”, because “it can have the two-fold effect of stimulating social enquiry through the theatrical medium whilst at the same time encouraging and developing an art form that is relevant to Australia” (AD’s AGM Report, 19 Feb., 1980, UQFL109, Box 12). Whilst he believed in the role of theatre “to question contemporary power structures” and “examine existing social relationships” (ibid.) he also believed theatre had to be entertaining and commercially viable (ibid.). So, in a nutshell his criteria for successful productions at La Boite were: “socially relevant, provocative and innovative, entertaining and commercially viable” (ibid.).

Asked to address Playlab on Australian Theatre: Direction for the ‘80s soon after his arrival in Brisbane, Blaylock predicted funding cut-backs (which proved correct and came close to crippling La Boite) and warned of the negative impact on playwrights: “As government legislators tighten their control over the already scarce funding to the arts, so too do they indirectly tighten their control over freedom of expression in the arts …” (Blaylock, Feb. 10, 1980, UQFL109, Box 8). His support for an overtly political role for theatre led him to encourage playwrights in the 1980s to focus their attentions on various ‘sites’ of disempowerment not yet tackled by Australian playwrights, such as “the position of women in society” and “other oppressed minorities such as aboriginals, the handicapped, and homosexuals” (ibid.). In a newspaper interview early in his term of office, he commented that he thought Brisbane had “the right social and political climate for the development of the arts” and “Queensland’s political situation gives the artist more to react against. Things work here that maybe wouldn’t be as effective in the other states” (Mauer in The Courier Mail, Jan. 23, 1980: 2).

Billinghurst’s concept of La Boite as a community theatre based on the Energy Wheel had great appeal to Blaylock as much of his previous work with Adelaide’s Circle

150 Theatre Company2 had revolved around a commitment to community ((Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003.: ll.8-26; 129-136). Although his preferred concept of community theatre was about ‘outreach’ into community settings, for funding reasons he happily embraced this label to describe La Boite’s strongly theatre-based activities (Allen in Time Off, Dec. 1979 p.32).

Blaylock’s Organizational Leadership • The Australia Council funding crisis During his first year, Blaylock had reason for optimism. The Theatre Board of the Australia Council transferred La Boite from a project grant company to a general grant company, a coup (albeit short-lived) for La Boite making it “the only pro-am Theatre on the list of general grants, which includes professional companies throughout Australia” (President’s AGM Report, March 1, 1981, UQFL109, Box 4). Blaylock interpreted this success as “an unqualified endorsement” of La Boite’s “unique role amongst Queensland companies; firstly as a community theatre and, secondly as a company with a policy of supporting new and innovative works” (AD’s AGM Report, March 1, 1981). Also in 1980, two more properties were purchased – one in Sheriff Street through an extension of the bank overdraft, and the other in Sexton Street bought by a newly created Trust of “Theatre sympathisers” with an arrangement that when La Boite could afford it, it could acquire units in the Trust (op.cit.)3.

Yet, despite the best efforts of Business Manager Gail Podberscek (1979 to 1981) to curb spending, by the end of 1980 the Theatre recorded a deficit of $9,304 (Hon. Treasurer’s AGM Report March 1, 1981). Three factors contributed: below-average occupancy; an increase in the number of productions from eight in 1979 to eleven in

2 Adelaide’s Circle Theatre Company was formed by the playwright Rob George, his wife Maureen Sherlock and Blaylock (Bramwell in Parsons, 1995: 243). Through this Company, whose aim was to do new Australian works and tour them through regions of South Australia, Blaylock formed a professional relationship with Steve Spears and produced several of his plays including the world premiere of Young Mo (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.21-22). 3 The Sexton Street cottage was purchased in 1980 by Harwood Pincock Pty Ltd, a La Boite Property Trust that comprised Bruce and Jennifer Blocksidge, Kaye and John Stevenson and others, all of whom had a share in the original 23 units. Bruce Blocksidge explained that “the reason we went into this situation was that the theatre at time of acquisition didn’t have the money to be able to buy the house. So a group of us got together to form this company … and we have managed and administered it ever since. And still do” (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2002: ll.121-125).

151 1980; and increased part-time and full-time staff (President’s AGM Report, March 1, 1981). Bruce Tye, the Honorary Treasurer, summed up the year as “fairly bleak” with “current indications…that the prospects for 1981 are not a great deal better “(Hon. Treasurer’s AGM Report March 1, 1981).

In 1981, Tye’s prediction for worse times ahead came true with the cutting of all Australia Council funding to La Boite for the following year (AD’s Report, Feb. 28, 1982). The official reason given was that the Australia Council had had its own funding cut by the Federal Government, which Blaylock acknowledged as true but questioned why La Boite funds were cut and not those of the Queensland Theatre Company or TN! Theatre Company. The specific reason given was that La Boite was an amateur company and amateur companies were no longer to be funded. Blaylock rejected this definition claiming “We are a Professional Community Theatre. Last year we employed nine people full-time and fourteen people part-time4. Our professional salary bill for the year was second only to the QTC” (ibid.). He believed the sub-text to the cuts was that “innovative and developmental companies are not considered to be an important part of the theatrical life of this country” and “unfortunately the concept of a Community Theatre in which a large number of professionals work with and for the benefit of the community is not acceptable to the Federal funding bodies”. He predicted that La Boite, because of the nature of the kind of program it ran, would always have to work hard for its funding (ibid.).

Faced with a potential catastrophe, La Boite’s constituency rallied in the first major test of its support and loyalty. Under Blaylock’s leadership, a tremendously powerful public campaign was mounted, resulting not only in funding restored for La Boite but increased Federal Government funding for the Australia Council. As Blaylock commented: The campaign to have La Boite’s funding re-instated was the most successful political exercise that I have ever seen in the theatre. The Chairman of the Australia Council, Timothy Pascoe in a meeting on Friday, 29th January 1982 with Jennifer Blocksidge and myself, stated that the government’s allocation of extra money to the Australia Council was due very largely to the effective campaign run by La Boite Theatre. (ibid.)

4 In 1980, full-time staff included Blaylock (Artistic Director), Gail Podberscek (Business Manager). Leonard Bauska (Production Manager), Beverley Parrish (Publicity), Fiona Pemble (Secretary) and four ECDP professional staff.

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In interview, Blaylock gave some sense of the magnitude of this campaign, and in so doing revealed the quality of his leadership and the depth of support he was able to rally from La Boite’s constituency: We ran an absolutely political campaign that involved everyone - from the Prime Minister to the Cabinet to Members of Parliament to the State to the Australia Council to everybody, and it was the days of telexes, letters … everyone rallied to the cause … We had a whole strategy … They just got inundated … and there were other cuts to the arts, there was a broader campaign happening, people had been cut – and Alan Edwards 5was on the Theatre Board and he was running the Queensland Theatre Company and so, boy, did we get into them! So Alan was lobbied … it became major funded companies against smaller ones - they had cut a number of smaller companies. There were big meetings in Roma Street Forum6, there was a big meeting at which a number of people spoke. I spoke, the Chairman of the Australia Council spoke. We just had meetings with everyone we could and we made a lot of noise and it obviously had an impact. … It was a big campaign and it involved the media … we were relentless. (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.247-285)

Actions taken by Blaylock and a Council sub-committee of Rosamund Vidgen, Narelle Hooper, Dianne Taylor and Len Johnson included telegrams to the Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, Bill Hayden and Senator Robert Macklin plus telexes sent to all House of Representatives and Senate members. Kits with samples letters were sent to all La Boite members and subscribers for distribution, and press releases were sent to all media outlets. A Press Conference at the Theatre with Bill Hayden and Brisbane MHR Ben Humphries sparked interviews with Janine Walker on ABC talkback, Hayden Sargeant on 4BC talkback, Maxine McKew on Nationwide (ABC TV) and stories on ABC and 4ZZZ radio and Channel 0 and 9 TV news (Program/Newsletter for The London Blitz Show, Nov./Dec. 1981, Lumer Private Collection).

Jennifer Blocksidge (President again after Sturgess’ resignation) acknowledged Blaylock’s crucial leadership in this successful campaign, and the commitment of many others: “… there is no doubt that his [Blaylock’s] steely determination to win was the strongest motivating force, but all the staff, many, many members and friends

5 Alan Edwards AM, MBE, founding director of the Queensland Theatre Company from 1969 to 1988, served on the Theatre Board between 1978 and 1982 (Frame in Parsons, 1995: 200). 6 Roma Street Forum in Roma Street, Brisbane, has been a popular rallying place for public demonstrations since the 1970s (Evans & Ferrier [Eds], 2004: 280, 297, 314).

153 worked extensively to achieve the reinstatement and can be justifiably proud of their achievements” (President’s AGM Report, Feb. 28, 1982).

Excellent also - Jennifer Blocksidge called it “remarkable” (op.cit.) – was the skilful financial management by new Administrator Rob Robertson7 that turned the deficit of the previous year into a small surplus by the end of 1981, without staff cuts and with the appointment of a Youth Director and, of course, the funding crisis. Blaylock remembered him in interview as “a great administrator….we were lucky to get him” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.234-235). It was a year that reaped the rewards of Blaylock’s strong leadership of the paid staff. Commented Blocksidge: “My historical memory goes back a long way, and never before have we had such a compatible, productive and supportive unit … I believe in no small way the results of 1981 …are evidence of their unity and professionalism” (President’s Report, Feb. 28, 1982).

However, there was no time for resting on one’s laurels. Blaylock made it clear to Council that the funding crisis was not over, just temporarily resolved: In restoring our [general] funding for 1982 the Theatre Board of the Australia Council has also placed La Boite “on notice”. This means that, with the exception of ECDP we will not receive any money as a general grant company in 1983. In other words we have been bought off. This should not be cause for pessimism. We are already in the process of devising a strategy so that we may restore general grant finding in 1983. The fight for funds will never be over. It has to be renewed each year. I think that the experiences of 1981 have shown that our chances of success in the future are excellent. (ibid.)

A ‘Professional Community Theatre’ Emerges The funding crisis of 1981 emphasised to Blaylock the necessity to develop La Boite as quickly as possible into a professional community theatre: “‘Professional’ in community theatre was important, it was a political add-on for both perceptual reasons and for getting money. And it was to define it as ‘not amateur’” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.127-134). ‘Amateur’ as a term to describe any of the activities of La Boite, whilst not to disappear, had to be pushed as far into the background as possible. Australia Council funding was dependent on the Theatre’s

7 Rob Robertson replaced Podberscek as Business Manager in 1981. With a background in Opera administration, he had returned to Australia after studying in London, determined not to go back to a large organization again but to seek experience in a small organization.

154 ability to convincingly demonstrate that it had as legitimate a claim to funding as other leading community theatres such as the Mill Community Theatre Project in Geelong, the River Murray Performing Group in Albury and Wodonga and West Community Theatre in Melbourne. To this end, Blaylock and the Council set in motion a process of review that culminated in a Special Review Meeting at which major papers were presented by Jennifer Blocksidge, Blaylock, David Bell and Bruce Tye. Chaired by Blair Wilson, he set the agenda with his opening statement: One of the reasons that this theatre enjoys such an eminent position in the community has been its ability to change. This change has occurred, not as a reaction to the initiatives of others but because of innovative moves on the part of the theatre. Is it once again time to take stock and change direction? (Special Review Meeting, May 10, 1981, UQFL109 Box 4) Blocksidge identified the amateur/professional split as the issue that most troubled and confused the membership and, most importantly, the funding bodies. Now challenging the relevance of Billinghurst’s Energy Wheel, she reminded the meeting that it was “his way of trying to enable the professional/amateur mix that the theatre had become, to work and to move” (Blocksidge: The Present Role of La Boite Within the Brisbane Theatre Scene, May 10, 1981, UQFL109, Box 4.5). Expressing her personal opinion that the Wheel was more ideological than practical, she thought it was now in danger of being counterproductive to the Theatre’s present needs: The circle divides at times of stress and I think that division is evidenced by the State Government/Federal Government split in attitude as to why money is given to us – one maintaining our amateur status [Arts Division funding] and the other supporting our professional goals [Theatre Board funding]. (ibid.) She saw the pro/am issue as divisive in the Council as well and recommended that the membership should seriously consider abandoning the Energy Wheel for “some other kind of working structure or format” (ibid.). What that might be, she refrained from suggesting in this document, but thereafter references to the Energy Wheel disappeared.

Blaylock’s paper, The Concept of Community Theatre (UQFL109, Box 4.5) agreed with Blocksidge on the seriousness of the confusion surrounding the amateur/professional split. He described as “uneasy” the distinction between “the amateur base of the Company and the burgeoning professional community activities” which he outlined as: …on the one hand the historical base of Brisbane Repertory Company, the amateur Main House seasons, continues to use the resources of unpaid casts

155 and crews. At the same time, the training programmes, workshops and ECDP team together form an increasingly separate, specialised and professional community structure within the Company’s organization.

It is these separate, and often contradictory, developments within the one Company that contain the potential for confusion of roles and expectations amongst members, participants and staff; a confusion which is exacerbated by conflicting demands and priorities for scarce funds. Before this confusion becomes irrevocable we, as a Company, need to re-define our priorities and the structural relationships within the theatre. (ibid.)

The ‘change’ that all eventually agreed upon that emanated from the 1981 review process, was encapsulated in two motions, the acceptance of which Blaylock described as “the most important decision the Council has taken in the past twelve months” (Artistic Director’s AGM Report). They were: • That Council supports in principle the policy of continuing growth of the professional resource staff of this theatre • That Council supports the development of La Boite as a community theatre, that it accepts the need to employ actors and other theatre professionals – those professional theatre personnel to be used in any of the theatre’s activities. (ibid.) These motions gave Council support to the growth of professional staff, to the development of La Boite as a community theatre and to the employment of professional actors and other theatre professionals. This seemed satisfactory to both factions in the Council and membership: on the one hand it was a strong declaration that La Boite was now a professional community theatre, but on the other hand, Blaylock gave an assurance that amateur input was to remain in place (ibid.): This does not mean there will be less amateur input. It means there will be more. It means that the theatre will be able to provide the professional expertise necessary to run a wide range of activities in which a large section of the community can participate.

This was a clear commitment on Blaylock’s part to both the professionalization of the Theatre and to the continuation of its amateur work. Theatre Australia (March 1982) reported on this move as “La Boite Becoming Professional” (p.6), adding that: … the intention is that a core of actors will eventually form the basis of community theatre, offering experience and expertise to amateurs coming in to participate in productions and perhaps more significantly, initiating projects involving sections of the community outside the confines of the theatre building.

156 (ibid. pp. 6-7) Before he left in mid-1982, Blaylock worked towards the creation of a professional theatre team which would perform in main house productions, children’s theatre, and in the community. The team, appointed soon after his departure (and destined for a short life under the new AD, Andrew Ross) comprised three professional actors - Chris Willems, Christine O’Connor, Michael Cummings - and stage manager Julie Willems.

In his interim report to Council on the second quarter of 1982, President Hamilton noted that “We are now firmly committed to the development of this theatre as a professional theatre under the definition of the Theatre Board” (“Notes on the attached report”, UQFL109 Box 8,). No mention of the continuing amateur role of La Boite however, and it may well be from this point on that a misunderstanding was perpetuated that was passed on to Blaylock’s successor, Andrew Ross. The complex idea of the kind of community theatre La Boite was to become, clearly grasped by all involved in the decision-making in 1981, became a simple idea – Andrew Ross believed his brief as the new artistic director was to turn La Boite into a fully professional theatre company.

Issues with ECDP ECDP was a crucial player in La Boite’s capacity to thrive and develop in the latter half of the 1970s and the early 1980s because it was the grants that this professional company attracted for its youth work that subsidized the artistic director and production manager’s wages and gave other parts of La Boite’s operations entrée to Theatre Board funding8 -and it was this crucial funding that was cut and later restored for 1982. However, rather than showing gratitude and support for ECDP, the relationship between the La Boite Council and its professional arm, which had always been uneasy, did not improve during Blaylock’s time.

8 As noted in the previous chapter, from 1975 La Boite’s Council insisted that ECDP be completely self-supporting. That situation changed in 1977 when the Australia Council questioned the relationship between La Boite and ECDP and asked why it should continue to support the TIE group when the Theatre made no monetary contribution at all. When the Council agreed in 1977 to include ECDP in La Boite’s range of activities and contribute to its cost, the Theatre Board then agreed that a proportion of the ECDP grant would subsidize the artistic director’s wage (Report on Artistic Policy 1979, Lumer Private Collection).

157 By 1979 ECDP was a powerful entity of eleven personnel, seven of whom were seconded teachers and only three actors. With the balance changed from its early years, the emphasis of its work was increasingly more educational, creating the possibility of one team (the ‘discovery’ team) working closely with teachers and children in pre-school centres while the other team (the ‘action’ team) concentrated on in-school shows. By 1980/81, ECDP attracted Australia Council funding of $52,000 with $32,000 specifically for ECDP actors’ wages and $20,000 towards professional staff salaries; and the Queensland Education Department continued to pay the teachers’ salaries (Hon. Treasurer’s AGM Report, Feb. 22, 1982, UQFL109, Box 4.5).

Despite its high level of activity and funding, ECDP attracted little interest from La Boite’s Council or its traditional constituency. Joe Woodward complained in his May 1979 ECDP Co-ordinator’s Report to Council that there was “a greater recognition and acceptance of ECDP work from the State Education Department than from this Council and Theatre members” (UQFL109, Box 6). He commented on the team’s disappointment that “most Councillors have not seen any of our work this year or last year” and that “there is a general feeling among the team that we are constantly having to justify to Council members our very existence rather than feeling positive support” (ibid.).

Exacerbating their woes was Council’s tardiness in appointing a Youth Theatre Director, as recommended by the funding bodies, to provide leadership not only for ECDP but the range of youth-oriented activities at La Boite ” (Fotheringham in Theatre Australia, October 1980, p.14). Another context for this concern was the opinion Michael FitzGerald’s at the Theatre Board that “ECDP’s artistic standards had declined due to a vacuum created by Rick Billinghurst’s departure (Letter to Blocksidge from Fotheringham, Oct. 11, 1980, UQFL109, Box 6). Finally, on Blaylock’s instigation, Council voted that a Youth Theatre Director be appointed (Council Meeting Dec. 16, 1980, UQFL109 Box 6). Robert Kingham took up the position in March 19819 and worked effectively in the coordination and development

9 Initially, both State and Federal funding bodies refused to provide a salary for this position but eventually the Australia Council came to an arrangement with La Boite whereby one of the ECDP

158 of the various youth-oriented activities, including ECDP, FEATs and Middle Stages until tendering his resignation in February 1982 to pursue further study (Council Meeting, Feb. 22, 1982, UQFL109 Box 6).

In retrospect, a greater level of involvement in the management and artistic direction of ECDP by Blaylock and a speedier appointment of a Youth Theatre Director might have contained the level of discontent felt by ECDP members just before and during Blaylock’s tenure and to a greater degree during Andrew Ross’s artistic directorship ending with the demise of ECDP and the withdrawal of its funding. However, Blaylock was quite happy for ECDP to work independently of him, so great were the demands on his time elsewhere, particularly in mainhouse productions of which he directed nine during his three years as AD: “We were doing twelve main stage plays a year and I was directing about half of them and then there was ECDP – although I didn’t do a lot of hands on with ECDP. They were autonomous and I was happy with that” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.307-310).

Blaylock’s Artistic Leadership • His risky 1980 Program of Australian plays As his appointment began in October 1979, Blaylock felt little ownership of Billinghurst’s 1979 programme, yet the production that coincided with his arrival – They Shoot Horses Don’t They? directed by David Bell and designed by Mike Bridges with a cast of forty-five - could not have been a better introduction to the creative possibilities inherent in La Boite’s seemingly small performance space. A sell-out season, it attracted wide media coverage and positive critical reception. Ridgman, in Theatre Australia, described “David Bell’s magnificent production” as “total theatre” and Bridges’ set as transforming “La Boite’s cockpit into a mighty ballroom, complete with varnished dance floor” – overall “a promising start to a challenging season under new artistic director Malcolm Blaylock” (Dec. 1979 p.34).

actor’s salaries would be redirected to the Youth Director, with the Theatre providing the balance (1980 AGM President’s Report, Feb. 26, 1981, UQFL109).

159 In 1980, Blaylock took the Theatre along a risky road by pursuing a year of mainly Australian plays10, thus putting into practice his commitment to development through innovation. He reasoned that whilst risky theatre could kill La Boite in those difficult financial times, he believed equally that if it didn’t take risks it would most certainly die (Artistic Director’s 1980 AGM Report, UQFL109 Box 12). Of the two full years of productions for which he was responsible, his 1980 programme was the one that most strongly expressed his philosophical position about the role of theatre in Australia. There were plays by women - Doreen Clarke’s Roses in Due Season directed by Blaylock, and Dorothy Hewett’s The Man From Mukinupin directed by Graeme Johnston.; plays about powerful social issues - Stephen Measday’s Blow Fly Blow directed by Nicky Bricknell, and David Williamson’s Handful of Friends directed by Jennifer Blocksidge; political and satirical plays - Traitors by Stephen Sewell directed by Blaylock, The Legend of King O’Malley by Michael Boddy and Robert Ellis directed by Blaylock, and David Allen’s Dickinson directed by Blaylock; plays that were innovative in form and with high entertainment value, both by Rob George - Let’s Twist Again directed by Sean Mee, and Errol Flynn’s Great Big Adventure Book for Boys directed by Blaylock.

The strong political and socially critical flavour of some of the plays was an innovation that Blaylock brought to La Boite and can be said to be a major characteristic of La Boite’s artistic work during his time. Dickinson, for example, reminded critic Veronica Kelly of “the deadly bitterness of the struggle against a predatory and bloodthirsty capitalism, culminating in …the Depression” in a production “of a fine standard, with La Boite’s mix of inexperienced and accomplished actors in as near as possible a state of homogeneous achievement” (Theatre Australia, August 1980, p.53).

Blaylock’s own recollection of the Australian season was that not everyone on the Council supported it, concerned that it might be financially risky for La Boite, but it seems no one really stood in his way, despite some reservations - “I remember [President] Owen [Sturgess] probably didn’t think it was a great idea” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.101-107). In fact, the Australian season doubled

10 The two exceptions were Edward Bond’s Bingo, directed by John Milson and Sam Shepard’s Angel City, directed by David Bell.

160 subscribers (Radio Interview with Malcolm Blaylock, “Gallery 792”, ABC radio 2, April 26, 1981 in Cullen, 1982) and took La Boite’s already well established profile as Brisbane’s alternative theatre to new heights. At the conclusion of the season, Blaylock commented: The other Brisbane companies rarely touch this sort of thing and they thought that we were around the twist for giving it a go… The whole season has gone better than we expected and it has encouraged us to continue a policy of concentrating on new works by Australian playwrights. (Sunday Sun, Oct. 18, 1980, p.74, La Boite Takes a New Gamble)

Despite his own estimation of the Australian season as a success, it averaged only 50.5% attendance overall (AD’s 1980 AGM Report), not good enough to risk repeating in 1981. Instead, he programmed a mixture of new Queensland works, Australian plays and plays from the UK and USA (see Appendix 8). The year’s plays once again revealed Blaylock’s intense interest in political and social issues-based theatre. Directed by Jeremy Ridgman, Marxist playwright Trevor Griffiths’ Occupations, whose central characters are the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and the Soviet agent Kabak, was an ambitious choice, not popular at the box-office (only 31.8% attendance), but it typified the kind of challenge Blaylock offered actors and production teams and the depth and seriousness of Blaylock’s artistic program at its best. Batchelor, writing in Theatre Australia (June 1981, p.43), commented: …it is a beautiful production, not least in Andrew Speir’s elegant design, so tastefully lit by Len Bauska. … but the highlight of the evening is an excellent performance by Stephen Preston as Gramsci. … The play, the production, and the performance together achieve a remarkable tribute to the memory of a man which will live in the mind for a long time.

• The Oz Music Theatre Season ‘82 ‘On notice’ from the Theatre Board of the Australia Council in 1982, and having to come to terms with an artistically quite successful but an under 50% box-office result for 1981, Blaylock backed away completely from his 1981 kind of programming and in its place created his final season for La Boite called “The Oz Music Theatre Season ‘82”. However, the ‘risky’ element to this season was that three out of the five plays were Queensland works: Back to the Cremorne written and directed by Graeme Johnston; Hell and Hay written and directed by Richard Fotheringham; and Running

161 Late for Nothing by Tony Longland, David Pyle and Charles Owen. Concerned about the quality of the Queensland plays, he nevertheless committed to them: I agreed on principle that we should do them but I could never find any I thought would work, were good enough. … New and interesting and edgy stuff, I couldn’t find them …or not ones that I was happy with or interested me, or were about anything. (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.367-371 ) That he was able to compromise his own principles and make good judgments about what the paying public wanted to see, turned out to be a strength of his artistic directorship, even if it went against the grain, as it did with Back to the Cremorne : I thought ‘Yes, that’s going to work’, and there was a good reason to do it. In the end that is not one I will remember as a great play – I mean, it wasn’t! It was a variety night of variable quality but … it was the right thing at the right time. (ibid.: ll.395-398)

As it transpired, Back to the Cremorne, a nostalgic retrospective of the Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane’s home of vaudeville from 1911 to 1954, did very well at the box office and, according to President Hamilton “gave La Boite a new audience, particularly among Brisbane’s elderly population… it clearly touched a nerve” (President’s report on first quarter for 1982, UQFL109 Box 8,). Not included in Blaylock’s 1982 mainhouse program, but such a hit that it had a return season later in the year, was The Queensland Game, devised by the director Sean Mee and the cast11. Ridgman commented: “If Malcolm Blaylock, La Boite’s Artistic Director, is committed to steering the company in the direction of community theatre, then The Queensland Game might well be a taste of future delights”(in Theatre Australia, March 1982: 30).

Negative Responses to Blaylock’s Artistic Program • Police presence at political plays The kind of Australian plays that Blaylock favoured – ones with strong political messages – attracted the attention of the Queensland Police Force Special Branch, which at the time, did the bidding of the conservative National Party State Government. According to Blaylock: Every opening night, particularly with the major political plays - Dickinson, Traitors - but generally most plays unless there was a fluffy one they didn’t

11 The original cast of The Queensland Game, which opened on December 31, 1981 comprised Chris Burns, Kym Lynch, Maggie Nevins, Tony Phelan and David Pyle. Band members were Sean Mee, David Pyle and Chris Willems.

162 care about too much … the police would turn up in Sexton Street in a marked police car usually on preview night so they wouldn’t have to pay. They would turn up in a marked police car, get out and it would be: ‘Malcolm…’ They would sit in the front row, two or three of them, and watch it and leave. And nothing ever happened but they were there and I had to know they were there and there would be a file on me. Nothing was ever said but that’s what would happen. (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.159-167; ll.174-182) Happily for La Boite, Special Branch surveillance never translated into punitive funding cuts, as was the case with the far more left-wing Popular Theatre Troupe which was refused Division of Cultural Activities funding, probably on a directive from Cabinet, and despite regular grants from the Australia Council (Capelin, Ed., 1995: 53).

• Outraged public response to Traitors and Roses in Due Season Of more direct concern to Blaylock was a negative audience and media response to his production of Sewell’s Traitors, particularly by the The Courier Mail theatre critic David Rowbotham. Like Billinghurst before him, Blaylock often suffered at the hands of Rowbotham for his choice of plays, but in this case Rowbotham was joined by audience members who walked out on opening night in response to an explicit torture scene. In retrospect, Blaylock considered his production of Stephen Sewell’s Traitors to be his finest direction for La Boite: Great play. And just everything worked. And it was done with no set at all. And so it was La Boite at its pared down best … a lot of tension, great dialogue, the pace went well, its politics I agreed with and I thought it was a good statement to make. All the things that were important to me at the time just came together. (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.199-204) Rowbotham however wrote that Traitors was “only for students of the art of calamity in theatre” (The Courier Mail, August 25, 1980, p.2). Belonging to Australia’s new ‘internationalist’ movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s12, it is set in Russia during the Stalinist purges of the late 1920s and “shows with great force the contradictions created for the characters by the conflict between personal and political lives and how these affect one another” (McCallum in Parsons, 1995: 613). A scene of torture juxtaposed with a scene of lovemaking was the source of outrage by the

12 Sewell, Louis Nowra and Ron Elisha are all identified with this movement, characterised by a shift in settings to places outside Australia and a consequent departure from “parochial subjects and local vernacular” (Fitzpatrick in Holloway , 1987: 173).

163 critics and a number of opening night audience members. Produced throughout Australia, in London and New York (ibid.) it was only in Brisbane that controversy surrounded this play. Brisbane critic David Wheatley condemned the play, and commented that “One man spat on the stage as he left. His was the only action during that act worthy of applause” (Wheatley in The Express, September 3, 1980). Ridgman, however, had nothing but praise for the production, describing it as “a mature, brave and forthright work, perspicaciously selected for an all Australian season…and handled with total commitment to the raw truth of its confrontations, polemics and unfolding passions” (in Theatre Australia, Oct. 1980, p.35-36).

Doreen Clarke’s Roses in Due Season also directed by Blaylock, was the subject of yet another strongly worded and dismissive review by Rowbotham who took extreme exception to the language in this play whose theme is alcoholism: “More than an hour of shouting, banality and “smut” has to be endured before interval occurs…there is not an ounce of drama in it” (Rowbotham in The Courier Mail, March 3, 1980). Blaylock responded in a Letter to the Editor in a typically calm and reasoned way, pointing out the seriousness of alcoholism as a social problem in Australia and the appropriateness of the language: “To express such a conflict in middleclass, drawing- room language would be to trivialise and ignore the real and pervasive psychological trauma to which the alcoholic and his/her family is subjected” (The Courier Mail, March 10, 1980).

Blaylock’s Legacy Although he would have liked an extra year to consolidate his work at La Boite – his wife’s offer of a position in Adelaide prompted his resignation as from May 1, 1982 - he commented that “You leave when things are going well and I’d done a lot of the things I had wanted to do. By the end there was a relative stability about it, we had good staff” (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.318-322). A great strength of his tenure was his recognition that the position of artistic director could not be carried out in isolation from deep involvement in the management of the Theatre: I’ve always been the CEO position. Artistic director for me never meant just doing the program and directing the plays, but running the company, and I did that … when you’ve got that working, understand how the structures work, people gravitate to that, it doesn’t split things, factions don’t develop nearly as much. (Blaylock Interview, Sept. 28, 2003: ll.416-429)

164 A second strength was his good relationship with Jennifer Blocksidge and an appreciation of her place in the history of the Theatre. Remembering her as being “hugely influential and really important” with “this enormous presence and power and authority”, he found her a wise and supportive mentor (ibid.: ll.466-474). Indeed, part of his success could well be attributed to his respect for the history of La Boite, epitomised in his regard for Blocksidge, and his capacity to be an appropriate change agent when change was demanded in the uncertain, volatile funding atmosphere La Boite found itself in, in the early 1980s. As he recalled “…the presence of history was quite strong in the place” but “La Boite was clearly going into a different era and they were looking for a different way and this was very strongly pushed by Jennifer” (ibid.: ll.89-93).

PART TWO

The Andrew Ross Era 1982 to 1983 Introduction After Blaylock’s departure, La Boite entered the rockiest period of its history to date. Strong indications of impending difficulties had been present since 1981 when the Australia Council had cut La Boite’s funding, declaring it a result not only of its own funding problems but also of its new policy to no longer fund amateur companies. In that • particular case, Blaylock’s successful public campaign had seen funding restored for 1982, Andrew Ross, circa 1982 (La Boite Archives) but with no guarantees for the future.

Appointed to the position of Artistic Director in June 1982, Andrew Ross stepped into a funding minefield which, in the eighteen months he was there, he and the Council were not able to control, and which developed into a situation that brought the Theatre to the brink of financial disaster. Shortly after his arrival, other tensions grew and festered. It soon became apparent that the new artistic director’s determined and accelerated drive towards a professional theatre company was causing confusion,

165 alienation, and relationship breakdowns between staff, the Council and membership; and that Ross and ECDP were on a collision course. Yet the Theatre doors did not close; production activity, whilst cut back, did not cease. What ceased, after Ross’s departure, was the rush towards professionalism. What happened was a return to a pro-am theatre and the kind of controlled development that Jennifer Blocksidge had always espoused. This state of affairs then stayed in place until 1992 when La Boite felt compelled to make another foray into the professional arena.

Ross arrived at La Boite with a reputation as a “highly successful young director from Western Australia” (Hamilton’s report of second quarter 1982, UQFL109). Indigenous theatre was a strong focus of his work in Perth, and, from an early association with playwright Jack Davis, he had built productive associations with indigenous playwrights, actors, directors and designers13 (Dunstone in Parsons, 1995: 509). To stay on in Perth however, was not an option: “There wasn’t much prospect of work in Perth. It’s not the kind of place you can just stay there and be a freelance director and I guess La Boite was the first thing to come up” (Ross Interview, 30 April 2004: ll.34-36).

The Professional Agenda Agreeing in interview that he had accepted the position on the understanding that he was to professionalize La Boite – “I made it clear at the very beginning that I would only be of use to the company if it was moving into the professional arena” (ibid.: ll.233-234) - he found in fact plenty that was, at least outwardly, already ‘professional’: a professional youth theatre team had been appointed; ECDP was regarded as unique in Australia; Jenny Thompson, former Administrator with the highly innovative Lumiere & Son Theatre Group, had just replaced Rob Robertson; and recent NIDA Directing graduate, Mark Radvan was appointed Associate Director soon after Ross’s appointment.

If Ross came with a clear idea from Council President Hamilton that he was to professionalize La Boite, it is debatable whether or not this clear idea was shared by

13 Ross directed first productions of Jack Davis’s Kullark (1979), The Dreamers (1982), No Sugar (1982), Barungin (1988) and The First-Born trilogy (1988); Jimmy Chi’s Bran Nue Dae (1990) and Sally Morgan’s Sistergirl (1992) (ibid.).

166 the entire Council. Mark Radvan recalled that briefing meetings he and Ross had with Hamilton were very much within the context of “moving La Boite towards professionalization”, a vision he came to later understand was not shared by the majority of Council members or the membership (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.26-33). Neither Ross nor Radvan understood at the time that they “were entering a very politically fractured landscape with enormous stresses and strains developing within it (ibid.: ll.34-35). Ross discovered that “at best …there was a very reluctant acceptance that the pro-am days of La Boite would eventually come to an end” (Ross Interview, April 30, 2004: ll.57-59).

The reality was, as Ross, a former Theatre Board member well knew, that La Boite’s funding was on the line; competition throughout Australia was stiff for the second string professional companies, and the onus was on the Theatre company to prove it fitted the profile for this kind of Australia Council support. He said of his commitment to push La Boite in a stronger professional direction: I felt that if the theatre wanted to make a real bid for funding then it had to be unequivocal about its commitment to becoming a second string professional company rather than a pro-am company – which didn’t preclude doing some pro-am productions. But I felt that while the company continued to present itself as equivocal, ambivalent, less than fully committed to that path, they really weren’t going to get the funds. (ibid.: ll.64-69) In seeking clear guidelines from his Council before facing a Theatre Board meeting in September 1982, Ross could not have made the funding situation plainer: A recent meeting with the Minister and Kevin Siddell [of the Queensland Cultural Division] confirmed that La Boite will receive only a minimal increase from the Queensland Government in 1983.

It also confirmed that the Queensland Government will not fund La Boite to go professional. The Australia Council will not fund us if we remain amateur. (Letter from Ross to La Boite Council members, UQFL109 Box, 8.15) His proposal for Council consideration was that La Boite strategically align itself with the Theatre Board’s current priority area of Youth Theatre, and that it seek funding as a professional theatre for young people company. Such a re-orientation of its activities would mean, however, that “it will not be possible or desirable to run this concurrently with our current amateur seasons”. The TYP suggestion was in fact one of three alternatives he placed on the table: 1. Amalgamation with TN!

167 2. A professional company presenting predominantly theatre for young people (with Australia Council funding) 3. Continuing as an amateur theatre (without Australia Council funding). (ibid.)

Quickly dismissing the first option as not really feasible, as an agreement with TN! (an unlikely prospect anyway) would take time that La Boite didn’t have, he also made alternative three sound like a fairly unattractive option: “This would mean forgoing any aspirations to professionalism and retrenching some staff. It would not be possible to attract quality staff to an amateur theatre.” Alternative two was clearly the one for which he wanted unanimous support. He elaborated that: The company’s future would depend on a very successful pilot year in 1983. This would be our first priority. The professional company could also do some evening performances for adults. It may be possible to stage a few amateur productions as well. (ibid.)

Several months before, Michael FitzGerald, Director of the Theatre Board, had written to Ross about the importance of Queensland Cultural Division support if La Boite was to become a professional company: Regarding your plans for 1983, I must say that an important factor will be the attitude and funding level of the Queensland Cultural Division concerning a third professional drama company in Brisbane14. While this is not necessarily a determining factor from the Theatre Board’s point of view, it will have some bearing. Furthermore, I cannot see your existence as a professional company without the Division’s significant financial support. (Michael FitzGerald’s letter to Andrew Ross, 9 July 1982, UQFL109 Box 8 File 15)

Indeed, FitzGerald was correct in directing Ross’s attention to the Queensland State Government’s Cultural Division. Much more than the Theatre Board, this was the body, under the directorship of Kevin Siddell, that Ross needed to woo because historically and to this day, State Government funding for La Boite (and other professional Queensland companies) has always exceeded Australia Council funding. However, support from the Queensland State Government for a ‘professional’ La Boite was unlikely given its funding obligations to TN!, La Boite’s growing reputation as a left-wing, pro-Labor organization, and its lack of any strong political connections with Government similar to the Jennifer Blocksidge/ Sir Gordon Chalk

14 TN! was operating professionally in 1982 and was considered the second professional company after QTC.

168 relationship that had been so crucial to La Boite’s early development. As Mark Radvan observed: There was a kind of mates thing happening between Treasury and TN! .... Anyway the whole La Boite artistic policy for a decade had been very, what in those days was called, very left-wing progressive, critical, subversive and so on. I don’t think the State Government were necessarily anti La Boite but they weren’t going to bend over backwards to support it either. (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.240-251)

Whilst both TN! and La Boite were laying claim to the title of THE second string company in Brisbane, Ross felt that La Boite had “a much more legitimate claim on that role simply because of the history and the fact that despite its pro-am status it had a fairly cohesive policy and tradition and it had done the repertoire that you would associate with that sort of company” (Ross Interview, April 30, 2004: ll.76-79).

Although it seemed unlikely that the Cultural Division would change its mind, Ross pressed for the Council’s full support for his idea of a professional theatre for young people company, as, by his reckoning, this was La Boite’s only hope for a funded future. He appeared to get it at a Special Council Meeting held on September 12, 1982 when the following motion was moved by Jennifer Blocksidge and carried, six votes to two: “Australia Council funding permitted, this Council gives priority to the formation of a professional theatre for young people in 1983” (UQFL109 Box 6). At the following meeting “gives priority” was changed to “gives approval”, an action which would seem to suggest that the Council had second thoughts about professional theatre for young people as a ‘priority’ for La Boite.

Another Council action confirmed that all was not well - the night before the important Theatre Board meeting, the Council chose to hold a secret meeting without Ross or other professional staff present. Their disquiet was related to concern that La Boite was losing its community theatre flavour and that its pro-am activity, perceived as the Theatre’s great strengths and the source of its substantial Queensland Government funding, was being neglected and put at risk under Ross. The minutes of this meeting (September 19, 1982) reveal certain qualifications to the motion of September 12 that the Council wanted recorded. In essence, these qualifications were a strong statement from the Council to Ross for La Boite to continue as both an

169 amateur and professional company and that professionalization was not to take precedence over amateur activities: (a) At present La Boite is not a fully professional nor a fully amateur theatre. (b) That maximum use must be made of the physical and staff resources of La Boite. (c) That professional performance, technical and administrative staff are seen as a needed resource and that all staff are employed both to produce professional performance at La Boite and to act as a learning/teaching resource for the amateur participant members and the community at large, in mainhouse productions, workshops and classes. (d) That evening mainhouse seasons will be programmed by the artistic director and the theatre staff, and that these shows will be performances by the participant members and the community; and, where feasible, they may include shows by professionals. (Minutes of Meeting, Sept. 19, 1982, UQFL109 Box 6) Ross was deeply disturbed when he discovered what had happened and furious at the consequent show of disharmony at the Theatre Board meeting. In a letter to Council President Hamilton, dated September 23, 1982, he wrote: Whatever the reason Council members had for calling the meeting, for making it secret, for excluding the staff and making those decisions, it should surely have been apparent that I would take it as a clear vote of no confidence and respond accordingly by offering my resignation. I didn’t because of the dire consequences for La Boite’s future relationship with the Theatre Board. You can be sure that La Boite’s already shaky standing would have been irrevocably worsened. …

It is now obvious to all, including the Theatre Board, that the Council is uncertain, divided and equivocal in its support of key staff. By making this so evident at Monday’s open meeting, Council members seriously impaired our chances of achieving the grants we applied for. I arrived here inheriting an unsatisfactory situation that the Council must accept responsibility for, acted to remedy that situation then almost at the point of success had the rug pulled from under my feet. (Letter from Andrew Ross to Mac Hamilton, 23 Sept. 1982, UQFL109, Box 8 File 15)

He concluded with an insistence that the Council clarify its position and give him full support for a professional company and his planned season of professional productions. This formally happened at a Special General Meeting on November 14, 1982 (UQFL109 Box 6) when two motions were carried which gave Ross his way yet placated the anxiety related to pro-am activity. Motion one was “That the [professional] programme for 1983 be adopted” and motion two was “There should be

170 no substantial reduction in pro-am activity in the theatre without the approval of a general meeting of members” (ibid.).

Despite these internal troubles, Michael FitzGerald notified Ross on November 22, 1982 that the Theatre Board had agreed to fund La Boite as a professional theatre for young people in Brisbane, giving the company a “conditionally approved General Grant for 1983 …of up to $80,000 for youth activities” (Council Meeting Minutes 29 Nov. 1982, UQFL109 Box 6). It emphasised however, that La Boite was now “under review” and could not assume funding for 1984.

Ross had won a victory for 1983 at least. The $80,000 was confirmed, making La Boite second only to QTC in amount of subsidy for that year. He and his associate director Mark Radvan lost no time in appointing a team of professional actors and announcing their 1983 season. The Courier Mail theatre writer, Peter Dean, headlined the news with “La Boite goes professional” adding “For the first time, La Boite will present its own fully professional productions. And since the news has circulated in the theatrical world, said artistic director Andrew Ross, many inquiries have come in from actors” (Dec. 3, 1982). In this article, Ross confirmed that while the $80,000 from the Theatre Board would provide professional theatre for young people, “box office would fund our professional evening performances” (ibid.).

But, along the way, another issue had been brewing, and came to a head at the end of 1982 with the demise of ECDP, established as the professional wing of La Boite since 1976.

The Demise of ECDP From the beginning of their time at La Boite, it would seem that neither Ross nor Radvan was particularly interested in ECDP. Radvan had originally been asked by Blaylock to apply for a position that was “to do with ECDP and young people” (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.12-13). He declined to apply because “I didn’t feel that was where I wanted to go and I didn’t feel confident about creating pieces for really young children” (ibid.: ll.13-14). The position of Associate Director that Ross offered him, was much more to his liking as it involved “working with adult performers” (ibid.: ll.18).

171

Radvan’s recollections paint a picture of two sets of vying interests. On the one hand, Ross had a vision of an ensemble of professional actors who would deliver theatre for young people at La Boite with an emphasis on polished artistic outcomes. On the other hand, ECDP, a team of mostly seconded teachers and only several actors, had educational priorities that, married with artistic goals, made them a marketable product to pre-schools but of little interest to Ross who had quickly developed a negative attitude towards the seconded teachers in particular. As Radvan explained, the strong artistic drive that had been present in the work when people like Sean Mee were key members of the team, was now absent. According to Radvan, the ECDP culture had changed with the influx of teachers and was incompatible with the kind of professional theatre culture that Ross was endeavouring to develop : ... they brought in with them an industrial culture, a pre-school culture of start work at 9am and finish around 3pm compared to the 9am to 5pm culture of the professionals in the theatre world or even the 10am to 6pm. … and then you had this professional company being set up. I mean there were so many different styles of work patterns and funding patterns that it would have taken a very adroit and diplomatic personality to try to hold it together. And I don’t think it is any secret to say that Andrew’s abilities in that area are not as strong as some of his other abilities. (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.93-104). Issues related to working hours, pay and artistic standards were not easily solved and “rankled” Ross (ibid.: ll.155). Up until this point, ECDP had enjoyed the mutually beneficial prestige of ‘belonging’ to La Boite as its State Government/Theatre Board funded professional arm but at the same time enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy in the way it operated because of La Boite’s ‘arm’s length’ policy and the trust it had invested historically in the team leader and members. Radvan recalls that Ross had wanted to centralise everything, ECDP included, “in order to extract the maximum value from the resources” (ibid.: ll.145-146). ECDP was not keen to lose its independence and certainly not to Ross whose “management style became evident”, causing them anxiety and tension (ibid.: ll.149-150).

In interview, Ross’s recollections agree with Radvan’s, and are even more revealing of the growing tensions in the relationship and the growing sense of alienation from La Boite that Ross seemed to be imposing on ECDP: I was uncomfortable that La Boite was sort of an umbrella for ECDP yet had no artistic control whatsoever … I found ECDP extremely frustrating and had

172 very little to do with them. Because any attempt to have dialogue on their shows, you would simply be told that you weren’t an expert in early childhood and your comments weren’t worth listening to …

One of the issues was that, if we were going to have a theatre in education team, I wanted to be able to employ professional actors under an actor’s award rather than have a whole lot of seconded teachers. And that was sort of at odds with the way ECDP ran and wanted to run … I didn’t have a problem with them being there except I didn’t see them as being the foundation for building a professional youth company. (Ross Interview, April 30, 2004: ll.118-122; ll.277-285)

Ross’s lack of interest in ECDP was also fuelled by his certainty that the Theatre Board was losing interest in educationally-based theatre work and would very soon withdraw funding for such groups. Added to this was Ross’s inside knowledge as a Theatre Board member that, even before he took up his position at La Boite, there were “concerns … about the standards of the work” (ibid.: ll.289).

During 1982, the ECDP team became increasingly aware that Ross’s plans for La Boite’s future did not seem to include them. So troubled were they that, in October 1982, ECDP presented to President Hamilton a comprehensive document signed by all members of the team15 outlining their concerns. The opening statement laid the blame for the breakdown in communication firmly at the feet of Ross: It has become increasingly apparent over the past few months that the attitude of the Artistic Director is not supportive to the continuation of ECDP. Recent comments and actions have indicated an undermining of the contribution of the Project and the Artistic Director’s perception of ECDP as an extremely low priority area of development in the total context of La Boite’s Youth Theatre expansion policy. The extent of this low priority is perceived by the team, based on private conversations with the Artistic Director, as ultimate exclusion of ECDP from the Theatre. (ECDP document to Mac Hamilton, Oct. 15, 1982, UQFL109, Box 6) Their threat in this document to “reconsider our position in consultation with the Education Department” if “this totally unethical attitude was to persist” (ibid.) was, in fact, carried out. Despite several meetings between the Department of Education’s John Tainton, La Boite’s Council and Ross, in December 1982 Tainton advised La Boite that ECDP was to be taken away from the Theatre16 (Council Meeting Minutes,

15 The ECDP document was signed by : Narelle Arcidiacono, Marjorie Forde, Lil Kelman, Chris Burns, Margaret Goss, Linda Sproul and Helen Strube. 16 With the support of the Queensland Education Department, a new early childhood education company called KITE was formed and continues to provide touring and in-theatre drama experiences for this age group.

173 Dec. 16, 1982, UQFL109, Box 6). The news was greeted by Ross as having an insignificant impact on the 1983 programme, but the Council foreshadowed a damaging future relationship between La Boite and the Queensland Government (ibid.), a prediction that proved true.

Sean Mee, an ECDP member between 1976 and the early 1980s, reflected in interview on the serious and immediate funding crisis that ECDP’s withdrawal from La Boite precipitated – tied exclusively to ECDP, Theatre Board funding disappeared with ECDP’s demise: The ramifications of that were severe because the artistic director’s salary and part of the general manager’s salary were in fact to support the activities of the ECDP. That [funding] was from Federal Government because that was seen to be the professional wing of the company and … it wouldn’t support any amateur activities. Therefore, when the Queensland Education Department took the opportunity to take back the ECDP and turn it into KITE, which suited their purposes as they didn’t have this aggravation of a theatre company any more, it also took away the reason why the Federal Government funding was there so that’s why there was this huge crisis. (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003.: ll.101-114)

Ross’s 1983 Season The ECDP crisis did not deter Ross from pursuing his professional agenda which enabled him to claim three important artistic ‘firsts’ for La Boite: its first season of three professional plays, its first production of a commissioned work by a Queensland playwright, and its first season of three professional TYP productions. As well, the year’s program also included six pro-am mainhouse plays 17 (one of which was the commissioned work), a pro-am TYP production, and regular Friday night La Bambas, La Boite’s licensed late night event, which had begun in 1982.

• First professional mainhouse productions La Boite’s first fully professional production was Alma De Groen’s Vocations directed by Andrew Ross, designed by David Bell, with actors Eugene Gilfedder, Ingrid Mason, Richard Moir and Kaye Stevenson. The second and third professional

17 Pro-am productions for 1983 included Circus Lumiere created by Hilary Westlake and Trevor Smith (now Stuart) from Lumiere and Son; Noel Greig and Drew Griffiths’ As Time Goes By directed by Doug Anderson; Barrie Keeffe’s Gimme Shelter directed by Mark Radvan, Errol O’Neill’s Faces in the Street directed by Andrew Ross; Michael Doneman’s Slow Death in the Sunshine State directed by Mark Radvan; and Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy directed by Mark Radvan.

174 mainhouse productions were Jack Hibberd’s A Stretch of the Imagination directed by Andrew Ross and featuring Errol O’Neill, and Female Parts by Franca Rama and Dario Fo, directed by Alison Richards with Genevieve Mooy and Kaye Stevenson. Both Vocations and Female Parts were artistic and financial successes (President’s AGM Report, March 6, 1983) but A Stretch of the Imagination, while receiving critical acclaim, did only mediocre business at the box office (La Boite in 1983, no author, UQFL109, Box 6).

• First commissioned work in 1983 season Ross has the distinction of being the first La Boite artistic director to formally commission a new Queensland work - Errol O’Neill’s Faces in the Street - with financial assistance from Brisbane’s Warana Festival. It was not until La Boite was well established as a fully professional company that it ventured once again into commissioning new Queensland plays, now the hallmark of the Company. Described by Ruth Bell in Time Off as “political theatre at its best” (Sept. 30, 1983, O’Neill Private Collection) and by Bruce Dickson in The National Times as “a triumph for O’Neill” (Sept. 30, 1983, p.35), Faces in the Street, directed by Ross dramatized the 1912 Brisbane General Strike. With an amateur cast of twenty-five, including Matt Foley - “outstanding as strike leader” (Time Off, ibid.) – the production was supported by “a large professional back up team” (La Boite in 1983, no author, UQFL109, Box 6). David Hinchliffe commented that “What Warren Beatty did for the Russian Revolution in Reds, local playwright Errol O’Neill has done to the Brisbane proletariat’s struggle of the same period” (Queensland Teachers Union Journal, Oct. 5, 1983, O’Neill Private Collection).

Verity Masters in her review for The Australian noted how effectively the La Boite performance space had been used to recreate the strike and its aftermath, “heightened by the use of a traverse-style stage area, and the very small sets dotted imaginatively round the auditorium” (Sept. 23, 1983). O’Neill himself recalled that this versatility of the space was “one of the things about La Boite that gave it that magic. You could use the audience sitting there with stuff happening beside them, underneath them, behind them. When you used that to advantage it really created something very interesting” (O’Neill Interview, Dec. 12, 2003: ll.98-104).

175 • Professional and pro-am theatre for young people The professional theatre for young people productions were all directed by Mark Radvan and included Richard Tulloch’s Year Nine Are Animals, Volker Ludwig’s Max & Milli and Michael Doneman’s Jenni 4 Spike. Aimed at a youth audience was a pro-am production of Volker Ludwig & Detlef Michel’s Plastik!, directed by Mark Radvan and translated by Mark Gaal by means of a grant from the Goethe Institut. Radvan found himself rehearsing Max & Milli, a complex production with a cast of thirteen and a band of eight musicians, during the day with the professional team, then returning to the theatre at night to work on Plastik! with the result that the professional show suffered and he was less than satisfied with various elements of the pro-am show (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.223-233; Council Minutes 27 September, 1983). His report on this production epitomised the kinds of stresses and tensions Radvan had experienced all year as he divided his time as Associate Director between working with professionals and amateurs. Issues on Plastik included production schedules not adhered to, breakdown in communication between production team and staff, an unreliable musical director, and a band that didn’t understand basic theatre conventions regarding rehearsals and sound checks (ibid.). This production in particular showed up the shortcomings of La Boite’s attempt to keep alive the pro-am activity yet strive for increasing numbers of fully professional productions. Nevertheless, it did well at the box office “attracting a high number of people who had never been to the theatre before” (Council Minutes Dec. 1, 1983, Statement by Ross).

The Professional Agenda Fails - Financial Crisis With only a few shows that had poor box office returns, Ross summed up 1983 as “…a successful year and should be sold to the funding bodies as such” (ibid.). In response, Bruce Tye (Hon. Treasurer) stated that the reality of the financial situation was in fact a deficit and a serious liquidity problem looming for 1984 (ibid.). By the October 25 Council meeting, the financial situation had become clear – there had been a serious shortfall in income and excessive expenditure (Council Meeting Minutes, Oct. 25, 1983). Discussions with State Government personnel about funding for 1984 proved negative. Council Meeting minutes reported that a disenchanted Education Department, still smarting from its rocky relationship with Ross and the ECDP, might be behind the further hardening of the State Government against La Boite, and might

176 even be responsible for the recent cancellation of five schools – 1000 seats – for Jenni 4 Spike (ibid.). With no prospect of reciprocal State Government funding, any hope of Theatre Board funding for 1984 was now, in reality, completely dashed.

Acknowledging the seriousness of the financial crisis, Council carried the following motion to place all staff on notice immediately (ibid.): …given the present financial state of the Theatre, and pending negotiations with State and Federal agencies, the Council of the Theatre place all staff on notice in accordance with their terms of agreement as of 25 October 1983 on the understanding that it will not have the money to maintain present staffing with the proviso however that termination is not to apply to any staff member before 18 November 1983 and without prejudice regarding any extensions of employment.

A Special General Meeting, attended by thirty-four members was subsequently held on October 30, 1983 to outline to members the funding problems currently facing La Boite (Special Meeting Minutes, Oct. 30, 1983, UQFL109 Box 4.7). The discussion that ensued highlighted the lack of clarity that everyone still had – members, Council, and probably funding bodies – about what direction La Boite should be taking, amateur or professional. Len Bauska commented that one of the major problems was “the double position the theatre seemed to maintain. It gave the appearance of two theatres in the one” (ibid.). To resolve the issue, President Charles Grahame asked the members present to indicate an answer to two questions. The first was “Do members support the ultimate aim for La Boite to be a professional theatre only?” and the majority response was NO. The second was “Do members wish Council to pursue seeking funds for a professional children’s theatre?” and the majority response was YES (ibid.). This must have been an exasperating moment for Ross who, earlier in the meeting had told the membership that the Theatre Board did not want to support amateur theatre and the State Cultural Affairs Directorate considered La Boite amateur and therefore would not match Theatre Board funding dollar for dollar. He considered that “up to a point the theatre had itself to blame for the present situation as it had not taken appropriate steps in the past” (ibid.).

At Ross’s final Council meeting before his resignation (Dec. 1,1983), Councillor Hamilton commented that: ... in his [Hamilton’s] mind the Theatre was in a position of crisis far worse than anything faced in the past. The staff have been jettisoned out and the

177 theatre now faced the position in the coming year where there is at this stage, no staff, and the prospect of substantial deficit. (ibid.) While stating “that it would be churlish of the Theatre not to express thanks for the artistic direction given in this year” he also added that, while he agreed with Ross about the long term interests of the theatre, he felt “without placing any blame on Andrew… things had probably moved too fast” (ibid.).

Ross took a strong stand at this meeting, his last opportunity to advise the Council on La Boite’s future. He reminded the meeting that currently QTC was very conservative in its repertoire and TN! was enjoying the status of alternative theatre company to QTC, even though the only new work it had done in 1983 was a revue. As La Boite was doing more new work and more Australian plays than either QTC or TN!, it had the legitimate claim to being Brisbane’s alternative theatre company and should now cultivate this image with its audience. It must argue to the Theatre Board, he said, that La Boite is Brisbane’s alternative theatre company and that it has pursued the path of professionalism in 1983 and would continue to do so. “No-one” he said “was questioning that the large pro-am productions would continue. However, La Boite’s role as an alternative theatre must be professionalised” (ibid.). He also stated that “he felt he could not leave without expressing his concern at the undercurrent of criticism”. What he was referring to was the criticism he and other professional staff had suffered from Council and members about “how they had run the theatre into the ground” (ibid.).

In interview, Radvan recalled just how visionary (and impatient) Ross had been, about the issues that were to dog La Boite for the next twenty years, the professional agenda and the venue itself: He believed that the long-term survival of the theatre company could only be secured if it grasped the professionalism direction. And the other was that the theatre itself was too small with 200 seats. In the long-term it was not a financially viable size. He was trying to imagine, could you expand the theatre as it was, could you enlarge it, could you take a wall down etc. He pretty much grasped the issues that La Boite would continue to wrestle with really for the next nearly twenty years before it was able to achieve the full transition. Certainly in retrospect it wouldn’t have been realistic to think that it could be achieved within a two or three year artistic directorship term. (Radvan Interview, Dec. 22, 2004: ll.58-69)

178 In the end, he and Radvan had no alternative but to walk away: “It wasn’t because we were burnt out or anything, it was really because the political situation had no solution. I mean, the theatre wasn’t going to be professional because the State was just adamant” (Ross Interview, 30 April 2004: ll.182-184). Ross resigned, Radvan worked out his contract until December, and the professional youth theatre team was dismantled.

Helen Routh, a Council member at the time and later Council President summed up in interview her criticism of Ross’s vision for La Boite. In pursuing a vision that she perceived was unwilling to embrace much valued elements of the Theatre’s historical and present life – “…he didn’t really understand or appreciate the pro-am nature of the theatre or the passion and history of volunteers within the theatre” - Ross seemed destined to be on a collision course with many of those who considered themselves to be ‘La Boite’. She was also critical of the money Ross had spent on productions., commenting that “the tensions between Council and Andrew were all around the financial management and we simply couldn’t afford creative purism - to have shows that were so expensive that we would never, in a theatre that size with that type of audience, ever get the money to make money” (Routh Interview, Sept. 26, 2003: ll.37- 46).

Ross’s own reflections on what happened during his time point to one of the characteristics that seem to have been ever present since its inception in 1925 – “to move on, reinvent itself” (Ross Interview, April 30, 2004: ll.369). Although La Boite narrowly escaped extinction in 1984, in hindsight Ross endeavoured to do something that happened later anyway: “… what really happened after I left as far as I can see, a bit of a hiatus occurred – and it might sound a bit self-justifying – but what I tried to do in 1982 and 1983 ended up getting done a few years later. It just stopped for a while and then all started up again” (ibid.: ll.337-340).

The following section examines the aftermath of the Andrew Ross era and explores the reasons for La Boite’s weathering of this particularly difficult time in the Theatre’s history.

179 PART THREE An Era of Crisis Management 1984-1985 More than at any other time in its history, this difficult time of financial failure and membership disillusionment might have spelt ‘the end’ for La Boite and caused the doors to close. Two crisis years followed Andrew Ross’s departure and the withdrawal of state and federal funding. For the first six months of 1984, with no funds to appoint an artistic director, the artistic program was run by a volunteer committee. When a one year appointment was made of two job-sharing Resident Artistic Directors, one left for personal reasons after six months and the other suffered burn-out after a year and did not seek a further contract (nor was he invited to renew it). With limited funds and all eleven staff from 1983 retrenched, it was possible to appoint only two staff members in 1984 to keep the Theatre functioning –a production manager Cliff Kelsall and an administrator Ron Layne. Kelsall resigned in October 1984, frustrated at the declining membership and high pressured situation created by lack of staff. And Layne, who had also taken on the role of Youth Programme Coordinator, resigned in July 1985 citing his lack of belief in La Boite’s direction, exhaustion, concern for his health, and the inability to cope with the job when La Boite was suffering seriously depleted circumstances. By the end of 1985, not only had most staff left, but the financial situation was extremely grim with the Theatre recording a deficit of $32,000 (Minutes of 1986 AGM, April 20, 1986, UQFL109 Box 12.5).

Yet, despite this series of crises, the doors remained open, theatrical activity continued, and, by 1986, funding had been restored (La Boite - Brisbane Repertory Theatre Balance Sheet as at 31 December 1985). Council had also conducted a long overdue financial review, re-conceived its role, created an important but controversial policy document on youth theatre which committed La Boite to advancing professional youth theatre as a key area of growth, reviewed all staff positions, and appointed Jim Vilé as Managing Artistic Director who turned the deficit to a surplus by the end of 1986 (MAD’s Report at 1987 AGM, UQFL109 Box 12).

What transpired was yet another example of La Boite’s capacity to attract ‘people power’ when it was most needed. Even if their contribution was in some cases short-

180 lived, a group of passionate and committed individuals saved La Boite from closing down or of the Council taking the extreme action of selling off valuable real estate assets. Significant for their leadership roles were Council Vice President and 1985 President, Helen Routh and Resident Directors Mike Bridges and Mary Hickson ably supported by Layne and, later, Executive Secretary Rosemary Herbert who was appointed in March 1985. The other ‘players’ in all this were La Boite’s constituency, the theatre building and the other real estate owned by La Boite, valued at $368,000 in 1984 (A Review of the Operation of Brisbane Repertory Theatre, Nov. 12, 1985 p.8, UQFL109 Box 6.13). How much a positive psychological buffer property ownership provided to all those concerned in keeping La Boite viable in those two years, is nowhere documented, but it could be surmised that, from a Council perspective, without the security of its ‘home’, La Boite’s future may have been very different.

The Bridges and Hickson Offer of a Rescue Plan Emerging briefly from their respective professional commitments to offer ‘a plan’ to La Boite’s Council and a commitment of their services as Co-Artistic Directors, were designer Mike Bridges (who had previously had a rewarding experience designing La Boite’s 1979 artistic and box office success They Shoot Horses Don’t They?) and director Mary Hickson, both of whom were working for QTC at the time. Their interest and concern for La Boite’s future was sufficiently aroused for them to put together a document called Papers for Discussion which they presented to the Council on 12 December 1983 by way of offering themselves as Co-Artistic Directors. Their opening statement was an “Expression of Concern”, directed at La Boite’s constituency, which read, in part: We are deeply concerned with the current situation La Boite finds itself in. Its uniqueness and the merits of its past achievements must surely be the foundation for a recognized optimism. The call to members of the community, membership and the profession who have benefited from La Boite must be put into action – so that the funding bodies will acknowledge their need for support. (Papers for Discussion, 12 Dec. 1983, UQFL109 Box 6.13)

In a section in this document called “What is La Boite?”, Bridges and Hickson openly supported an agenda for La Boite’s future that would put the brakes on the Andrew Ross pursuit of a fully professional theatre and would embrace a return to the pro-am agenda and the notion of La Boite as a training ground for professional theatre, of the

181 Billinghurst/Blaylock days. In a politically astute declaration bound to please those members who had felt disenfranchised by Ross’s disregard of the amateur, they quoted Blaylock, reminding La Boite’s constituency through his words that “Most of Brisbane’s, and many nationally well-known professional actors, received their first early training and experience with Brisbane Repertory Company” and that such opportunities came though “La Boite’s amateur theatre activities … an aspect of paramount importance, both to local people and to the Company itself” (Blaylock May 1981 quoted in Papers for Discussion, 12 Dec. 1983, UQFL109 Box 6.13). In essence, their planned rescue strategy would give back to the La Boite community the kind of policy the majority wanted and which they had voted for at the October 30 Special General Meeting i.e. the continuation of amateur involvement and professional youth theatre.

In the discussions leading up to their appointment as ‘Resident’ Directors (as they became known) in July 1984, on a six month contract with an option of a further three year contract, not everyone was enthusiastic about their offer of a joint artistic directorship. The Minutes of Andrew Ross’s final Council Meeting of December 1, 1983 record that he could not personally recommend either of them: Bridges, with a background in design, had little or no experience as a theatre director, and was therefore, in Ross’s view, not qualified for the artistic direction of La Boite. And he doubted Hickson’s commitment to Brisbane theatre, given her recent application for several interstate positions (Council Meeting Minutes, Dec. 1, 1983, UQFL109 Box 6.7). History was to prove Ross right on one count – Hickson lasted only six months in the job, leaving “totally without animosity” for “personal reasons” and after “an assessment of her personal career direction” which she believed did not lie with La Boite (Council Meeting Minutess, Feb, 26, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.7).

Artistic Survival 1984-1985 • The 1984 Season As La Boite had no Artistic Director for the first six months of 1984, the artistic program was created by a Council Sub-committee of Jennifer Blocksidge, Lesley Ricketts and Mac Hamilton and included four major productions, one youth theatre

182 project18 and the return of La Bamba. In a successful bid to attract back its previously disenchanted constituency, three of the mainhouse productions had very large casts and crews. All were by Australian playwrights, and two of them – Daring Romance and Eccentrics – were premiere performances.

Once officially on board in July 1984, Bridges and Hickson stayed true to La Boite’s artistic policy of presenting theatre which is ‘new writing’ or ‘illuminates the new’. The challenging Narrow Road to the Deep North by Edward Bond directed by Jane Atkins and designed by Mike Bridges was followed by another contemporary English play, Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls directed and designed by Mary Hickson. The remainder of the season comprised three Australian plays, including a “world premiere” of “a musical comedy of terrors” - Goodnight World by Gerald Frape and Barry Ferrier directed by Mary Hickson and designed by Mike Bridges (Program, Nov. 1984)19. Whilst the season was successful at the box-office, a lack of professionalism exacerbated by lack of paid staff led to numerous frustrations in the lead up to productions. Of the same production, Helen Routh complained of the unprofessionalism of cast and crew for allowing a final night prank to occur20(ibid.). Despite these signs that the ‘amateur’ part of ‘pro-am’ was in the ascendant, by the end of 1984 the Theatre’s activities had returned a surplus over expenditure of $7,110, a great credit to the Bridges, Hickson, Layne and Kelsall team, given the $14,000 loss just two years before (A Review of the Operation of BRT, Nov. 12, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13). The other good news was that some funding from the Queensland Government’s Directorate of Cultural Activities had been restored making a 1985 season possible, plus $2,520 had been granted for a Playwright in Residence 21 from the Theatre Board of the Australia Council and $7,500 from its Design Arts Board to

18 The season included Daring Romance by Jackie McKimmie directed by Mark Gaal with a cast of nineteen and production team and crew of forty-four; Eccentrics by Donald Hall directed and designed by Graeme Johnston – cast, production team, musicians numbered thirty-six; A Night in the Arms of Raelene by Clem Gorman directed by Alison Richards with about thirty-six involved; and Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year directed by Keith Richards, a Drama producer for the ABC. The only Youth Theatre Project for the year was Scott of the Antarctic by Howard Brenton directed by Peter Rush. 19 The other Australian plays were Griffin Theatre Company’s Love and the Single Teenager by Grant Fraser directed by Colin Schumacher and A Manual of Trench Warfare by Clem Gorman directed by Mike Bridges. 20 The prank involved the appearance of Donald Hall (one of the musicians) as Jesus (Council Meeting Minutes January 20, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.7). 21 Brisbane playwright John Bradley was the recipient of this grant for the development of a new play and the workshopping and production of Logan , a play about Captain Patrick Logan Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, which premiered at La Boite on July 3, 1985.

183 establish a Design Studio at La Boite for the training of design students (Council Meeting Minutes Oct. 2, 1984, UQFL109 Box 6.6; Index to Financial Statements for half year ended 30th June, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6).

• 1985 Season One Bridges’ and Hickson’s Season One (from February to July) was a box-office success earning a net profit of $26,000 (The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Index to Financial Statements for the Half Year Ended 30th June, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6). It began well with Hickson’s production of the Queensland premiere of Summertime Blues by Grant Fraser, described by Leith Young in The Courier Mail as a “sleek, funny show” to “brilliantly” begin La Boite’s 60th anniversary (Feb. 14, 1985 p.32). As it transpired this was her swansong as she had resigned by the end of February. Also critically well received were two more contemporary Australian plays, Peter Kenna’s A Hard God directed by Megan Henderson (Koch in The Courier Mail, May 23, 1985 p.24; Sinclair in The Brisbane Telegraph, June 3, 1985 p.28) and the premiere of Logan by playwright in residence John Bradley, professionally directed by Rick Billinghurst, described by Sinclair in The Brisbane Telegraph as “a theatrical coup” (July 12, 1985 p.60)22. La Bamba boosted interest in La Boite from young people with a highly successful two night season of The Paisley Pirates of Penzance directed by David Pyle and Sean Mee with a cast and crew of forty-five starring Leah Cotterell, Justine Anderson, Pat Leo, Sean Mee, Gerry Connolly and Brian Cavanagh (Program, 8 & 9 Feb.1985).

A feature of these productions in this financially difficult time was the long list of companies - thirty-two in the case of Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Program, March 1985) - and individuals, giving free-of-charge support to productions mentioned in the Season One programs. Helen Routh recalled that it was the only way the productions were able to continue; La Boite was still an exciting place to be and volunteers and members with a vested interest did everything possible to keep it going, a sign of the strong sense of belonging and identification that this Theatre engendered:

22 The only non-Australian play in the season was Ed Graczyk’s Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean directed by Bridges, critically well received for its excellent female cast of Gabrielle Lambrose, Rosamund Vidgen, Dianne Eden and Katrina Devery (Young in The Courier Mail, March 22, 1985 p.16).

184 There were huge things that happened – Ros Vidgen worked for [the dress shop] Camargue and clothes would be donated, people would bring things in from everywhere. It really went back to what was probably very much the nature of it in the 1920s, the 1930s, in Babette’s time and the early days of Jennifer Blocksidge, of people bringing in stuff from home and using whatever contacts they could to keep it going. This was about the underlying passion of people to be able to do something different and be at the forefront and not just – how can I say this? – the boring side of the state theatre company and the boring side of the Arts Theatre, which were the two other real choices out there. There really was that passion for maintaining the excitement and the bit of edge that La Boite always had. (Routh Interview, Sept. 26, 2003: ll.188-197)

• 1985 Season Two: decrease in mainhouse productions Season Two, however, featured only two major pro-am productions23 because, by this stage, La Boite’s funding submission to the Theatre Board had promised a cut-back in amateur theatre and an increase in youth theatre activities which now had to be demonstrated (Summary of Submission to the Theatre Board for the Ongoing Development of Theatre for Young People at La Boite, UQFL109 Box 6). So a range of youth oriented activities was developed to give the kind of legitimacy to La Boite’s stated focus on youth theatre that it knew the Theatre Board and the Department of Cultural Activities would want to see in operation. Three drama workshop groups were formed to cater for 8 to 17 year olds with the specific aim “to produce through the workshop process short pieces of theatre suitable for performance” with qualified tutors (ibid. p.5). Professional youth theatre activity also increased with three in-house productions and the hosting of a Festival of Youth Theatre24.

By now, La Bamba was also officially regarded as part of youth theatre activities and was included in the Theatre Board submission as “an ongoing late night theatre and cabaret programme aimed at encouraging and developing young local performing artists and a young audience”(ibid. p.4). La Bamba returned in November as part of

23 These two productions of Australian plays were Last Night’s Child by playwright in residence John Bradley directed by Megan Henderson and Did You Say Love? by Mary Hutchinson directed by Marcus Hughes. 24 In July, La Boite presented a short season of Chris Willem’s Mime Theatre Son of Romeo for upper secondary school students. In August, it hosted Under Age, a Festival of Youth Theatre that included four plays from Vancouver Youth Theatre directed by Carole Tarlington. In September/October, David Holman’s primary school show No Worries played sixty performances, directed and designed by Mike Bridges with musical direction by David Pyle. And in November, Puppy Love, an Anthill Theatre Company production, toured their show to La Boite for pre-school audiences.

185 Season Two with another popular success, Conway Christ, Redneck Superstar again directed by Sean Mee and David Pyle with a cast and crew of over one hundred and twenty. Many in the cast and crew of both these productions went on to work professionally (if they were not already) including Justine Anderson, Andrew Blackman, Andrew Buchanan, Brian Cavanagh, Gerry Connolly, Leah Cotterell, Adam Couper, Annette Kerwitz, Sean Mee, Toni Mott, David Pyle, Andrew Raymond and Scott Witt., These 1985 La Bamba productions were the beginnings of a Brisbane phenomenon that evolved into Toadshow25, a collective of creative people which did much to develop Brisbane’s semi-professional and professional theatre scene.

• A chaotic end to 1985 At the mid-year point, La Boite staff numbered a healthy eight, activity was vigorous and successful, funding had been restored, and the Theatre appeared to be recovering. (Brisbane Repertory Theatre Index to Financial Statements for the Half year Ended 30th June, 1985, R.F. Kooymans & Co, UQFL109 Box 6). Yet by November 1985 the number of staff had dwindled to three26 and the real financial picture became apparent. What went wrong organizationally and the measures taken to review and reform processes is analysed in the following section

Organizational Leadership: From Despair to Review and Reform • The emergence of Helen Routh By the end of 1983, impacting significantly on La Boite’s ability to remain operationally viable, was a lack of consistency in Council leadership. Stepping up to the mark to provide some stability was Helen Routh, a young woman working at the time for the Brisbane College of Advanced Education as an administrator. She emerged as yet another example of La Boite’s power to attract people – particularly women - willing to give of their time and professional expertise in short bursts of energy. Helen Routh joined the Council as Vice President in 1982, her interest

25 During the 1980s and 1990s, Toadshow produced a number of large cast amateur musical satirical shows at La Boite Theatre, the Princess Theatre and the Lyric Theatre. Toadshow Pty Ltd is now a production company dealing with theatre, journalism, design, graphics, music and multi-media (QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection). 26 In November 1985 the staff list was: Resident Director - Mike Bridges; Public Relations Officer - Catherine Newell; Executive Secretary - Rosemary Herbert (Did You Say Love? Program, November 1985).

186 sparked through her backstage involvement in La Boite productions. Given the inconsistent availability in 1983 and 1984 of President Charles Grahame due to his professional duties as Queensland Manager of the ABC, Routh’s position as Vice President quickly turned into that of Chairperson of Council meetings.

A crisis in leadership occurred in 1985 when Grahame did not stand for re-election as President and no-one eminent enough could be found to volunteer for the job. Routh continued as de facto leader until she was officially appointed President in August of that year (Minutes of a Special Council Meeting, August 27, 1985). While she may not have had the status of past Presidents, she had the work ethic, youthful passion and leadership qualities for the role, although not universally liked (Routh Interview, Sept. 26, 2003: ll.256-257). Politically it was no doubt a wise move to fill the vacancy, given the need in these fractured times in the Theatre’s history to at least appear organizationally sound in the face of constituency unrest and cautious funding bodies. In the end she served only eight productive months as President, defeated at the next AGM by Ian Leigh-Cooper.

• The stark financial reality Routh and the 1984 Council had a mammoth task ahead of them: they faced 1984 with a deficit of $10,944 and a serious liquidity problem, no Australia Council funding, the loss of eleven professional staff (paid $94,000 in salaries in 1983), and a depleted membership (AGM Minutes, March 4, 1984, UQFL109 Box 6). Fortunately, the Department of Cultural Activities ‘general activities’ ongoing funding of $45,480 continued, making possible the two positions (Layne’s and Kelsall’s) that had been retained (Income and Expenditure Statement for the half year ended November 25, 1985, UQFL109, Box 6). All other activities, until Bridges and Hickson took up their appointments as Resident Directors in July, were voluntary. Everyone’s energies were directed towards keeping the doors open and putting product on the stage. Outstanding creditors were demanding payment, but no audited statements were available to check on past accounts. With no budget or balanced ledgers, the day to day financial management could only be conducted on a cash flow basis (A Review of the Operation of BRT, 12 Nov. 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13). When Bridges arrived he was appalled to find a lot of unpaid bills and even recalls the electricity meter being taken away (Phone Interview with Mike Bridges, Sept. 28, 2002).

187

There was obviously a serious breakdown of financial management that the Council, the Honorary Treasurer, and previous Administrator had somehow allowed to happen, and which signalled more than anything else the urgent need for organizational review and reform. All hope hinged on the success of funding applications to both state and federal funding bodies for the next financial year July 1984 to July 1985.

• Dependence on volunteers for survival Under the headline “La Boite is struggling”, an article in The Courier Mail (Corcoran, Jan. 4, 1984) alerted the Brisbane public to the problems the theatre was facing: Brisbane’s La Boite theatre company needs help. Since it lost its government funding (and 11 professional staff) times have been tough. Now it’s a case of operation survival. La Boite officials are describing 1984 as the hiccup year – a year when friends will have to rally with finances, manpower and dedication. The voluntary governing council will play a bigger role than ever in running the theatre… and all operations will be essentially voluntary.

Indeed, the facility could not have continued to function without a committee structure of volunteers from the general membership that was quickly put in place. These Committees included: Buildings and Grounds; Backstage; Publicity and Promotions: Catering and Functions; Bar; Front of House; Administration; and Performer’s Committee (AGM Minutes, March 4, 1984, UQFL109 Box 6).

• Mending the funding bridges and refocussing activities onto TYP With the lack of staff, the onus of responsibility on the Council was magnified. Recognizing that funding-body relationships had to be mended, one of the first things that Routh did as Council Chair was to invite Kevin Siddell, Director of the Queensland Government Department of Cultural Activities, to attend a Council meeting to discuss the Theatre’s unfortunate funding situation (Minutes of Feb. 5, 1984, UQFL109 Box 6). His advice was that the State Government might be interested in restoring funding for young people’s theatre activities by 1986, if La Boite used that time to both develop clear policies on youth theatre, young people’s theatre, children’s theatre and theatre in education, and mend the attitudinal difficulties with the funding authority that La Boite had experienced in the past – no doubt a reference to Ross (ibid.). Consequently, a significant paper was eventually produced in 1985 on youth theatre - Brisbane Repertory’s La Boite Theatre

188 Programme of Theatre for Youth 1985 (UQFL109 Box 6) which not only documented how thoroughly the youth theatre committee had responded to Kevin Siddell’s advice of developing policy but also how, in an extraordinarily short period of time, La Boite under the direction of Mike Bridges, and Youth Programme Administrator Ron Layne, had re-established a wide variety of youth-oriented activities.

In an endeavour to claw back Theatre Board funding, the Theatre’s Submission to the Theatre Board for the Ongoing Development of Theatre for Young People at La Boite for 1985/86 funding stated unequivocally that it was seeking assistance “to continue the work commenced in 1985 aimed at developing at La Boite a programme of theatre activities for and by young people which will establish La Boite as a centre for Theatre for Young People” and “as the major focus and professional function of La Boite” (Policy Documents, UQFL109 Box 6). Other activities would be operated “merely as adjuncts to or in support of such activities” (ibid.). To achieve this aim the “amateur theatre programme” would be reduced from seven to four productions (ibid.). The document contained a very detailed proposed youth theatre programme for 1986 (ibid.: 5-10) and a request for funding for a “specialised full-time youth director”27 (ibid.).

Overall, this was a very serious statement of intent to transform La Boite into a professional centre for theatre for young people, relegating to a minor role, the Theatre’s constitutionally-governed core business since 1925 – “to produce from time to time plays of literary or dramatic merit and educational value” 28 (Constitution, UQFL109 Box 1.2 ) and Jennifer Blocksidge’s updated version of the Theatre’s goal, to support “new writers and writing that illuminates the new” (Council Meeting Minutes August 6, 1979, UQFL Box 6).

27 In fact, no youth director was appointed until Jim Vilé employed Ludmila and Michael Doneman as Youth Theatre Workers in 1987.

28 The original 1925 Object - “to produce from time to time plays of literary merit, not usually seen upon the commercial state” – was changed in 1980 to “to produce from time to time plays of literary or dramatic merit and educational value” (Constitution, UQFL109 Box 1.2).

189 • Cleaning up the financial mess – a condition of restored funding As persuasive and well prepared as the submission may have been, the Theatre Board made it clear in mid-1985 that it was not going to fund La Boite until it got its shoddy financial house in order and could produce “audited figures for 1983 and 1984 by the end of September” (Special Council Meeting Minutes, August 20, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6). As it seemed that finances had been poorly managed for a number of years, Council saw fit to appoint an ‘outsider’ – Joyce Gurney – in collaboration with new auditor Ralph Kooymans of R.F.Kooymans & Co to prepare the Theatre’s books of accounts. By November, Gurney and Kooymans achieved the near impossible – audited accounts for 1983-1984 and a trail balance sheet to 30 June 1985.

With a true picture of La Boite’s financial state now available, a meeting was held with Bob Taylor from the Australia Council and Kevin Radbourne from Cultural Activities “to review the parlous state of the theatre’s finances” (Minutes of Meeting with Australia Council October 9, 1985, UQFL109). Attending were Helen Routh (now President), Vice President29 Rory Sutton, Joyce Gurney, Ralph Kooymans, and Honorary Treasurer Bruce Tye (ibid.). The minutes of this meeting, written by Routh, indicate the seriousness of the financial position, even to accusations of fraud: [Joyce Gurney] was able to offer a picture of the current finances which indicated creditors to the tune of some $17,300. Overall, it appears now that we have an operating deficit of some $5,000 on our bank account after depositing $30,000 of the grant from Cultural Activities….There had been too many examples in recent times where monies had been received and spent without proper records being kept. This left us open to charges of incompetence and possible fraud. (ibid.) While this meeting was a serious indication of La Boite’s precarious position in relation to the funding bodies, Routh was able to conclude : The meeting was held in a most positive atmosphere. Bob Taylor and Kevin Radbourne were anxious to assist the theatre in getting its act together in business terms. We were able to indicate to Bob that we were implementing a range of systems that would ensure proper controls over our financial dealings. … It was my impression that the Australia Council was not interested in abandoning La Boite. However, it had to be assured that we were capable of running our affairs in a hard nosed sense and that we had to be able to convince our members of the severity of our position….Also that the Council

29 Rory Sutton was ABC TV Manager for Queensland. His background in management and financial administration was considered very useful to La Boite’s Council (A Review of the Operation of BRT, Nov. 12, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13).

190 be seen to be an effective policy body supporting fully its executive staff. (ibid.)

Nevertheless, the seriousness of La Boite’s financial mismanagement could have resulted in legal action , as Sutton noted at the next Council Meeting: While it may be the responsibility of the Council to initiate or otherwise legal investigation into these inconsistencies it was the view of both Taylor and Radbourne that such a process was not desirable except in as much as the lessons learned and to write off such amount of monies. (Council Meeting Minutes, Oct. 15, 1985, UQFL109).

• ‘A Review of the Operation of BRT’ in 1985 The failure of financial systems was only part of the story of confusion and inefficiencies in the whole management structure. Symptomatic of this overall failure was the resignation of key member of staff, Ron Layne, Administrator/Youth Programme Coordinator, citing “an inability to continue to cope with the enormity of the task and its related responsibilities and a lack of belief and commitment to the direction of the Theatre” (Letter to Routh from Layne, July 8, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13). A day after his letter of resignation, Layne presented to Council a discussion paper called La Boite Theatre – Future Directions which “set an agenda for fundamental evaluation of the whole operation of the Theatre” (A Review of the Operation of BRT, Nov. 12, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13). It proposed an overhaul of management structures, a focus on solving factionalism and vested interests created by La Boite’s too great a diversity of activities, and a commitment to professionally run youth theatre, an area in which Layne said it could excel by creating a much needed niche market for itself in Brisbane (op.cit.).

Layne’s paper seemed to be the catalyst for Council’s full realisation of La Boite’s precarious situation, and set in motion a wide-ranging review of La Boite’s operations. By November 12, 1985 the Council had produced a thirteen page document - A Review of the Operation of BRT, Nov. 12, 1985 – which reviewed the policy and activities of La Boite from 1981 to the present and proposed a way forward. To arrive at this definitive document, Council members from July to November “engaged in a whole series of intensive meetings … once and sometimes twice a week” (UQFL109 Box 6.13, November 12, 1985). Whilst acknowledging in her President’s Report at the 1986 AGM that the financial review had been “the

191 hardest task of all” (UQFL109 Box 4.8), Routh pointed the finger of blame at past Councils who had “not fully understood the implications of their decisions, and while acting in good faith, have not been sufficiently demanding of the financial reporting and analysis” (ibid.).

Decisions, Action and Recovery By the time this November document had been prepared by Council and staff, a number of important decisions had already been made at Council Meetings. On Layne’s departure, it was decided not to appoint another Administrator but to use the money to continue to employ Joyce Gurney (ibid. p.8). The Council Executive took on the Administrator’s role, meeting weekly to keep the Theatre’s activities ticking over until the end of 1985 (ibid.). A new financial accounting system was installed to replace the ‘antiquated financial systems” (op.cit.).

Some funding had returned, guaranteeing on-going activities at least until June 1986. $50,000 State Government funding for general activities from July 1, 1985 to June 30, 1986 had been received, $20,000 of which had been put into a short-term high interest deposit to assist on-going financial liquidity into 1986 (Special General Meeting Minutes, Nov. 16, 1985, UQFL109 Box 12.5). On November 11, 1985 the Theatre was notified that the Theatre Board had granted it $20,000 on the understanding that this amount was tied to the salary of a youth theatre worker (ibid.). This could not be considered generous funding and members questioned the viability of funding La Boite for a youth theatre leader without providing any funding at all for youth theatre productions and activities (Special General Meeting Minutes, Nov. 16, 1985, UQFL109 Box 12.5). Nevertheless, given the financial nightmare from which the Theatre had yet to emerge and ending the year with a deficit of $32,000, they were lucky to be still on the funding bodies’ books (1986 AGM Minutes, April 20, 1986, UQFL109 Box 12.5).

The new role for Council was a ‘hands off’ one in terms of the daily running of the Theatre. It was now clearly defined that the Council’s role was: to develop policy, in consultation with members and the arts community; to ensure the management structures allow those policies to be implemented efficiently; to ensure the financial management of the Theatre is effective; to ensure the legal and contractual

192 requirements of funding bodies are met; and to be responsible for additional sponsorship and special event fundraising outside the parameters of the working budget. (ibid.)

To clarify the Theatre’s artistic future, Council had reached a consensus that the “priority of the Theatre shall be the development of theatre for young people and the diversity within that concept” (ibid.) and that other major productions should be maintained “within the resources available” (ibid.). In all its activities, it was to “above all … emphasize innovation and experimentation … with particular attention to new works” (ibid.).

The most important decision however, was the decision to review and evaluate all staff positions. In October it had been agreed to “abolish the position of resident director and to appoint a Managing Artistic Director as from 1st January, 1986” (Council Meeting Minutes, Oct. 15, 1985). It was this decision and its actioning that gave the theatre a way into a viable future. The position, to start in January 1986, was conceived as rolling a General Manager and Artistic Director into the one position of Managing Artistic Director, who would be (ibid p.10): the Chief Executive Officer of Council and responsible and accountable to Council to implement the policies developed by Council … Council is emphatic that, as well as being the Artistic Director of the Theatre and responsible for inspiring and setting the vision for the Theatre, the person should also be responsible to ‘Manage’ the staff and the members to achieve that vision. … Council has affirmed that the MAD will need to be responsible for the selection and appointment of all staff positions if she/he is required to pull together and work harmoniously as a team furthering the Theatre’s objectives.

The plan for other positions for 1986, funds permitting, was for an Administrator, an Assistant Director responsible for the Youth Theatre Program, a Production Manager, Part-time Administration Assistant, Part-time Publicity person, and contracted casual youth workshop tutors (ibid.). Rosemary Herbert was given full-time employment as Executive Secretary from November 10, 1985 (Council Meeting Minutes October 15, 1985) on the understanding that her continuation was the prerogative of the incoming MAD (op. cit.). As it transpired, Herbert was kept on, she established an excellent working relationship with MAD Jim Vilé, and twenty-plus years later can easily claim to be the longest serving staff member in La Boite’s history.

193 • Unhappy members call a Special General Meeting Fully occupied by the urgent need to overhaul the whole organization and to put changes in place, Council had neglected (deliberately, as it transpired) to involve the membership who felt distinctly left out of the loop. Angry that major changes had been made without consultation, an alienated membership body took action on their own behalf. Drawing on section twenty-six of the BRT Constitution, which allows members to call a Special General Meeting if such a meeting has been requested by ten financial members, a public meeting was advertised through The Courier Mail (November 2, 1985) and the La Boite Newsletter (Nov. 8, 1985) for November 16, 1985 (Special General Meeting Minutes, Nov. 16, 1986, UQFL109 Box 6). Sixty- three members and participants attended, including the auditor Ralph Kooymans. Speaking on behalf of the signatories, actively involved member Ros Vidgen read a prepared statement which asked for clarification on the proposed changes in policy, particularly in relation to youth theatre; the Theatre’s financial situation; current and future staffing; and the state of government funding (ibid.). The meeting was particularly critical of the Council’s determination to embrace youth theatre as policy and questioned how such a policy could be rationalised as part of La Boite’s charter. From the floor, Megan Henderson asked where was the market research that supported this direction that the Council, Layne’s paper, and the Youth Committee were recommending (ibid.). She then put the following motion which was unanimously supported by all the financial members present: That a committee be established to determine La Boite’s future role in the arts in Brisbane and to provide recommendations on the changes it sees required in the existing organizational/management structure to achieve this objective. The committee should consist of representatives from the members and the community: the La Boite representatives to be drawn from Council, Youth, Tutors, actors, backstage, writers, designers, directors, La Bamba and musicians; the community representatives to be drawn from the theatrical profession and other users of La Boite. (ibid.) A second motion elected Jennifer Blocksidge and Simon Stocks30 as convenors of this committee with the brief to make their first report to the next AGM (ibid.).

30 Simon Stocks was a high profile member of the La Bamba Committee (UQFL109 Box 6.13 A Review of the Operation of Brisbane Repertory Theatre, November 12, 1985). When the balance of mainhouse to youth theatre was restored by Vilé, this committee was phased out.

194 This Special General Meeting was probably no more than a minor irritation for the Council; there was no way that Routh and her Council were going to stop the momentum for change that was underway. In reflecting on this issue at the 61st AGM (April 20, 1986), Routh, whilst acknowledging that “some very difficult decisions were made, and certainly some that many members and the staff were not comfortable with”, took a hard line on whose responsibility it was to make these decisions (President’s Report, UQFL109 Box 4.8): Members have complained that Council has not discussed issues with the members themselves before embarking on what is perceived as major changes. Council has not called formal meetings with the membership and quite deliberately so. Management structures are dictated and formulated by BUSINESS CIRCUMSTANCES not by individual beliefs … I believe that any proposal which dictates that Council must call a member’s meeting to get permission to develop a policy position/discussion paper will make the management and direction of this Theatre unworkable. (ibid.)

Bridges and Routh Bow Out Although Bridges had prepared and presented a proposal for a pro-am season for January to June 1986 (Executive Meeting Minutes, Oct. 30, 1985, UQFL109), Routh’s plans clearly did not include him as a prospective Managing Artistic Director. Indeed Bridges claimed that she asked him to leave (Phone Interview with Bridges, Sept. 28, 2002). Official documents are not so blunt but reading between the lines of Routh’s statement about the new position in her Review document leaves little doubt of her intention: Council has confirmed that the position of Resident Director will terminate as of the 31st December ’85. Mike Bridges, who currently holds that position, was informed of this and of the Council’s intention to place the ad for the revised position of Managing Artistic Director. He has not at this stage (12-11- 85) indicated his intention to apply for that job, nor whether he will in fact stay at La Boite ‘till the 31st December. (A Review of the Operation of BRT, Nov. 12, 1985, UQFL109 Box 6.13)

Helen Routh herself was voted out as President at the 61st AGM in April 1986 (ibid.). Both she and Ian Leigh-Cooper were contenders: in the first round of voting, they scored equally; in the second round Leigh-Cooper triumphed. It is Routh’s recollection that she withdraw her nomination before the second vote was cast, wanting no more divisiveness in the Theatre, and knowing that some members were very keen for her to lose:

195 There were some people who would cross the street rather than speak to me. And there was a lot of debate about the rights and wrongs of how interventionist the Council had been. And I recall Jennifer Blocksidge getting up at that meeting and saying – bless her heart …”You have no idea how close it was, how close we [La Boite] came to going under”. (Routh Interview, Sept. 26, 2003: ll.256-261)

At that moment, Routh knew she should withdraw her nomination: “I had this realisation that I had to get out of it not only for my own sanity but also for the sanity of the whole place. To let someone else come on and do some healing …and Ian Leigh-Cooper had that nice gentleness of wisdom and age (ibid.: ll.265-270)

In reflecting on the volunteer membership who had been obstructionist to a degree, she found that, on balance, the Theatre might not have survived this period without them: “…they were there when there was no money and would just bring things in and use their networks to get things and to make sure that people came to shows” (ibid.: ll.379-380). La Boite might not have survived without Bridges’ contribution either. Motivated by a sincere desire to help turn around La Boite’s fortunes, from the beginning he did not feel well supported by the Council, particularly Routh (Phone Interview with Bridges, Sept. 28, 2002). Although hurt by his summary dismissal, he was ready to leave anyway and departed without bitterness. He claims his eighteen months as resident director at La Boite cost him $25,000 of his personal finances which he used to support productions when budgets were inadequate (ibid.).

Conclusion Blaylock took La Boite one step closer to professional status by developing its profile as a professionally-run community theatre noted for innovative, often strongly political and socially critical productions of Australian and non-Australian plays. The strength of his leadership was his capacity to progress the Theatre and face crisis with the full support of its constituency and staff.

In 1983, Ross became the first artistic director appointed to lead La Boite into its first professional season but was unable to sustain this level of professional activity having moved La Boite through change too quickly, as was his brief from the Council, and without the support of its constituency or funding bodies. Only interested in professional theatre and dismissive of La Boite’s amateur history, its recent evolution

196 as a pro-am community theatre, and the educationally focussed ECDP, his attempts at change were frustrated by new developments in funding policies, an unhappy constituency, and a Council that had a poorly considered vision of the Theatre’s future.

The period of 1984-1985 could be characterized as La Boite’s aborted attempt to transform itself into a professional theatre for young people. That the time was not yet right became blatantly obvious when the inadequacies of La Boite’s organizational structures were revealed, membership resistance gathered momentum, staff left, funding disappeared and, when restored, was not sufficient to support a professional company. Without the asset of the theatre building where amateur productions and other activities could proceed even without funding, it is doubtful that La Boite would have survived. That Routh played a key role in La Boite’s survival and process of review and reform over those two years is undeniable, but if she had continued as President, her uncompromising attitude towards La Boite’s constituency and unpopularity in certain quarters could have had a destabilizing and negative effect on its development.

The funding-driven emphasis on youth theatre during this era and the consequent reduction of the mainhouse program, generally negatively received by La Boite’s membership, must be interpreted in retrospect as a survival strategy more than a heartfelt policy change by the Council; by responding to the Theatre Board’s funding policy of the day, Bridges, Layne and Council ensured that La Boite was received back into the competitive funding arena, but in the end its constituency ensured that, while youth theatre remained an important part of La Boite’s funded activities, the major preoccupation soon reverted to pro-am mainhouse productions.

Whilst in this period to 1986 La Boite weathered its worst crisis to date, there was a growing understanding from all parts of its constituency that the company was evolving, albeit painfully, towards increasing professionalism especially in the funded area of theatre for young people, but not yet at the expense of its professionally managed mainhouse productions with their mix of committed amateurs and would-be professionals.

197 CHAPTER SEVEN The Jim Vilé Era 1986 – 1989

Jim Vilé circa 1986 (La Boite Archives) Introduction Appointed in December 1985, Vilé won the position of Managing Artistic Director because of his distinctive combination of artistic and managerial strengths. He was what Helen Routh and her Council were looking for: … someone clearly with the artistic strengths but someone who understood managing to a budget, developing a creative program that could be undertaken within the budget, who understood the economics of basic equations – bums on seats multiplied by what you could get at the box office per seat. {Jim} was a great people person and that was also essential to the healing and turning around some of the fracturing amongst the volunteers. (Routh Interview, Sept. 26, 2003: ll.327-331)

Like Malcolm Blaylock, Vilé seemed to be the right artistic director for the times, arriving in Brisbane (from Adelaide, like Blaylock) with no previous experience of La Boite yet able to embrace its history, its peculiarities as a pro-am theatre, its various communities, and its problems, with what appeared to be an almost innate understanding of La Boite and its potential, and with an overwhelming optimism for what could be achieved. Rosemary Herbert considers him “one of the best managing artistic directors I’ve ever worked with … you could talk to Jim, he was a genuine, really nice person and he said what he thought – he didn’t beat around the bush” (Herbert Interview, Oct. 19, ll. 2003).

198 Vilé had just completed twelve years as Head of the Drama Department at the University of Adelaide1 and was ready for a change: “I was getting to the stage where the university was making me as grey as the rest of the staff there … I wanted to get back to the coalface where it actually mattered whether you did a good production or not” (Vilé Interview June 2, 2003: ll.18-24). What attracted him to this job? In his own words, “if you couldn’t make a go of it the whole thing would go under. It was a real challenge which I was young enough to accept and appreciate” (ibid.: ll.25-26).

Most pressing to resolve was the damaging psychological effect on the constituency of the traumatic last few years. Perceiving this, Vilé promised “to make La Boite buzz again… translated by me as an open-door policy where any theatre activity that promised to be exciting and which could earn its keep was given space and support” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 5, 1989, UQFL109). His time at La Boite was characterized by an extreme level of busyness not seen for many years – there was hardly a day or night that was not filled with theatrical activity of some kind. Not surprisingly, the four years he spent revitalizing La Boite eventually took its toll and, by the end of 1989, Vilé was seriously burnt out, and resigned (ibid.: l. 497).

Well supported by Management Committee Chair Ian Leigh-Cooper, and, in 1989, by General Manager Jill Standfield, Vilé acknowledged in interview that key to La Boite’s financial recovery and growing success was the role played by “powerhouse” Administrator Rosemary Herbert: When I got to La Boite in ’86, she was the only person with any memory, corporate memory, of how the place ran, and she had the capacity to take on an enormous mountain of work so that she was able to do administrative, office management, the books as well as the theatre bookings, the ordering of materials which she usually got for nothing, aspects of promotion and publicity and in-kind sponsorship. She was able to organise the parties and later became very good at massaging the critics. I think without Rosemary there – or a powerhouse person like that – I wouldn’t have been able to instigate all the activities which we were able to do, to revitalise La Boite as an organization. La Boite owes a great debt to her in that period. (ibid.: ll.362-372)

1 Jim Vilé, with a Master of Arts in Theatre Studies from Leeds University and a background in directing professional and educational theatre in England and Nigeria, was appointed founding Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide to set up the Centre for Performing Arts (Program Notes The Kelly Dance 1986 & Interview with Sue Rider, June 8, 2003: 122-123).

199 Management Strategies and Financial Recovery • Clarity about professional youth theatre and pro-am productions Youth Theatre was strongly on Vilé’s agenda – how could it be otherwise when La Boite’s Australia Council funding depended on it? - but he also understood that this funded activity had never been La Boite’s top priority, and to over-emphasize its role, as had happened in 1984 and 1985, would be counter-productive and not a real representation of the Theatre’s priorities. At his first AGM he told members that: … yes, there will be a Youth Theatre Programme, but not at the expense of those matured in their skills. There will be a Youth Theatre Programme with a Youth Worker and increasing Australia Council funds to make such a programme challenging and fun. But it must be a programme which will only be part of a policy that caters for all of the membership. (MAD’s AGM Report, April 20, 1986, UQFL109) Vilé’s balanced approach and sensitivity to all vested interests restored a sense of identification and belonging that had been seriously damaged through the previous Council’s insistence that La Boite’s major focus must change from pro-am mainhouse productions to professional youth theatre. By restoring the Theatre’s sense of integrity about what it stood for, his leadership allowed for organic growth and development within the confines of its pro-am status, at least until an increasingly professionalized industry grew intolerant, in the late 1980s, of contributing to La Boite’s artistic output for no pay.

• A sense of perspective based on property assets

Although only in the job for several months, Vilé used the public forum of the AGM in April 1986 to present a report that was both realistic and optimistic, on activities to date and his intentions for the future (MAD’s AGM Report, April 20, 1986, UQFL109). While acknowledging the financial and funding difficulties of the last few years, he asked for a sense of perspective to be brought to these worrying events, reassuring those present that their greatest insurance policy was the building they were seated in that evening: A $32,000 deficit for 1985 could throw a cloud of gloom and despondency over the organization. Such a deficit could lead to a weakening of the will into a state of depression. This cannot be allowed to happen. There is too much at stake, not only sixty years of exciting theatre, but also a responsibility to ourselves and to the future. So let me put this deficit into perspective.

200 There are many theatre organisations in Australia which run at a deficit and I am speaking of both professional companies heavily subsidized by funding bodies and theatres of volunteers such as our own. For instance, the Stage Company of South Australia ran up an $80,000 problem last financial year. It is important to realise that most of the companies do not have the security of assets La Boite has so carefully and painstakingly accumulated in the past (my emphasis). This is no cause for us to become complacent; our gratitude to those who worked so hard in years gone by must go hand-in-hand with an acute awareness that the onus is on us to maintain and develop this legacy. So how do we manage our deficit? Do we retract from our traditional status in the Brisbane theatre scene? Do we dwindle into insignificance? Of course not. (MAD’s AGM Report, April 20, 1986, UQFL109)

The great dual advantage that Vilé capitalized on so skilfully was facility ownership and pro-am status. As he reflected in interview: … the fact that it was actually a theatre which had its own buildings, own collateral meant that, even though they had no money at that stage - in fact they were behind the eight ball quite significantly - it meant that you could do something because you didn’t have to pay rent, you could fill the theatre up with as many events as there were hours in a day and try to make the thing work. (Vilé Interview, June 2, 2003: ll.27-32).

• Sensible steps towards financial revitalization However, he was under no illusions about the current financial situation and created a “full steam ahead”2 program for his first year of operations aimed at generating income-earning activities with a pared down budget which he estimated would cut the $32,000 deficit to $18,000 (MAD’s AGM Report, April 20, 1986 UQFL109). Remarkably, by the end of that year, he was able to report, not a decreased deficit, but a surplus of $5,256 (MAD’s AGM Report, March 15, 1987). Part of this financial success was due to the new accounting systems that facilitated complete financial accountability, the result, in Vilé’s words, of “the enormous efforts of the previous Council, under Helen Routh” (ibid.). Impressed by this upturn in La Boite’s fiscal fortunes, Australia Council support increased by 90% and State Government support through Donna Greaves in the Cultural Activities section – who, Vilé claimed, had “a soft spot for La Boite” - remained strong (ibid.).

2 Vilé invented slogans for each year: Full Steam Ahead for 1986; Quantity With Excellence for 1987; and La Boite, the Biggest Little Theatre in Australia for 1988 (MAD’s 1986 AGM Report).

201 Although the improved financial situation allowed staffing to increase3, all activities had to be conducted on a shoe string budget which Vilé recalled was “the most frugal budget you could have and still function” (Vilé Interview, June 2, 2003: ll.125-126). All staff were on minimal wages, productions were as pared down as possible, and any spare financial resources were strategically used for marketing and publicity to attract audiences (ibid.:ll.127-129).

Again, careful management in Vilé’s second year ended with a heartening surplus of $17, 696 and further increases in funding from the Australia Council, “a show of confidence in the management of the theatre” declared Kooymans’ auditor, Karen Ross (AGM Minutes, March 13, 1988). Grants for 1987 totalled $110,000: $36,000 from the Theatre Board for Youth Theatre plus a $5,000 Music Board grant; $62,000 from Cultural Activities; and $7,000 from the Queensland Arts Council (BRT Balance Sheet as at 31st Dec., 1987).

In Vilé’s third year, the year of Brisbane’s World Expo’88, a bumper season of seven mainhouse productions and a very successful Theatre-For-Schools program contributed to an end of year surplus of $24,638 (AGM Minutes, March 5, 1989). This surplus was “reinvested in the theatre” - the auditorium was refurbished including much needed new seating; Expo’88 lights were purchased, and more units in the Sexton Street property were bought 4(Financial Report in AGM Minutes, March 5, 1989). By 1989, funding had again increased: the new Arts Division of the State Government gave $100,000 and the Theatre Board grant was $45,000 (ibid.). This allowed vital improvements to the staffing structure, most significantly the appointment of Jill Standfield as General Manager, releasing Vilé from the financial management of La Boite to concentrate fully on the artistic product of the Theatre.

• Constitutional changes professionalize operations Another important achievement that put the whole organization on a more accountable and professional footing was the ratification of a revised Constitution at a

3 Vilé began the year with only two other staff – Rosemary Herbert as Administrator and Ruth Owens, newly appointed as Production Manager. By July there were seven full-time staff and two part-time. 4 When Lesley Ricketts died in 1985, she bequeathed to La Boite her 1000 units from the La Boite Properties Trust which in 2003 still owned the 47 Sexton Street Property next door to the theatre (Financial Report in Minutes of AGM, March 15, 1987, UQFL109). More units subsequently became available and were purchased in 1988.

202 Special General Meeting held on March 23, 1986. The ‘new look’ document brought the Constitution up to date and in line with changes recommended by the previous Council’s Review, two of which were that “the Theatre will be known as Brisbane Repertory Theatre Inc.” and “The governing body will be known as the Management Committee” 5 (Minutes of Special General Meeting March 23, 1986).

New clauses professionalized the operations of the Management Committee: they vested the governance of the Theatre not only in the Management Committee but also in an Advisory Committee consisting of the Artistic Director, the General Manager and the Staff Representative; an Executive of the Committee was now specified as consisting of a Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer and Legal Advisor; specifications for each position were detailed requiring the person nominated to have appropriate professional experience; and the term ‘President’ was dropped and replaced by ‘Chairperson’(AGM Agenda & Minutes, March 5, 1989, UQFL109).

• Nurturing a new kind of membership Having been told that “the membership” was, historically, a force to be reckoned with, Vilé was keen to draw their depleted numbers back into the fold – but also to remind them that members don’t just star in shows but are required to contribute to the less exciting roles and jobs associated with running a pro-am theatre. His address to them at his first AGM paid tribute to La Boite’s history as a training ground for the profession, but equally he recognized its history of providing an enjoyable extra curricular activity for many people: Brisbane Repertory Theatre has been a breeding ground for talent that has made an individual and lasting contribution to the history of not only Brisbane but also Australian theatre. La Boite has been the “other life” for people who did not see the theatre as their only career. Both categories of members have recognized this place for what it is, have seen and grasped the opportunities offered … and as a result “belonged”. As a result of belonging chances came their way. And nothing has changed. The opportunities still exist and so does the hard slog. (MAD’s AGM Report, April 20, 1986, UQFL109)

5 The new Management Committee consisted of 8 elected members, 4 of whom must retire each year; a staff representative elected by staff and the Managing Artistic Director as a full voting member of Council to fulfil the legislative obligations of Secretary (Minutes of Special General Meeting March 23, 1986, UQFL109).

203 By the end of his first year however, Vilé had to admit that while “wonderful people” like Jennifer Blocksidge, Lorna Bol, Elisabeth Hatton, Len Johnston, Kaye Stevenson Bev Langford and Rod Lumer remained “solid supporters”, he had not succeeded in re-involving the membership of old, “a concept” he realised “which ignored that members get married, move interstate, find new and demanding occupations, lose interest in theatre, etc.” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 15, 1987, UQFL109).

Instead, what he identified in that first year was the potential for a whole new type of membership to be drawn from the ranks of the many young people who were teeming into activities at La Boite – “standing in the wings, ready to be involved, ready to give of their time and expertise and ready to learn” (ibid.). It was this “new brigade” that he concentrated on fostering (ibid.). Over his term as MAD, membership steadily increased as did the subscriber base with balance sheets recording that income earned from subscriptions jumped from $850 in 1987 to over $5,000 in 1988 (AGM Financial Report, March 5, 1989, UQFL109).

Artistic Revitalization in Mainhouse Productions • “Open door” policy To boost theatrical activity during 1986, Vilé adopted a successful ‘Open Door’ policy at La Boite – “Everything and everybody was encouraged to take part at La Boite. This plethora of activity, this crazy hurly-burly of events, this insane pressure on resources and personnel, I believe has paid off” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 15, 1987, UQFL109). Theatresports was introduced; La Bamba was re-vitalized as a more regular activity; tutors conducted workshops for every age group and prepared three plays for La Boite’s September Youth Peace Festival; and the space was hired out to appropriate companies. The level of activity that Vilé, staff and volunteers managed to sustain at La Boite was extraordinary – every day and evening (except for the occasional Sunday) of every month of the Theatre’s year was accounted for with a production of some kind. No professional theatre company could have afforded to keep up this level of creative output– this was the great strength of Australian pro-am theatre at its best.

204 • Hits and misses Vilé was pleased that his first mainhouse season, that averaged a satisfactory 50% occupancy, was overwhelmingly Australian and included three plays by Brisbane playwrights: Errol O’Neill’s Popular Front directed by Therese Collie; Jill Shearer’s A Woman Like That directed by Leo Wockner; and Lorna Bol’s But I’m Still Here directed by Jennifer Blocksidge (AGM Minutes, March 15, 1987, UQFL109).6 But it was the 1987 season that was the real test for Vilé - the first he had programmed entirely to his own taste (several 1986 choices were part of Mike Bridges’ planned season). His first play choice was an outstanding success: The Three Cuckolds by Leon Katz directed by Dianne Eden and Judy Pippen with musical direction by Michael Whelan scored 86% occupancy. The directors’ expertise in movement, voice and Commedia Dell’Arte were “the very qualities which La Boite, in its function as Brisbane’s most forward looking theatre, aiming continually at excellence, requires” and the mix of professional and new-comers in both the cast and crew was the kind of training model he was aiming for (MAD’s AGM Report, March 15, 1987).

Jubilation, however, soon gave way to despair: all four productions that followed did poorly at the box office and “a time of hardship set in, in the middle of the year” 7 (MAD’s AGM Report, March 13, 1988, UQFL109). Because of the very tight budget, any box office failures had an immediate and profound effect on the whole organization - “Every request for expenditure had to be turned down, every cent that was spent was debated and argued about. We were all depressed and dispirited, confidence was shaken and energies were low. There was talk of cutting staff or staff wages” (ibid.). In fact, it only took one box office success to put the budget back on track. Vilé’s production of As You Like It with its 83% occupancy was enough to stem the depression that had set in and to allow the year to end on an optimistic financial note: “It was Shakespeare who saved us. As You Like It … put the budget back on line” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 13, 1988, UQFL109).

6 Other Australian plays were Room to Move by Hannie Raison directed by Marcus Hughes; The Kelly Dance by John Romeril directed by Vilé with musical direction by Donald Hall; and Not Exactly Paradise by Liz Campbell directed by Vilé. War: Women directed by Sue Rider for the 1986 September for Peace at La Boite Festival, was her first involvement with La Boite since moving from Adelaide to join her husband, Jim Vilé. 7 Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus, Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane (both of which would not have looked out of place in an RQTC season) plus Australian writers Jennifer Claire’s The Butterflies of Kalimantan and Graham Shiel’s Bali:Adat did poorly at the box office despite “positive critical acclaim” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 13, 1988).

205 • Success in the Year of World Expo ‘88 In 1988 it was Brisbane’s turn to host a six month long world exposition, Expo ’88, a highly successful event that is now generally acknowledged as a key defining moment in Brisbane’s transformation into a sophisticated city and attractive tourist destination. The accompanying events, World Expo on Stage8 and the national Festival of Australian Theatre9, enormous in scale, were looming threats to Brisbane’s theatre companies as they planned their 1988 seasons. Advice had come that local theatre companies in Vancouver, host of World Expo ’86, had lost up to 50% of their audience in that year (Artistic Director’s AGM Report, March 5, 1989, UQFL109). Alan Edwards, in his last year as Artistic Director of RQTC, heeded this advice and downsized his season accordingly, with the result that audiences fell away and the company lost money (Milne 2004: 246 and McCart in Parsons 1995: 476). Unfortunately for TN!’s Rick Billinghurst, who had just taken over from Rod Wissler as Artistic Director and who did not downsize, audiences still stayed away from his richly varied season which included Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Janis Balodis’s Too Young for Ghosts. By the end of the year, TN! found itself in deficit “at least partly due to the theatre festival accompanying the World Expo in Brisbane” (Milne 2004: 289, 290).

Adopting the slogan La Boite - The Biggest Little Theatre in Australia, Vilé decided not to cut back his 1988 season and programmed seven big mainhouse productions “that provided up to 300 opportunities for theatre workers to be involved in really top plays, making serious and stretching demands on one and all” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 5, 1989) and finished up with the biggest programme by far in Brisbane in the year of Expo, “pumping out more product than any similar sized organization in Australia” (AGM, March 5, 1989). The reason La Boite could afford to take this gamble was its pro-am status: with no actors to pay, with the majority of directors giving their services for free and front of house and backstage run by volunteers, it could afford to take risks not available to the two professional companies, RQTC and TN! His gamble paid off with an average of 51.44% occupancy, the best in his three

8 World Expo on Stage was coordinated by Marguerite Pepper and Anthony Steel. It was a twenty-six week international and Australian performing arts event of dance, theatre, music concerts, music theatre, opera, comedy, mime and ‘new wave’ performance (Milne, 2004: 390). 9 The Festival of Australian Theatre directed by Anthony Steel presented works from twenty different theatre companies from every state of Australia - “a genuine showcase for Australian theatre” (Milne, 2004: 246 & 390).

206 years at La Boite, and a surplus of $24, 638 (AGM Minutes, March 5, 1989). His rationale was that La Boite was “constitutionally committed to service to the community” and, despite Expo ’88, “there were still people out there who wanted to act, to direct, to be directly involved and committed to theatre work” (op.cit.).

The biggest success of Vilé’s Expo season was Hamlet, directed by Robert Arthur with musical direction by Donald Hall. After the success of As You Like It, Vilé had no hesitation in programming another Shakespeare. In fact, its financial success meant Vilé could afford to pay a director’s fee to Robert Arthur, a highly regarded professional Brisbane director and actor, who attracted to his production of Hamlet “some of the most exciting established and potential talents in Brisbane” (MAD’s AGM Report, March 13, 1988) including Eugene Gilfedder, Dianne Eden, Peter Lavery, Peter Knapman, Darryl Hukins, Charles Barry, Vassy Cotsiopoulos, Anna Pike and Julian St John (Hamlet Program, 1988), most of whom had worked professionally with TN! Theatre Company or RQTC. Both a critical and box office success, it rated 87% attendance. It would have rated at 100% if some nights had not been preserved for adults only. A big hit with schools, at least twenty school parties were turned away (op.cit.). The two other extremely popular productions with both general public and school audiences were Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll directed by Don Batchelor (78% attendance) and Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole directed by Sue Rider (76% attendance), featuring professional actors all working at La Boite for free.

Two professional productions in the 1988 season were the beginning of the “bridge” Vilé felt he was creating towards La Boite becoming a fully professional company (Vilé Interview, June 2, 2003: ll. 348-349). Project funding was obtained from the Australia Council for a professional production of a three-hander Crystal Clear, a devised work directed by Ian Leigh-Cooper about human relationships with the added complication that two of the characters were unsighted (Crystal Clear Program, 1988). It brought to La Boite’s stage three popular, professional, Brisbane actors Paul Bishop, Christen O’Leary and Tracey Tainsh. And bicentennial funding enabled a

207 professional production of The Matilda Women10, based on the stories of early Queensland women, written and directed by Sue Rider, with actors Justine Anderson, Sharonlee Martin and Christen O’Leary and music director Anne Roylance.

• First Matilda Awards The quality of the year’s work was recognized by the Brisbane theatre industry at the inaugural Matilda Awards11 with three of the five Matilda Awards going to artists for their work in La Boite productions: Robert Arthur for his direction of Hamlet (as well as TN!’s Too Young for Ghosts), Eugene Gilfedder for best actor in Hamlet (and his contribution to theatre music in Brisbane), and newcomer to Brisbane theatre, Sue Rider for her creation and direction of The Matilda Women (MAD’s AGM Report, March 5, 1989). And a special commendation went to Ian Leigh-Cooper for “his contribution to the development of the Arts in Queensland through his acting and directing (My Son the Lawyer is Drowning Program 1989). Describing La Boite under Vilé’s artistic direction as “relatively confident and expansive” Kiernander in New Theatre: Australia acknowledged the importance to La Boite of these awards: “There is a sense that La Boite once again, as it has in the past, is making an important contribution to the theatrical life in Brisbane”(Jan/Feb1989: 27).

• A house-style emerges The 1989 publicity brochure for what was to be Vilé’s swansong season, was the most professional-looking season brochure La Boite had even produced, on a par with the quality of publicity output from professional Brisbane companies RQTC and TN!. This well designed brochure was a strong indicator of the emergence of a La Boite ‘house style’ – something which Vilé had struggled to develop over three years. Whilst committed to a ‘balanced diversity’ of theatre activities, he was shrewdly aware that the public perception and reputation of La Boite stood or fell according to the quality of the mainhouse program alone. Ratified by the Management Council, the image for the theatre, developed through a house-style was to have a ‘youthful

10 In 1986, Rider had created a similar piece with the Adelaide Theatre Guild for the Adelaide Fringe Festival called Ring the Bell Softly, There’s Crepe on the Door on early South Australian women. It had been such a success that Vilé asked her to do a Queensland version (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll. 334-347).

11 The Matilda Awards were established in 1988, funded from the arts division of the Queensland Premier’s Department and worth $2000 each. Although funding was withdrawn in 1992, the awards continue to be an important event in the Brisbane arts calendar (Chance in Parsons, 1995: 77)

208 orientation’ (1988 Position Paper p.2, UQFL109). Now was the time to fully realise this ‘image’: with the appointment of Jill Standfield as General Manager, Vilé was finally free to concentrate all his energies on the artistic program. The conditions of La Boite in the last three years have not been conducive to such development. Time, money, personnel and skills have not encouraged a house-style. It is my opinion that you need at least two people to do so: a manager and a director. Subsume both positions into one person, especially in times when the fortunes are at a low ebb, and, of necessity, you get a manager with little time for the development of a house style. This has been the case in the last three years at La Boite. …

In my opinion … a house style would seem to be the only identity a small theatre can hope to develop to differentiate it from other theatre organizations and still remain financially viable.

Times have changed: Brisbane’s entertainment world has developed (e.g. QPAC); Australian writing has lost its patriotic following; the best of new plays are done by professional companies (La Boite couldn’t get [rights to] Gow’s Away or Europe, for instance). An identifiable and attractive house style seems the only choice. (ibid.)

In his most ambitious season to date, Vilé mounted eleven productions in 1989 (plus a professional production of Stephen Sewell’s new play Miranda12) and consolidated a house-style that projected a youthful image, energy and variety. Three large cast productions (of mostly young actors) were included in his final season – a Youth Theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Anthony Auckland, The Threepenny Opera directed by David Bell and Romeo and Juliet directed by Vilé. Whilst all three were positively reviewed it was Vilé’s production which was most critically acclaimed. Sue Gough wrote: “I have never seen a better Romeo and Juliet than this one. It succeeds on many levels, being daring, well-acted, dangerously athletic and relevant” (The Australian, April 13, 1989). John Harris enthused: “Here is a work of such fire and energy that merely watching is to experience a pulse-racing

12 The world premiere, professional production of Stephen Sewell’s new play Miranda, as mounted by Miranda Productions in association with La Boite. Directed by David Bell, designed by Bill Haycock, with original music by John Rogers and starring Russell Kiefel, Jenny Hall and Paul Bishop, the project was made possible by an Australia Council grant applied for by Kiefel and Hall. Reviews were mixed, praising the performances but finding fault with the play. Kiernander thought this “eagerly awaited” play that was “at least as shocking as Traitors” was “rather disappointing” lacking “the identifiable philosophical debate” of his other plays (New Theatre: Australia May/June 1989 p.28). Sue Gough’s summation was “It is all very well to have nudity, simulated sex, drugs, obscenity and violence, but without coherence these become gratuitous attention-getters. And coherence is what his play lacks” (The Australian, October 2, 1989).

209 fervor, an exhilaration rare in home-grown theatre.” (Daily Sun April 14, 1989). A highly praised production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus was directed by Mark Radvan (Harris, The Sun, Oct. 5, 1989; ANZ Theatre Record, June 1989, pp.68-69) about which Barbara Hebden wrote “La Boite has crowned an exciting six months of 1989 with a powerful and polished production of Shaffer’s bleak and deeply moving exploration of the inner self” (Sunday Mail, July 2, 1989) and Harris said “This is, in fact, probably one of the best productions of Equus you will see”(Daily Sun, June 30, 1989).

• The non-payment of professional actors emerges as a serious issue However, the happy arrangement whereby professional actors practiced their craft for no pay at La Boite in between paid work, turned sour by 1989. At the time, this situation was unique to Queensland as it was the only state in Australia where Actors Equity of Australia (later Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance) permitted professional actors to perform in unpaid, amateur productions (Jim Vilé Interview June 2, 2003: ll.318-321). The year before, Aubrey Mellor had succeeded Alan Edwards as Artistic Director of RQTC and was moving swiftly to revitalize the company and embrace actors who had previously found professional work mainly with TN! and non-paid work with La Boite. His attention focussed sharply on La Boite when he witnessed three of the five Matilda Awards going to professional artists for work undertaken in amateur productions. As Vilé recalled, Mellor soon “started to stir the pot and there were lots of people willing to listen to that and quite rightly” (ibid.: ll.327-328). He also commented that the sell-out La Boite seasons “must have been an awful irony for Aubrey who was running a professional show which initially didn’t go so well” (ibid.: ll.325-327). Actors were starting to rebel as well. The professional members of the cast of Romeo and Juliet 13– a runaway box office success – could not understand why they were not being paid when the show had been so successful. When Vilé explained that the profit would go to much needed theatre refurbishments “that wasn’t necessarily understood or, if it was understood, it wasn’t emotionally accepted - and fair enough too” (ibid.: ll.299-300).

13 Professional actors in Romeo and Juliet included Veronica Neave, Darryl Hukins, David Brown, Charles Barry, Annie Burbrook, Laurence Hodge, Peter Lamb, Bev Langford and Anna Pike.

210 Vilé did not like the reputation that La Boite was earning in the industry as the place that doesn’t pay actors, and felt uncomfortable and unhappy with his role in perpetuating this situation (ibid.: ll.341-346). Like Andrew Ross before him, but for different reasons, Vilé began to urge the Management Committee to think seriously about two options – either make La Boite fully professional or return it to a fully amateur theatre (ibid.:337-339). If he had stayed longer he “would have pushed that whole professional aspect” believing that he was already creating a bridge by encouraging professional productions like Miranda and Crystal Clear (ibid.: ll.348- 349).

Youth Theatre Developments • The Doneman influence - a professionalized Youth Theatre Vilé was generally unhappy with the lack of structure and policy in the Youth Programme he inherited: “In the first year there were a lot of KITE people who would put these things on but it was very ad hoc, haphazard. I felt uncomfortable about that” (Vilé Interview June 2, 2003: l.156). With his background in tertiary Drama education it is not surprising that he was strongly motivated to create an innovative and challenging youth theatre and theatre in education program at La Boite and it was very much in his interests to do so, as Youth Theatre funding “was the only thing we could get out of the Australia Council” (ibid.: l.64). By the beginning of 1987 specialist youth theatre workers Ludmila and Michael Doneman had joined the La Boite staff.

The Donemans brought to La Boite their own philosophical position on theatre for young people and a professional approach to this kind of work. Based on the concept of an extended workshop process as an effective training model, the participants developed skills and explored ideas and concepts over a long period. The ideas for the text emerged from the interests of the young people involved and were then honed into a professional script by Michael Doneman as writer : “This extended workshop process culminates in a work that manifests not only social and artistic value but a high level of technical proficiency” (Disbelief Program, 1988). Production values were as high as possible with each production listing the full range of production personnel that one would expect to see in a La Boite mainhouse show. Under the

211 Donemans’ joint direction, Vilé claimed that La Boite Youth Theatre “was put on a professional basis again” and “became one of the largest and most innovative youth organizations in Australia for about three years. That was a really exciting time in that area. It kept a connection with the Australia Council which paid off when the theatre went professional, I think” (Vilé Interview June 2, 2003: 164-165).

The Donemans developed two major projects in 1987 - The Great Circle and Debutantes from Outer Space - both culminating in full scale Youth Theatre productions and both exhibiting a distinct style that embraced a highly physical acting style, music theatre and the concept of risk taking (Debutantes from Outer Space Program, 1987). The more successful of the two, The Great Circle directed by Michael Doneman, Michael Whelan and Steven Champion, on the theme of human evolution, featured “twenty performers, spectacular circus sequences and an amazing array of percussion instruments” (La Boite Newsletter, May/June 1987, Lumer Private Collection). This kind of work was a strategic response to the Australia Council’s Youth Theatre policy “to provide young people with the opportunity to find a ‘voice’” and express it in theatrical terms (1988 Position Paper p. 4, UQFL109).

By the end of 1988, the Donemans had left to pursue new projects. There is every evidence to confirm Vilé‘s gratitude to them for the professionalizing of the Youth Theatre and the growth in La Boite’s reputation with the Australia Council for quality youth theatre, but it is also clear he was concerned that there were “hardly, if any, young people who make the transition from Youth Theatre to other La Boite activities” (ibid.: 5). Troubled that young people were not exposed to “the more traditional stage means” or “established texts” (ibid.), necessary for their graduation to ‘adult’ theatre, his appointment of Anthony Auckland as the new Youth Theatre Director shifted Youth Theatre into another direction. That ‘direction’ was given full realisation in La Boite’s first mainhouse play for 1989, a Youth Theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Anthony Auckland. In his Director’s Notes, Auckland justified this youth theatre text-based production: Over the last two years, the members of our youth theatre have presented three major performance projects to the public all of which were specially written/devised for the group.

212 It is also important that our youth explore how to express their voice through an established text. A Midsummer Night’s Dream provides an ideal text for this with its cast of young characters, comedy and theme of young love. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Program, 1989)

By 1987, Vilé had also established day-time, in-house, theatre in education shows, re- introducing quality schools’ shows that harked back to ECDP days and that now capitalized on La Boite’s renewed popularity with schools through their enthusiastic responses to mainhouse productions.

• ‘Balanced diversity’ rather than Youth Theatre expansion The breathtaking level of activity, the financial security and the innovative youth programs of Vilé’s first three years found La Boite in a position of some power in the Youth Theatre funding stakes: Interestingly, at this very point of re-development, an exciting but potentially divisive opportunity seems to present itself. There is the possibility that in the near future, a greater amount of money will be available for the development of Youth Theatre at La Boite. (1988 Position Paper p. 3, UQFL109)

He presented three choices to his Management Committee. The first was to continue with the “balanced diversity” that now strongly characterised the Theatre’s activities, and to improve its quality but not to increase it. The second was to change the emphasis from “balanced diversity” to the energetic support of the development of Youth Theatre “beyond its present status”. The third was to endorse both one and two and try to create a structure that could accommodate both (ibid.). His recommendation for choice number one, for a continuation of “balanced diversity”, was not opposed by the Management Committee. He argued that Australia Council youth theatre funding might be available now but there were no guarantees that this would continue. Vilé was also reluctant to deviate from a La Boite tradition, that harked back to Rick Billinghurst’s days as AD, of maintaining a range of activities with each afforded more or else equal status. He recommended that the Youth Theatre not expand, keep its numbers to 150 in 1989, and concentrate on quality and consolidation (ibid. p.4).

Vilé’s Exit Although just prior to his leaving, industry pressure to pay artists was creating difficulties for Vilé, the immediate impetus for his leaving was the effect La Boite

213 was having on his health: “The reason I left was a burnout question. I was directing the last show Tokyo Rose and I got the hiccups and I had the hiccups for eleven days which I think was my body saying enough is enough!” (ibid.: ll.497-499). He may have been burnt out but the ‘balanced diversity’ of his final season kept audiences coming and won industry acclaim once again at the Matilda Awards. An impressive four out of the five Matildas were awarded to artists for their work in La Boite productions including one awarded to Vilé “for his vital contribution to the enrichment of pro-am theatre in Brisbane” (ANZTR Index Dec. 1989 p.12). The citation read: Jim Vilé’s contributions have in fact been legion. His creative and enlightened programming have been responsible for the high reputation of La Boite. His administrative and artistic policy have ensured a rich cross-pollination between professional and amateur theatre and have provided a unique stepping stone for amateur actors on their way upwards and onwards. Not least, his direction of both contemporary and Shakespearean works has provided Brisbane with some of the best productions of the year. (ibid.)

Conclusion Vilé’s legacy to La Boite was most certainly its artistic and financial revitalization. John Harris said of Vilé’s contribution: “As managing artistic director since 1986, Vilé is generally acknowledged as giving a new sense of direction to La Boite, enabling it to become re-established as something unique in Australian theatre” (The Sun, Oct. 5, 1989). Although it had caused him problems, Vilé noted in this article that “he sees as one of the great assets of Brisbane theatre, the remarkable interchange of ideas and talents between professionals and non-professionals” which would be “a tragedy should it be lost” (ibid.). Yet, at the same time, he realised that the increasingly professionalized theatre industry was losing patience with a La Boite that continued to hold onto its pro-am status.

In assessing Vilé’s contribution to the forward movement of La Boite towards its eventual transformation to a fully professional company, a number of things stand out. From the beginning, he took firm control of mainhouse direction, reserving these productions for experienced directors only. The relatively small stable of directors included Vilé, Ian Leigh-Cooper, Sue Rider, and David Bell, with one-offs generally given to proven directors like Robert Arthur, Don Batchelor and Mark Radvan. In this way, he was able to maintain at least a satisfactory and often high level of product and

214 generally good and sometimes superlative reviews from theatre critics. Direction of Early Week shows he gave over to ‘trainee’ directors thus giving a number of young people the chance to learn on the job, to experiment, to take risks, but to be somewhat protected by the early week slot.

A training model was implicit in Vilé’s policy of casting professional actors (albeit mostly unpaid) alongside amateur actors and having professional production crew work alongside volunteers. He saw it as a win/win situation: “It’s an important and necessary role that La Boite fills: professionals can work in an atmosphere of amateur enthusiasm, while amateurs can learn from the professionals” (Vilé in Confronting Brisbane with Challenging New Theatre Brochure, 1989, UQFL109). In interview, he was proud to claim that “in each performing arts organization in Brisbane there was some key person who had actually found their beginning at La Boite” either from his time or earlier as “there was certainly a tradition of that” (Vilé Interview June 2, 2003: ll.470).

Under Vilé’s influence, La Boite penetrated a very significant market for its present and future success – the four Shakespeares, The Matilda Women, The Three Cuckolds, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole all drew large schools audiences. In creating a wide variety of offerings for English and Drama students, Vilé did the spade work for Sue Rider whose student-friendly programming filled the Theatre so successfully with schools’ audiences that she was eventually accused of running a theatre for schools program rather than theatre for adults.

In the end, it would seem that Vilé’s insistence on ‘balanced diversity’ was a winning policy and his decision, supported by the Management Committee, to back away from further development in Youth Theatre, was the right one and maintained the Theatre’s sense of integrity to its core values.

215 CHAPTER EIGHT The Patrick Mitchell and David Bell Eras 1990-1992

Introduction At the end of 1989, Patrick Mitchell inherited from Jim Vilé, who resigned in October of that year, a very active and successful theatre company. To all intents and purposes Mitchell, as the incoming Artistic Director, was set for a dream run in this award- winning theatre that was preparing for a major celebration in recognition of its sixty- five years of uninterrupted theatrical production. Yet by October 1990, Mitchell had resigned, choosing the very public occasion of his next year’s Program Launch to make his announcement. He was quickly replaced by David Bell, who, with the support of Pike and the La Boite Council1, took the company, under pressure from the industry, into a profit-share arrangement in 1991 as a transitional step toward the company becoming fully professional, and into its first professional season in 1992. Despite artistically successful shows, both 1991 and 1992 seasons failed financially. Unable to trade out of debt and close to bankruptcy, the Council took the controversial step of selling one of its properties, a move that upset parts of La Boite’s constituency but was deemed necessary to save the Theatre.

This chapter examines how it happened that once again La Boite slipped so quickly from success to financial crisis and near bankruptcy in pursuit of its professional ambitions. It provides an analysis of the contribution of key people – artistic directors Patrick Mitchell and David Bell, and Council Chair Philip Pike - to this difficult but significant period during which La Boite recognized that its pro-am days were numbered, and, amid serious internal and external pressures, took the first steps to transform itself into a professional organization.

1 The term ‘Management Committee’ was replaced by ‘Council’ soon after Pike’s election as Council Chair in 1990.

216 Patrick Mitchell’s One Year as Artistic Director

• A “Shattering” Experience With ten years experience as an actor and director with respected professional theatre in education companies, Mitchell, modest by nature, did not expect to be seriously considered for the position of artistic director at this nationally well-respected theatre company. Interviewed by Ian Leigh-Cooper, Jennifer Blocksidge, Bev Langford and Jill Standfield, by his own account, he was surprised to be offered the position (Mitchell Interview, Sept. 2, 2002: ll.28-29). Patrick Mitchell circa 1990, La Boite Archives.

Looking at the company in November 1989 from Mitchell’s point of view, he could be forgiven for thinking that his lack of experience would be more than made up for by an extremely competent General Manager in Jill Standfield, seven other staff, and a very experienced Council Chair, Ian Leigh-Cooper, who, like Mitchell, was an actor and director. That sense of security did not last long however. Standfield resigned very quickly after Mitchell commenced and Leigh-Cooper retired as Council Chair at the AGM in March 1990. Against the advice of Vilé, Mitchell decided to take on the role of General Manager himself rather than appoint a replacement for Standfield, thinking that the money saved could be useful elsewhere (Mitchell Interview, Sept. 2, 2002: ll. 113-114). This was a most ill-advised decision for it set in place a staffing structure that did not change when David Bell took over from Mitchell at the end of 1990.

Mitchell remembers Leigh-Cooper as “a fantastic Chair because he was available, he was an actor, he didn’t work a lot so he was at the theatre a lot” (Mitchell Interview, Sept. 2, 2002: ll. 245-246). The new Chair, Philip Pike, on the other hand, had a full time job at QPAC, was not freely available as Leigh-Cooper had been, and came with a much more corporate approach to running La Boite’s affairs. Mitchell and Pike did not get on and over the year the relationship soured. Mitchell was overwhelmed with the task at hand, at stepping into Vilé’s shoes, without a General Manager, and with

217 the expectation that he would continue the great success and popularity of Vilé’s seasons. He said, “I walked into a very, very active theatre company. There wasn’t a night the theatre was dark. They were doing, I think, about nine full productions a year plus Sunday, Monday nights were devoted to the experimental program, plus the Youth Theatre, plus there were training courses going on” (ibid.: ll.49-53). His lack of experience hindered him from taking the necessary action to prevent his situation spiralling out of control: “I wasn’t coping with the job – experience level, support levels. And I didn’t fight to say well we’ve got to pull back on the program, we’ve got to cut it in half. I was trying to deliver everything Jim had delivered with less experience, less staff, and less support” (ibid.: ll. 256-259).

One of a number of issues that contributed to “a really shattering time” (ibid.: l. 67) for Mitchell was the same one that had dogged Vilé: pressure from RQTC and TN!, from professional and would-be professional artists and production personnel, for La Boite to pay its actors and production staff - “that was one of the key influences on what happened to me … and what ultimately happened to the company in terms of it turning professional” (ibid.: ll.44-47). Only several days into the job, this issue that had been simmering for several years erupted when three of the five cash Matilda Awards once again went to professional artists for their work in La Boite productions. He recalls that “the profession was outraged” (ibid.: 44) and he was in the firing line: So I walked into that furore. What happened then was that I felt we needed to meet that issue head-on and the way to do it was to have a public forum at La Boite which was chaired by Richard Fotheringham. We invited essentially actors to come to the theatre, ostensibly to meet me but really to talk about which way for La Boite in terms of professional versus amateur, do we pay or don’t we pay and what were my plans. I have a very strong memory of Paul Bishop opening with a question to me: “How do you define ‘pro-am?’” (ibid.: ll.68-74)

This question was really beyond his experience as he had spent his working life in professional companies. Unlike Vilé, who had seemed to immediately understand the La Boite pro-am context and make it work despite growing resentment, Mitchell felt an outsider, not invited in, alienated by the strength of its history: Because I was new to Brisbane I wasn’t influenced by the story. I didn’t know where all the bodies were buried and I didn’t know what stories had been told. …it seemed to me there were a whole lot of unspoken allegiances and agreements that La Boite had entered into which didn’t result in formal contracts or anything but there was an agreed set of values that my

218 predecessors and the rest of the staff engaged in because it’s a small community. I was the newcomer, I didn’t know, I hadn’t been to those parties, I hadn’t had that coffee etc. … (ibid.: ll.169-178) Philip Pike made up his mind very quickly that La Boite’s artistic and financial viability was at stake if Mitchell continued. He and new Council member Peter Lawson “put so much pressure on him he realised he didn’t want to continue” (Pike Interview May 6, 2004: 52-53). He recalled the lead-up to his resignation: “There were a series of Board Meetings where the Board was expressing dissatisfaction and eventually said I should resign. And if I didn’t resign they’d sack me. It was shattering, it was awful. I hadn’t had a lot of experience with failure” ((Mitchell Interview, Sept. 2, 2002: ll.223-226). With dramatic flair, he carefully chose his moment to announce his resignation – the gala launch of his 1991 Season: “I basically introduced the program and at the end I said thank you for coming, I recommend the program to you, however I will not be here next year” (ibid.: ll.262-267). In what must have been one of her worst experiences as Publicity and Promotions Officer, Herbert recalled that “People were dumbfounded because he had only been there such a short time (Herbert Interview, Oct. 10, 2003: 202-214). She attributed his resignation to “stress ... and the job wasn’t what he thought it would be and he didn’t think he could do it to the best of his ability. He recognised his shortcomings. I could see that he was struggling” (ibid.: l. 218-220).

• Despite everything - a successful season Most probably, this was the worst year of Mitchell’s career. Yet, there were successes too for Mitchell and the negative aspects of the year should not be allowed to overshadow the year’s achievements to which he contributed significantly. Granted that it was mainly Vilé’s program that he actioned in 1990, nevertheless he delivered a successful season with five of the plays achieving good box office returns. Hits of the season were Bouncers directed by David Bell and Little Shop of Horrors directed by Gerowyn Lacaze and Paul Dellit. Other box office successes were Mitchell’s own production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Jennifer Rogers’ Jigsaw directed by Hilary Beaton, and Peta Murray’s Wallflowering directed by Annette Downs. And despite his inexperience with financial matters, Mitchell managed a very respectable surplus of $46,724 by the end of 1990 (Brisbane Repertory Theatre Balance Sheet as at 31st December 1991).

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David Bell’s Eighteen Months as Artistic Director • Industry pressure to transform into a professional company

Mitchell’s sudden resignation provided the catalyst for the Council to decide the time was right to cautiously proceed towards transforming La Boite into a fully professional theatre company. Pressure from the industry had caused considerable angst for both Vilé and Mitchell and could not be ignored. La Boite could no longer cling onto its pro-am status by

David Bell circa 1990 arguing its value as a ‘training ground’ for artists and (La Boite Archives) technicians who could then seek employment in the profession. Courses at the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Southern Queensland had taken over this role, each year graduating trained actors and technicians who wanted paid employment. Philip Pike acknowledged these pressures in his address to members at the AGM, April 6, 1992, explaining why the decision had been made to proceed cautiously towards creating a professional theatre company: A new professional awareness was growing – particularly with the large numbers of young and talented actors graduating from various tertiary institutions coming onto the scene. They were all seeking work as professionals. They had also largely replaced the old situation where actors came up the long way through amateur productions and graduated through places like La Boite into the semi-professional ranks and some into the professional theatre. It soon became clear that where once actors worked for nothing at La Boite the actors and the professional performing arts community were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with this situation. (Minutes of AGM, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection) At this same meeting, Brisbane actor Veronica Neave, speaking on behalf of her professional colleagues, stated categorically that professional actors would not work at La Boite any more without pay (ibid.).

• Bell’s appointment Of those interviewed for the job, Pike recalls that Bell was “by far the most outstanding candidate because he came with product” (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004:

220 ll.60-61). Unlike Mitchell, who had no previous history with La Boite, Queenslander Bell had begun his career as a designer at La Boite in the 1970s, but directing soon became his passion, and over the years he directed eleven La Boite productions including his latest, the highly successful Bouncers in 1990. He had impressive directing credits with RQTC (and was its Resident Director in 1990), TN!, Townsville’s New Moon Theatre Company, The Queensland Ballet, Sydney’s One Extra Dance Company and The Ensemble, and the Albany Empire in London2. In introducing Bell as the new artistic director at the AGM, 1991, Pike confidently declared “one thing I’m certain of – and that is that David Bell is the right man at the right time – I assure him of Council’s belief in him and his abilities – and assure him of our support for the coming years” (Council Chair’s AGM Report, March 25, 1991, Lumer Private Collection).

Bell took the position on the understanding that La Boite was going to become a professional company under his artistic directorship - “and everyone seemed to think that was a great idea. In fact everyone was saying this is what we want. So that’s why I took the job, and that’s how I saw my mission, believing of course that I had the support of the Council” (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.248-250). But from the start, the Council did not support him in one very important way: it let Bell embark on La Boite’s most perilous journey to date – the transition from pro-am to professional – without a dedicated general manager. If the recent history of La Boite had taught the Council Chair and Councillors anything, then it should have been that no one person can effectively take on the dual roles of artistic director and general manager.

• New Queensland Government Arts Policy forces professional issue Pike’s plan to proceed cautiously towards professionalizing La Boite was soon jeopardized by a Queensland Government change in Arts policy. Having finally defeated the Bjelke-Petersen Government in 1989, the new Queensland Labor Government led by Premier Wayne Goss pursued, in the early 1990s, a policy of rationalization of Brisbane theatre companies and an expansionist arts policy in

2 In 1984 Bell was awarded the Loudon Sainthill Scholarship for Australian Stage design. He received a Director’s Development Grant from the Australia Council in Contemporary Opera and Music Theatre in 1988, a Creative Development Grant with designer Bill Haycock for a visual theatre project in 1989, and an Australia-Japan Scholarship to further his study of Japanese Theatre (On The Verge Program, 1991).

221 regional Queensland (Milne, 2004: 290). Part of that rationalization was the Arts Division’s announcement that, after the end of the 1991/1992 financial year, it would cease funding amateur companies. So, under the threat of no on-going Arts Division funding after June 1992, the Theatre had no option but to press forward with an urgent plan to professionalize the company: It was felt that we should fast-track our plans to become a fully-professional company by January, 1992 so that we would have a professional track record to enable us to receive annual funding as a professional company from both the Arts Division and the Australia Council for the calendar year 1993. (Bell’s AD Report to AGM, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection)

• Profit-share as a transitional step to a professional company Mitchell had in place his 1991 subscription season of eight mainhouse plays in published brochure form. Bell decided to go ahead with the first four of these plays on the usual pro-am basis but to re-work the second half of the season with his own set of five productions which would operate on a profit-share basis. In a media release to the Brisbane press, he stated, under the headline “LA BOITE ANNOUNCES CHANGE IN DIRECTION”: From July 1, La Boite will operate as a profit share company. This means that almost half the Box Office income will go directly to the actors and backstage crew of each production. The move has been in the planning stages for some time and is viewed as a transitional step towards becoming a professional company in the not too distant future. (Media Release, 28 May, 1991, Kerwitz Private Collection).

To go from one plan in which the major fee (if any) for each production was the director’s fee to a second plan in which five of those productions now also included actors wages, box office split, and some additional fees for sound, lighting and set designers, without this manoeuvre being properly negotiated by a General Manager, was to head into trouble. In financial terms, the ‘trouble’ La Boite found itself in was a disturbingly large loss of $123,313.00 for the year ended 31st December 1991. Bell reported, “Although productions were generally well received – as was the shift towards professional status - increased expenditure on productions coupled with too great a dependence on box office has meant that we face 1992 with severe financial difficulties” (Bell’s AD Report to AGM, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection).

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• Membership response to ‘professional’ decision Parts of La Boite’s constituency may have supported the move towards professionalism as Bell suggested, but many members who had enjoyed the opportunities for amateur involvement within a pro-am context, were resistant. Membership had increased rapidly between 1990 and 1991, from approximately 195 in 1990 to approximately 356 in 1991 (Auditor’s Report to The Members of Brisbane Repertory Theatre, March 10, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). Despite this healthy number, a quorum of twenty members was not reached on the original date for the 1992 AGM (Letter to members, March 31, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). Member Rod Lumer, who emerged as an informal spokesperson for those members concerned about the Theatre’s future during this period, put this down to disillusionment with the move to professional status. In a letter he wrote to the Chair, Philip Pike, he stated: With regard to the changeover from amateur to pro-am to professional, the fact that the first call for an Annual General Meeting on 30 March failed miserably to attract even a quorum must reflect the general lack of perceived involvement by the members. The turnout on 6 April attracted many professionals anxious to pay their membership fees to ensure their voting rights. (Letter from Lumer to Pike, 13 April, 1992, Lumer Private Collection)

In mounting an argument, on behalf of other like-minded members, for a continuation of amateur theatre within the new professional context, he wrote: I contend that, despite David Bell’s assertion to the contrary, the general public do support amateur [theatre] and that there is a strong argument that amateur theatre deserves a place in the scheme of things – without denying the professional theatre a right to its place. Apart from the fact that La Boite Theatre was built by followers of amateur theatre for the use of amateurs (training, pastime, social etc.) it should be remembered by the professionals that there are many reasons for actors wishing to remain amateur, not the least of which is the desire for some financial security. If professional actors are happy to cross the Rubicon then they must fight for their own security, not take it at the expense of the amateurs.

Following upon this argument, I see no reason why La Boite Theatre cannot plan a mix of professional and amateur productions through the year. To have the theatre ‘dark’ costs more than it does to present a production which just breaks even – because the theatre is seen by the public to be ‘dark’. Most amateur productions make money (and kudos for the theatre) and the theatre would thus benefit financially. (ibid.)

223 Lumer was also concerned about three other issues: his perception of Bell as not having his mind fully on his role as Artistic Director of La Boite because of his directing commitments with RQTC; his uneasiness with the profit-share system; and his fear that La Boite property was going to be sold to create capital to offset the recent financial loss, without the membership being consulted. Although it is not unusual for artistic directors to accept ‘outside’ work, given the extreme circumstances of the time, in retrospect it would be hard to disagree that it was ill- advised on Council’s part not to have the artistic director devoting 100% of his time to the business of running La Boite. As Lumer commented: I feel there should be some debate on David Bell’s position as professional Artistic Director of La Boite. I have the greatest admiration for David’s ability and his past results. Nevertheless, in the past the Artistic Director has had the responsibility of formulating policy and overseeing all the productions in the theatre, of the smooth running of the organisation as a whole, of the training of personnel and the selection of plays and their directors, taking a hand in the direction of some of the plays themselves. Since David has taken over the reins at La Boite and its becoming professional, there has been an increase in the time the theatre is ‘dark’, a cessation of much of the activity in the theatre (excluding the Actors’ Centre, which is aimed primarily at the professional actor3) and yet David is directing for RQTC again4. (Letter to Philip Pike, 30 January, 1992, Lumer Private Collection).

Financial records provided no clear indication of how the profit-share system was operated. The Auditor’s Report shows that the profit-share productions paid an appropriate fee to the guest directors, lighting, set, sound and costume designers (where applicable) and a small amount appears for actors wages eg. $500 for Burn This, with a cast of four (BRT Financial Statement for the year ended Dec. 31, 1991, Lumer Private Collection). Then, there was a box-office split for each production eg. $11,142 for Burn This, but no indication which personnel benefited from this split (ibid.). As two of the four productions made a loss yet box office splits still occurred, Lumer was prompted to ask the question which did not seem to have been considered: “In any profit share venture, should the amount shared amongst those entitled to a share be allowed to exceed the profits, thereby turning a profitable venture into a loss?” (op.cit.)

3 The Actors’ Centre was set up in 1990 to provide classes for actors in voice, movement, acting techniques, comedy, music theatre, makeup etc. It lasted until 1994. 4 Bell directed for RQTC The Game of Love and Chance in July 1991 and The Marriage of Figaro in May 1992.

224

On the issue of a possible property sale as a way to ease the financial pressure, he wrote: I understand that the Board has the constitutional right to buy and sell property. Nevertheless, the buildings which have been purchased and are presently owned by La Boite for the use of the theatre should not, I maintain, be disposed of without the members being consulted. Such action should be resisted as far as humanly possible but, should their sale become imperative, they are assets which may prove to be of far greater value when the market strengthens. (ibid.)

The Three Professional Productions Plan for 1992 At this point, Bell still had the courage, determination and “a new corporate plan” to get through this difficult time and urged all involved “to maintain their passion for the theatre in the difficult transition phase from pro-am to professional operations. La Boite can survive with the combined efforts of Council, staff, actors and the paying public” (AGM Minutes, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). The plan for 1992 was to mount three La Boite professional productions and to complete the season with co-productions and outside hires.

To get this plan underway, Bell and the Council had support from both the Arts Division and the Australia Council. Arts Division Production Grants of $40,000 each were received for Mirandolina and The Idiot and the Australia Council granted $32,330 for Horrortorio (BRT Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). In addition there was a $53,000 Arts Division General Grant and $3,000 for Youth Theatre, plus $35,000 from the Australia Council for La Byte Youth Theatre5 (ibid.).

The publicity brochure for season one 1992, which Bell produced with designer Bill Haycock, was an eye-catching, newspaper-type design that looked like nothing else La Boite had ever produced. It was original and bold. Headed LIVE AT LA BOITE the initial blurb read:

5 Under Susan Richer’s artistic direction, the name ‘La Byte’ was adopted as the new name for the youth theatre.

225 Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality? What is that? They’re all talking about it. Scientists. You hook yourself up to a computer, put on a helmet, stare into a video screen then try to pretend you’re having a good time – and it costs you a million bucks. Forget it. Like the man says: “There is nothing like being there.” He’s right. And that’s just what La Boite gives you. Your chance of seeing some of the wildest, most extraordinary stories from the last 250 years or so! For just a few dollars more than going to the movies you can experience the thrill of live theatre. And at La Boite you’re so close to the actors you can almost feel the electricity coming off the stage at you! (La Boite Live Brochure, 1992)

• Financial failure of first professional season leads to property sale The swift change from pro-am to fully professional without the appropriate financial planning led La Boite once again into murky financial waters. The season was a financial disaster and the loss by the end of the year was $114,686 (BRT Balance Sheet as at 31st December, 1992, Lumer private Collection). To counteract at least some of the debt, the Council made the decision to sell one of the properties from which it gleaned a capital profit of $75,610 (ibid.). Pike recalls: So we decided that the only thing we could do to save the theatre was, rather than to borrow the money, which was a possibility because it was asset rich and cash strapped - well, when I say asset rich, it had assets but no money – was to sell one of the properties. And then we auctioned off that back house, because even though we used it as a costume department it really was beyond any purpose or function other than that. (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.104-109) Bell resented the Council’s interpretation of the property sale as a disaster rather than recognizing it as a sensible step to support a very expensive transformational move: When times were getting tough, and they were, the first season with Mirandolina hadn’t been financially successful, and of course the company was in trouble financially and there was “Oh my god, we’ll have to sell the family silver!” So, yes, use some of the assets if you genuinely want to do that, but they just couldn’t get their heads around that and thought that was a terrible thing that had happened. So they treated it as a disaster instead of going, “Well, if we are going to have a lot more outgoings than we’ve ever had before, we’re going to need to raise the cash somewhere. We’re not getting it from government. We’ve got all this money in assets, it’s raining, I think it’s time to put up the umbrella”. But they didn’t actually see it that way. (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.381-391) Pike’s explanation for the way the first fully professional season got so out of hand was Bell’s lack of book-keeping skills, which raises the question of why the Council executive was not keeping a closer eye on matters, especially given the lack of a dedicated General Manager:

226 … we agreed that we would mount fewer productions but make them professional productions so that the allocated budgets for two shows would go into one. So we tried that and it wasn’t altogether unsuccessful on the surface of things but because David didn’t have any skills in book-keeping …what Peter [Lawson – the new Treasurer) and I discovered when we looked at the audited statements after he had been there a few months was …that contrary to what we had understood to be part of his artistic vision and his financial plan for the year’s activity was not happening. The productions were successful but they were probably budgeted on 95% capacity or something like that. They were budgeted on a bigger capacity than they got, although they were still successful artistically. (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.68-79)

• A case of fraud deepens the debt Pike and Lawson found something else when they investigated the books – at least $20,000 appeared to be missing (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.84-97). At the beginning of 1992, a Finance Officer (with no previous connection with La Boite) was appointed to the La Boite staff through a Commonwealth Government Scheme designed to assist people back into the workforce. The Commonwealth Government paid the salary in exchange for the valuable work experience provided by La Boite. On investigation however, it was revealed that this employee had paid herself a second salary – easy to do as she had control of the finances of the Theatre (ibid.). It transpired that she had recently been released from prison for embezzlement and had formerly been a Chartered Accountant (ibid.). Although the Council attempted to recover the loss through the justice system, it was unsuccessful and in the end the amount had to be written off (ibid.). This was an additional blow at a time when the Theatre was already seriously in debt.

• A deteriorating situation During this difficult six months, Bell recalls that he tried to come up with a strategic plan, but found it impossible to involve the Council or the staff: I had been trying to get the Board to do strategic planning and they basically wanted to palm it back on Rosemary [Herbert], and I was saying, “Well, it’s got to happen as a whole joint thing with the Board and the staff, so that we all understand, we all make the decisions, we’ve all got to be there and we all envisage the future and we all try to work out how to get there and we will try and develop programs that will allow us to make that happen”. Well, in all the time I was there as artistic director, I could not get a strategic planning session happening and I don’t mind that going on the record. I absolutely could not get it. People were busy “Oh, I can’t do it this month”. People were kind of “No,

227 no, no we can’t do it” but I could never get them to commit – no-one was committing.

What I needed was to write a mission statement. The company didn’t have a mission statement amazingly. I suppose it had never thought of it because as an amateur theatre you don’t really need one. In a way you coast along on a wave of enthusiasm and people’s ideas, that seems good. But as a professional organization receiving government money you’ve just got to have it. So I was trying to get strategic planning so we could develop a mission statement. And I remember there was a Board meeting where we’d got a letter from Arts Queensland really saying “Where is your Mission Statement?” That was one of the things that had to be forthcoming. And I remember someone on the Board turned to me and said, “We need it and we need it now. Just write it now!” And I said “If I just write it, it’s my mission statement for the theatre, it’s not ours, this is just insane” but that’s what they wanted and that was a big breaking point for me. I thought, “This is just crazy”. (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.357-379)

In the end, Bell felt “I’m the only one in the canoe heading for the rapids” (ibid.: ll.392-393). He felt there was no meeting point between him and the Council, a governing body which he thought had not understood what this move to a professional company might entail, had not properly planned for it, and had not supported him in his endeavours to make it happen: The Board I don’t think truly understood the ramifications of being a professional theatre company, because they were used to not paying anybody. I think they thought “why should people be paid really?” You know, they owned all that property. They owned the theatre which was fantastic for them, and they also owned the house next door and that other house in Sheriff Street. So they were property owners and they were able to build that up basically by not paying anybody. So I don’t think they had really understood the real ramifications of it and the commitment that you need to make that happen. (ibid.: ll.347-355) With one distressing event after the other occurring in fast succession, it was not surprising that the relationship between Bell and Pike failed completely by the middle of 1992. A confrontational meeting between Bell, Pike and Lawson in Pike’s office at QPAC ended with Bell’s resignation. He recalled that devastating time and the injustice he felt – and still feels- that he was blamed for the failure of this transitional period: I just couldn’t work to those sorts of conditions or work in that way any more. And much to my great heartache, I left. And I think I was made to feel a failure. I think there was great resentment from them towards me. I think they blamed me for causing the destruction, almost causing the destruction of the company. Whereas they just didn’t want to commit to what they were doing

228 and didn’t really understand what was going to be necessary. It’s not a difficult thing to think through I think. (ibid.: ll.393-398)

In employing him as Managing Artistic Director, Bell felt “the Council wanted to have its cake and eat it too” (ibid.: ll.324-325), pleased to have an artistic director of his calibre but foisting financial management onto him as well – “I said I had no track record as a manager at that point” (ibid. ll.335-336) - without fully realising the enormity of the financial issues surrounding their proposed move to professional status. Indeed, this seems to have been the crux of the matter. Rosemary Herbert’s reflection is that “the artistic directors [Mitchell and Bell] had not been given proper support staff by the Board” and that “the Board should have had more hindsight” (Herbert Interview, October 10, 2003: ll.158-160).

Bell’s Artistic Work • The 1991 Season Season one of 1991 ran as a normal pro-am season, the final one, as it turned out. From Mitchell’s four plays for 1991, only two were box office and critical successes: Vilé’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was particularly popular with schools, and the Australian premiere of the American musical Angry Housewives directed by Gerowyn Lacaze and Paul Dellit.

Season two, Bell’s profit-share season, could not have been more different. David Bell came to La Boite with a fine reputation as a director. As artistic director of a company that was on the way to becoming a professional theatre company, he was able to gather around him the best and most exciting acting, directing and design talent in Brisbane for the second half of 1991. For his profit share season of five plays his company included Sally McKenzie, Paul Bishop, Joss McWilliam, Darryl Hukins, Charles Barry, Eugene Gilfedder, Jennifer Flowers, Andrew Buchanan, Bill Haycock, Christen O’Leary, Jacqui Carroll, Stephen Davis, David Berthold, Rebecca Riggs, Beth Child, Christopher Smith and John Nobbs (Media Release 28 May, 1991; Programs, Kerwitz Private Collection). This was an impressive gathering for a first season that was risky to say the least, as La Boite was stepping into completely new territory.

229 The season was different in another significant way: of the four plays that were Bell’s choices, not one was Australian. Three were British – Road by Jim Cartwright, Bouncers by John Godber, When I was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout by Sharman Macdonald - and one was American, Burn This by Lanford Wilson. The fifth piece - Briefings for a Descent into Hell - was an original dance theatre work directed by Jacqui Carroll and designed by John Nobbs. Bell was clearly bringing to La Boite a style of theatre that reflected his own preoccupations with highly theatrical, contemporary, risky drama that challenged director, actor, designers and audiences.

Of all the plays in his season, Bouncers by John Godber, directed and designed by Bell6, was an outstanding critical and box office success, although Burn This directed by Jennifer Flowers and Road directed by David Berthold drew strong critical response and only reasonable box-office return. Of Burn This, Kiernander, while critical of some of the acting, commented on the noticeable difference professional set and lighting design made to the space: Burn This by popular American playwright Lanford Wilson marks a turning point for La Boite Theatre – a move towards full professional status. It’s probably the kind of play we’ll see more of in this small space – a cast of four actors, no expensive effects and a single set.

Some things bode well for the future. The look of the production designed by Bill Haycock and lit by David Walters, for once gives the intimate space a sense of expansiveness. A minimalist New York loft is created with some stylish bleached wooded furniture, the rest of the space divided up by three vertical posts against a subtle monochrome background of the New York cityscape.

The lighting further divides the space making it seem not only larger than it is but also appropriately tasteful. (The Australian, July 15, 1991, in ANZTR, July, 1991, p.2)

Road, set in working class Lancashire on the theme of unemployment, was innovative, risky contemporary theatre. Kiernander wrote: David Berthold’s production uses rough energy, loud noise and desperate commitment to give a disturbing account of this script, which is always on the verge of shaking itself to pieces. Its fragemented structure is reflected in Alan Swapp’s design, where the audience is deprived of the stability of fixed seating in the midst of squalid surroundings.

6 David Bell received a 1991 Matilda Award for his direction of Bouncers at La Boite and The Game of Love and Chance at RQTC

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It makes huge demands on an audience’s understanding and concentration, and its final vision is bleak – a quartet of despairing kids decides for once to forsake the anaesthetic of passionless sex and instead engage in a defiant frenzy of binge drinking. After an explosion of cathartic but self-destructive violence, they chant a hollowed-out litany of hope: “Somehow, I somehow, somehow might escape”.

…if this production can find the audience it deserves, and link up with the anger, frustration and despair which is now rife, it stands a chance of provoking debate and action. It might stimulate the Australian theatre to take itself and its immediate social responsibilities more seriously. (The Australian, Sept. 27, 1991)

The bold choice of plays in Bell’s seasons set it apart from RQTC and even TN! which was forced to reduce its 1991 season because of their own financial troubles. Peta Koch commented: La Boite made the move to profit-share status this year. Bell showed he is willing to let the company put itself on the line and be a substantial alternative to RQTC by programming such prickly fare as Road, Burn This and When I Was a Girl I Used To Scream and Shout. (The Courier Mail, Dec. 31, 1991 in ANZTR, December 1991, p.10)

• First Professional Season – an artistic assessment Again, the three plays in his first professional season were all highly theatrical in form, and all were very demanding on actors’ technique, skill and versatility.

The first production, Goldoni’s comic masterpiece Mirandolina in a new translation by David Clendinning, was directed by Bell, designed by Bill Haycock, lit by David Walters and starred Justine Anderson and Anthony Phelan. Bell reported that “While getting off to an uneasy start, the production settled down shortly after the opening and built a very strong audience by the end of the season” (AGM Minutes, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). His second play was even more successful. The Idiot adapted from Dostoyevsky by Gerald McLarnon was directed by Jennifer Flowers, designed by Bill Haycock, lit by David Walters, featuring actors Veronica Neave, Joss McWilliam, Liesel Badorrek and Peter Lamb earned high praise from the critics. Sue Gough wrote: “Every now and again, amid the general run of adequacy, a production surfaces to redefine what really good theatre is all about. The Australian premiere of The Idiot at La Boite in Brisbane is such a production” (Bulletin/Newsweek, May 12, 1992 in ANZTR, May 1992, p.1). Kiernander wrote

231 “Coming when La Boite’s future is in such jeopardy, this is a timely reminder of what this intimate theatre-in-the-round can do at its best, and what will be lost if it is allowed to go under” (The Australian, May 5, 1992 in ANZTR, May 1992, p.1). Both Jennifer Flowers and Veronica Neave won Matilda Awards for The Idiot and Peter Lamb earned a commendation (AGM 1993 Artistic Director’s Report, Sue Rider Private Collection).

Bell’s production of Horrotorio, a gothic musical, was a new Australian work by Ailsa Piper, Tony Taylor and Denise Wharmby. Previously workshopped with Stephen Sondheim at the Cameron Mackintosh music theatre workshop, it was a “look back to the golden age of 19th century song, parlours, piano and pairs of singers” (Horrotorio Program, 1992). Directed by Bell, with musical director John Colwill, designer Christopher Smith, lighting designer David Walters, it starred nationally acclaimed actor Valerie Bader with Christen O’Leary and Darryl Hukins (ibid.). In her first artistic director’s report in 1993, Sue Rider commented that Horrotorio was a bold venture for La Boite which could not find an audience: To take on a new work at a time of financial uncertainty showed great faith in the piece, something which is often missing where Australian writers are concerned. In the event, however, despite well-praised performances and production values, Horrotorio never really took off and the season closed with disappointingly low attendances. (AD’s AGM Report 1993, Rider Private Collection)

For the second part of his season, Bell had programmed Love Burns and Body Slam as La Boite co-productions with Opera Queensland and Rock N Roll Circus, respectively. His vision was “to bring in that wilder flavour, odder mix of forms and stuff and try to create something new, I guess, not just churn out plays”(Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.412-414). With Bell’s resignation, La Boite withdrew from these productions, but Opera Queensland and Rock N Roll Circus were committed to them, and within a few months of his resignation, Bell was back at La Boite employed by these companies to direct these productions: …the irony is they were both hugely successful. I just found that hilarious. And there I was back!...Body Slam went on and had three years of touring in it and the Opera saw Love Burns as a big step forward for them, a total change in the kind of work they presented. I was very happy with that. (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.441-442; 447-449)

232 Successful as these two productions were, they were not La Boite product and, after the July 11 close of Horrotorio, there were no more La Boite productions for the year. Instead, as Bell had planned, QUT took over the Theatre for a substantial period of time for a season showcasing the Drama Department’s graduating acting and technical production students. And there were two successful shows that La Boite entrepreneured – Walking on Sticks by Sarah Cathcart and Andrea Lemon and Toni Lamond, her one woman show (AGM Minutes, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection and Artistic Director’s Report AGM 1993, Rider Private Collection).

An Analysis of Survival and Transition in Traumatic Times At the April 6, 1992 AGM, Chairperson Philip Pike acknowledged that “the transition from pro-am to professional is difficult” but confidently predicted that “our long term goals” would be achievable “with David Bell’s clear artistic vision and new financial controls to be implemented with the help of R.F.Kooymans”7 (AGM Minutes, April 6, 1992, Lumer Private Collection). There is evidence to show, from my analysis of Bell’s two seasons, that indeed he had a “clear artistic vision”, one that favoured highly theatrical, innovative works; works that crossed artistic boundaries blending dance, circus and opera with theatre; that had an impulse to take audiences to risky and demanding theatrical places. His reputation in the Brisbane and national performing arts community was a powerful force in drawing around him outstanding artists for every one of his productions. His profit share and professional productions showcased the transformational possibilities of the La Boite space through his employment of the most talented professional set and lighting designers in Brisbane. He introduced to La Boite audiences three exciting professional directors – Jennifer Flowers, David Berthold and Jacqui Carroll. His actors were the new breed of young professionals, most already with a body of work behind them from TN! and RQTC.

There was a brilliance and a daring about Bell’s artistic work that is still distinctive in La Boite’s history. Flawed as that first professional season in 1992 might have been, its artistic merit should not be lost in the mire of nastiness surrounding the financial troubles that accompanied Bell’s time as artistic director.

7 Ralph Kooymans was Principal of R.F.Kooymans & Co. Chartered Accountants. The company continued to audit La Boite’s financial statements until 1998, when it was replaced by Hausler McDonald Whitelaw.

233

Personality clashes with Pike and the staff - Pike found him “abrasive” (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: l.63) – simply compounded the downward spiral of financial losses and the loss of faith in Bell. The lack of cohesion and mutual support between the artistic director, the Council and the staff, for complex reasons, led to a complete breakdown of communication and the inevitable walking away by Bell from a situation that had no resolution. It was a painful end: “There was no goodbye, there was nothing. It was ‘we’ll just turn our back while you quietly leave the building’. It was absolutely dreadfully done” (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.421-422).

Constitutionally, the control of the Theatre was vested in the Council and the Advisory Committee consisting of the Artistic Director, the General Manager (in this case, one person) and the Staff Representative (AGM Agenda & Minutes, March 5, 1989 UQFL109). So legally the responsibility for the financial failure of the theatre in 1991 and 1992 was not the artistic director’s alone – it was a shared responsibility.

The crux of the problem was undoubtedly the lack of wisdom in allowing the inexperienced Mitchell to run a complex organization without a General Manager and then appointing Bell as Managing Artistic Director when he too had no track record as either a manager of administrative staff or as a financial manager. Aware of this history, in 1993 the Queensland Arts Ministry insisted on the appointment of a General Manager (or Administrator, as the position was first called) as one of the conditions of La Boite receiving a $100,000 loan, later converted to a one-off grant that helped the Theatre’s financial recovery (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll. 462- 464). The appointment of Deborah Murphy as Administrator coincided exactly with the beginning date of the new artistic director, Sue Rider, and was a strong indication that this error of judgment was acknowledged by all parties.

Lack of appropriate staff support was a major problem but the question of artistic viability was also an important issue. Pike recognized that neither Mitchell nor Bell was interested in delivering the kind of artistic program that had appeal to a wide enough audience to guarantee a healthy box office return. Both wanted to create the kind of program that appealed to them as artists without enough concern for the financial rationality of their programs.

234

In this time of a national economic recession, Pike and his Council did not hesitate to make hard decisions about the direction La Boite needed to go. Traumatic as this period was for both Mitchell and Bell who were on the receiving end of these decisions, Pike’s hardnosed leadership and Peter Lawson’s tough stance on its financial management got La Boite out of a desperate situation and helped it turn the corner from near bankruptcy to become, within several years, Brisbane’s successful alternative professional theatre company. This would not have been achievable however, without the Queensland Government’s decision to financially support La Boite.

In 1991, La Boite was not the only Brisbane theatre company experiencing financial troubles. TN! never fully recovered from the financial failure of its Expo ’88 season and, in the wake of the already mentioned change of government in 1989 and revised arts policies, found itself a victim of politics in 1991: …an arts bureaucracy appointed by a new Labor State Government was developing new systems and policies. There was a prevailing belief that under the old National Party regime the performing arts, the mainstream theatre companies in particular, had been privileged for many years. TN! fought a losing battle to retain the subsidies that were essential to its survival. (Batchelor and Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 618)

In line with its policy of rationalization, the new Goss Labor Government Arts Division had decided it would fund just one major alternative company to RQTC. There were two contenders: TN! and La Boite. Despite its recent financial losses, the decision was made in La Boite’s favour. According to Milne, it “could have gone either way” ” (2004: 290). He argued that: … the professional TN! could have got the nod, or it could have gone to the semi-professional La Boite. TN!’s members had some right to feel aggrieved when the mantle fell on La Boite with the proviso that it adopt a fully professional structure by 1993. (ibid.) Milne suggests that La Boite was favoured because, in the years since the Goss Government came to power (1989 to1991), it had included “seven works by women authors (six Australian), three music-theatre pieces and a contemporary dance piece, plus the exposure of Australian playwrights not seen elsewhere in Brisbane” showing it “really was different enough to warrant ongoing attention” (Milne, 2004: 291).

235

This is one attempt at an explanation, but a fairly unsatisfactory one. While it could be argued that TN! was in deep financial trouble as well, and indeed had a history of financial difficulties, TN! was already a professional company with a proven track record of artistic and managerial success especially during Rod Wissler’s five years as artistic director to 1987. Pike’s view is that the financial collapse that put TN! out of business by the end of 1991, was to some extent due to poor handling by Greg Andrews and the Arts Division and “bad advice to the Arts Minister” on TN!’s situation (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.150-151). When La Boite looked as though it too was going under financially in 1992, Pike believes that the Arts Division, not wanting to be held responsible for allowing another theatre company to collapse and disappear – “they just didn’t want it to happen again” (ibid.: l.152) – stepped in quickly with a rescue package for La Boite.

However, that La Boite owned its own iconic building as well as surrounding property appears to have been a major factor in its capacity to survive, alongside the powerful advocacy of the politically savvy Council Chair Philip Pike and Treasurer Peter Lawson. Said Pike: “The transition from pro-am theatre to professional theatre would not have been possible if La Boite, its unique place and role and history hadn’t served it so well. It had the big plus of a freehold property” (ibid.: ll.186-189). He believed property ownership was key to La Boite’s survival at this time: That’s why TN! lost out because they were just camping somewhere else. If nothing else, La Boite could have declared itself bankrupt and just reverted to being an amateur theatre company again, and started all over again. Because that’s the advantage of having the property on the corner and the two adjoining properties. (ibid.: ll.194-198)

In 1992 Pike and Lawson “had to negotiate with the government to save the theatre from bankruptcy” (AGM Minutes, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). Part of the negotiation was the sale of one of the cottages to ‘supplement government funding’ which initially was a grant of $225,000 for La Boite and $18,000 for La Byte Youth Theatre, announced by the Queensland Arts Minister Dean Wells in November 1992 (ANZTR “November Chronicle”, November 1992 p.98). About the same time, the Queensland Arts Division gave La Boite a loan of $100,000. As soon as the other conditions insisted upon by the Queensland Government were in place – the

236 appointment of a new Artistic Director and a General Manager - that loan was converted to a one-off grant on July 1, 1993 (op. cit.).

Pike’s contribution to La Boite was acknowledged by Rider in her farewell to him as Chair in March 1994 after “four full and extraordinary years in that position” (AGM Minutes, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). She said: Without wishing to dwell too much on the past, I will simply say that La Boite would not be where it is today without Philip. This is not an idle cliché. Philip – together with Peter [Lawson] – led La Boite through and out of a severe crisis in 1992, probably more severe than many people realise. It was their courage, their tenacity, their determination, and their love for the place that kept it going. History will record the debt that La Boite owes to Philip’s chairmanship. It should also record the warmth of his friendship and his unshakeable love of the arts. (ibid.)

Conclusion The data from this era suggests that there was an array of reasons for Patrick Mitchell’s short-lived term as artistic director. His relative inexperience in artistic direction at this level, his disillusionment that La Boite was not as experimental a space as he had thought, his too willing acceptance of the additional role of general manager, industry pressure to pay actors and production staff, plus an unproductive relationship with Philip Pike, all added up to an untenable situation and his resignation after less than a year.

At the official level, Bell’s role in professionalizing La Boite was downplayed or even ignored, most probably because of the financial failure of Bell’s time as Artistic Director and the antagonism that existed between him, the Council and staff. Whilst he acknowledges that La Boite, during his time, was not yet funded as a fully professional company, he considers this to be “splitting hairs” (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: l.493) when faced with the reality of at least his three professional productions in the first half of 1992, if not his profit-share productions of 1991. That it hasn’t been acknowledged has been an ongoing disappointment to Bell. He recalled what he considers the “revisionist” view of history holding sway in the public forum of the 1993 Matilda Awards: I was still in Brisbane and Sue Rider had just taken over, about 1993 – and it was at a Matilda Awards at QPAC where Sue was talking about how, under her, La Boite was a professional theatre company. And I remember I was up

237 the back just appalled and Aubrey Mellor came up to me absolutely shocked and said “this is terrible, how can this be?” And what can you do except keep reminding people it’s not the truth. (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll.502-507) Bell’s view is that the very passion and sense of “personal ownership” that La Boite was able to engender in people, and which I argue rescued the Theatre from disaster on a number of occasions, was also responsible for writing out of history the contribution of those who were not well liked: I’m not trying for any moment to say that my time as artistic director was a bed of roses at all and, looking back at it, I probably made some poor choices in programming for whatever reasons. I don’t at all say it was all brilliant. But all I want is for the record to be set straight and for the work of the people who worked with me to be recognised. All those actors, directors. There was a proper professional theatre and I just find it astonishing that that’s not acknowledged in any kind of positive way .... It’s almost like a culture where things aren’t acknowledged, maybe because there is a sense of personal ownership by everyone who works there. I think that’s an interesting point, that sense of personal ownership, that factions build, “Oh, I really like that person so they’re everything” etc. (ibid.: ll.513-523)

While official documents such as the 1993 and 1994 AGM Reports dealt with Bell and his contribution in a muted tone that suggested his time was best forgotten, rocky as that road was during his time, Bell did set up a professional context for the company and adopted a professional stance that made La Boite a possible alternative to an ailing TN! as the second funded theatre company.

238 CHAPTER NINE The Sue Rider Era 1993 to 2000

Sue Rider circa 1993, La Boite Archives Introduction Three women before her – Sisley, Stephens and Blocksidge - had served the Theatre, as Sue Rider was to do, for sustained periods of time, but none had begun their term with the odds seemingly so stacked against them. La Boite was in serious debt, there was no guaranteed ongoing funding, no La Boite plays had been produced since July 1992, a reduced staff was suffering low morale, and most significantly, at the root of all these troubles was a company in the process of a painful transformation into a fully professional organization. However, there was a silver lining to this dark cloud – the demise of TN! had put pressure on the Queensland Government to not also abandon La Boite, thus opening a door of opportunity that had not been available to Rider’s immediate predecessor.

Part One analyses Rider’s role in La Boite’s historic transformation into a professional company in 1993 within the context of her first year as artistic director. It also examines how she sustained and developed her artistic vision for a distinctly Australian theatre between 1994 and 2000 against a background of firm strategic planning and careful financial management.

Part Two of this chapter focuses on the role of organizational leadership in managing and sustaining this transformation to 2000, in particular that of General Managers Deborah Murphy (1993-1995), Donna McDonald (1996- 1998) and Craig Whitehead (1998 +), and Council Chairs Philip Pike (1990-1993), Peter Lawson (1994-1996) and

239 Athol Young (1997 +) and their successive Councils. As this study has demonstrated, the issue of ‘a home of our own’ was a recurring motif throughout La Boite’s history. This issue became highly significant once again as the ‘home’ of the last twenty-five years seemed unlikely to be capable of sustaining the company into the future. Aligned with this issue was the Board’s growing sense in the late 1990s that it was time for a change of leadership if complacency and possible stagnation were to be avoided, that Rider’s contribution to La Boite’s evolution as a successful professional company had been made and now ‘fresh’ energy and a new vision was needed. Rider was not prepared to go quietly, standing on her record of outstanding artistic and financial success for the company. This section analyses this difficult time which ended unhappily for Rider and her supporters but achieved the result desired by the Chair Athol Young and the Board. A short biography of Sue Rider can be read in Appendix 2.

PART ONE From the Brink of Disaster to an Acclaimed Professional Company: Sue Rider’s eight year stewardship

• Facing a daunting task Rider, new Administrator Deborah Murphy, and an effective Council chaired by Philip Pike and later Peter Lawson proved a formidable team at a time when La Boite found itself at a crossroad leading either to success or failure as a professional theatre company. Strong and consistent artistic and financial leadership and a sympathetic and supportive Queensland Arts Ministry were the keys to the successful consolidation of La Boite as a professional company over the next several years. The last two years had been frightening for the company, lessons had been learnt and mistakes were not to be repeated.

In relation to the appointment of a new artistic director, Pike recalled that the Council was looking for: … a totally different range of skills and rather than looking for an absolutely cutting edge, inspired creative person that we saw David [Bell] as, we wanted somebody who had thorough professional standards but capable of high quality standards and someone with very good management skills and someone who knew how to operate the budget. (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.120-124)

240 Sue Rider, one of a number who applied for the job, was “absolutely perfect because she was experienced, she had run professional companies in Adelaide…she was absolutely what we wanted” (ibid.: ll.126-129). Rider herself felt ready for the challenge: I knew how to make theatre on very little money. With The Acting Company [in Adelaide] I’d done it. I had a sense of what audiences would like and would come to, because I knew Queensland a bit by then and I’d done freelance work all over the place so I’d been generally around. And I was very, very excited about the idea of doing it and I took it up with great relish. But also because Jim [Vilé, her husband] had been there and for four years it had been like our second home and I was ready to go back home! … . But it was very daunting. (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.369-375)

“Daunting” was the prospect of coming into a company in an artistic leadership role that was just surfacing from serious financial trouble. Denying that this was a reckless move on her part, she recalled the confidence she had in Pike and Lawson and the support – a $100,000 loan - they had already gained from the Queensland Arts Ministry before her arrival: Philip Pike and Peter Lawson were extraordinary in the way they fought for the company with Arts Queensland … and they had enlisted from them a loan of $100,000 which the company had to match and that loan would convert to a one-off grant if the company were operational and viable by June 1993. So it wasn’t reckless really, it was a possibility. That’s why of course the cottage had to be sold, which realised the $100,000 so the whole debt must have been twice that really. (ibid.: ll.361-367) What she walked into was a demoralised company, an organization that “had just sort of fallen apart really” (ibid.: ll.390-394) but with the one constant that could always be relied upon, the venue itself, “a theatre of the people” and “a place where actors and audience alike can become passionately involved in plays performed” (AGM 1993, Artistic Director’s Report, Comans Private Collection). From the beginning of her term, it was the venue that inspired her to create seasons of plays predominately made up of new or contemporary Australian works; she felt that its intimacy and general ambience was right for new and contemporary works and new and emerging artists (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.429-433).

Rider, like Vilé and other successful artistic directors before her, balanced her own vision for La Boite’s future with a publicly expressed recognition and

241 acknowledgement of the Theatre’s history and the contribution of generations of members. In her first program notes as Artistic Director, she wrote: La Boite is both the oldest and the newest theatre organisation in Brisbane. The oldest because, as Brisbane Repertory Theatre, it has been the place for theatre since the earliest amateur days. The newest because 1993 sees the company’s first full year of professional activity.

La Boite has often been at the forefront of the performing arts. When professional theatre was in its infancy, La Boite was spawning directors, actors and designers who have since gone on to make their mark in this State, nationally and even overseas. As La Boite now becomes fully professional, let us celebrate this new stage in our development with the satisfaction of knowing that La Boite would not be where it is today without the support, work and love of all of you, past and present, young and old, who have given of yourselves to make theatre in this endearing place. (Kiss of the Spider Woman Program, 1993)

• Deborah Murphy’s appointment As already mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the conditions of the Arts Ministry $100,000 loan was the appointment of an Administrator. Deborah Murphy officially took up this position in January 1993. According to Pike “Deb Murphy was the saviour of La Boite” and “all the credit for its financial success” must go to her (Pike Interview, May 6, 2004: ll.156-157). Murphy’s last position had been as Business Manager at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney where “we had actually faced similar difficulties that I found La Boite was facing” (Murphy Interview, May 17, 2004: l. 25). Although she recognized the challenge in her new position, Murphy’s approach was “there is a solution to this, and generally, we just need one or two good shows and we will be right again” (ibid.: ll.28-29). In fact, her system was “to examine every little bit of expenditure we’ve got” and to “capitalize on every little bit of income” (ibid.: ll.35-37).

In the months leading up to her official starting date, Murphy worked with Rider building relationships with Arts Queensland and the Australia Council, and creating the 1993 season. Thereafter, until her resignation at the end of 1995, Murphy successfully guided La Boite to full financial viability as a professional theatre company. In acknowledging her role, Rider credited Murphy with “having built up La Boite’s administrative and financial base from uncertainty to stability … she was outstanding in her commitment to La Boite, working tirelessly on behalf of the

242 theatre” (1996 Annual Report, La Boite Archives). Murphy was not easy to replace; Robby Nason undertook a three month term as Acting General Manager until Donna McDonald was appointed in June 1996 (ibid.).

• Rider’s First Season of “Passion, Energy and Entertainment” With the spotlight firmly on her to deliver La Boite’s first season as a funded professional company, Rider chose six Australian plays (five of which were Queensland premieres and one a world premiere) and one non-Australian contemporary work (AD’s AGM Report, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection.). In a year in which Rider, Murphy, Pike and Lawson had to woo back Australia Council funding, her choices were a good match with at least some of “the areas of special attention in all Australia Council grants” for 1993 which were Australian works, women in the arts, innovation and artists from non-English speaking backgrounds (ANZTR “October Chronicle”, Oct., 1992). Not only were the majority of her plays Australian works but five of them were written by women, three had predominately female casts, and all but three were directed by women.

The one non-Australian play opened the season to critical acclaim. Kiss of the Spider Woman by Argentinian novelist Manuel Puig and adapted for the stage by Allan Baker, was directed by Jennifer Flowers, and starred Bille Brown (back at La Boite after twenty-one years1) and Joss McWilliam. Critic Veronica Kelly applauded Rider’s choice: Brisbane’s theatre season gets off to a remarkable start with Jennifer Flower’s fine production of this challenging two-hander. Displayed against Rick Billinghurst’s sparse, gravel-floored set and David Walters’ austere lighting, the performances develop an almost interiorised transparency… The intimacy of this venue is ideal for a production which initiates the audience into the inner beings of the protagonists, revealing their fantasies, terrors and growing trust. (The Australian, Feb. 12, 1993 in ANZTR, February 1993, p.73) A risky play to some extent because of the homosexual thematic content, critic Alison Coates called it “shocking” not because of several sexually explicit scenes but “because it questions our most deeply-held beliefs about love, loyalty and self- preservation” (Brisbane Review, Feb. 2, 1993 in ANZTR, February 1993, p.73).

1 Brown last appeared at La Boite in Jennifer Blocksidge’s production of Rodney Milgate’s A Refined Look at Existence in 1972. He had an extensive career in the United States and England as actor, writer and director before returning to Australia in the early 1990s.

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The second play was the Queensland premiere of Michael Gow’s new work Furious2, also a risky choice that, Rider reported, polarized audiences “who were either delighted or puzzled – and in some cases offended – by the play” (AD’s AGM Report, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). With some exceptions, critical response was positive. Sue Gough commented that “The manic-depressive energy of Michael Gow’s Furious comes across with a disturbing intimacy at La Boite’s theatre in the round” although she found the production “both wonderful and frustrating” feeling that “somehow text and performance never quite gel” (Bulletin/Newsweek March 30, 1993 in ANZTR, March 1993, pp.37-38). Cotes thought the play “savagely brilliant” but “fiendishly difficult” for a cast not up to the challenge: “The effect was of a group of amateurs who were trying so hard to get it right they were unable to release themselves into the truth of the people they were portraying” (The Brisbane Review, March 18, 1993 in ANZTR, March 1993, pp.36-37).

The Raindancers by Australian playwright Karin Mainwaring was directed by Jim Vilé to favourable critical response but small houses (AD’s AGM Report, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). However, Sara Hardy’s Vita! – A Fantasy, about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, directed by Rider was so successful the season was extended by a week (ibid.). Gough wrote “This production is superlative in every way” and praised the performances of Helen Moulder as Virginia Woolf and Caroline Kennison as Vita Sackville-West - “The two actors are never less than compelling”. Of the production team she commented: “Rider’s impeccable direction exploits every nuance of English understatement and self-deprecation, while designer Christopher Smith’s lush green swards and skeletal branches merge with Donald Hall’s music to create an aura of ironic pastorale” (Bulletin/Newsweek 17 June, 1993 in ANZTR, June 1993, p.100). Also unanimously warmly greeted by the critics was Peta Murray’s Wallflowering directed by Rider which attracted good audiences for both its in-theatre season and Arts Council tour (AD’s AGM Report, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). Cotes praised the performances of Margi Brown Ash and Errol O’Neill and called it “a marvellous play” (The Brisbane Review, Sept. 2, 1993, p.4).

2 Directed by Rider and designed by Christopher Smith, the cast comprised Gael Ballantyne, Kym Campbell, Sue Dwyer, Lewis Jones, Bronwyn Knight and Adam Smart.

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The big box-office hit of the year was yet another production of The Matilda Women written and directed by Rider, musical direction by Anne Roylance, with Justine Anderson, Delene Butland, Sue Dwyer and Barbara Lowing. This production coincided with the play’s publication by Playlab Press, newly professionalized with Sean Mee its new President, whose mission was fostering the development and publication of new Queensland works.

So far in her first season, Rider had impressively showcased women directors, writers and actors. However it was her final production which was an Australia Council exemplar for its multi-cultural casting. In fact, the world premiere of Freedom Ride…I Have A Dream attracted project funding from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council, the only Australia Council funding La Boite’s mainhouse program received in 1993. Written by Rider, directed by Vilé and indigenous artist Kathryn Fisher with music composed by Michael Whelan, the play’s cast of performers were from diverse cultural backgrounds including Aboriginal, Nigerian, New Zealand, Colombian, Papua New Guinean, French Cameroon and Italian. This music theatre piece juxtaposed the story of Martin Luther King and the American Freedom Ride of 1955 with the little known Charles Perkins inspired Australian Freedom Ride of 1965. Whilst it attracted “a pleasing response from Murri audiences” attendance was generally low, but “critical interest was widespread and mainly positive” (Artistic Report, AGM, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). It was seen as the kind of programming that set La Boite well apart from QTC. As Mary Nemeth commented: “the presentation of multi-cultural work in our mainstream theatre is really in its infancy, and this precocious child at La Boite is surely on the road to a more mature social as well as cultural Australian future” (Time Off, Nov. 10, 1993). It was applauded for its contemporary relevance and risk-taking. Adrian Kiernander wrote: “New plays which deal with issues of immediate social importance are rare and to be valued. Sue Rider’s Freedom Ride is an astute and passionate script which addresses the perennially tender and currently hypersensitive question of black-white relations in Australia” (The Australian, Nov. 12,1993).

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• An artistically and financially successful first year Rider seemed to have done everything right in this first professional year to fulfil her vision of creating theatre which “excited the imagination, stimulated the mind and stretched perceptions of self” (AD’s AGM Report, Sue Rider Private Collection). As Nemeth summed up: “La Boite’s varied program this year has offered a challenging and variable alternative to our other mainstream professional company, so courage and determination have paid off” (Time Off, Nov. 10, 1993). The industry’s acknowledgement of Rider’s successful artistic leadership of La Boite in its first professionally funded year was the 1994 Matilda Award she received for “her strong and visionary creative steering of the company”3 (AD’s AGM Report, March 27, 1995, Rider Private Collection).

It was a triumph for Murphy’s necessarily penny-pinching financial management skills as well, without which it is doubtful the company would have emerged so confidently at the end of that first year of professional operations; Treasurer Lawson reported only a small loss of $6,450, a sterling achievement given the losses of $114,000 for 1992 and $123,000 for 1991 (ANZTR March 1993 Chronicle, p.121). Lawson declared this “a fantastic result” given the “financial troubles we have experienced over the last couple of years” (AGM Minutes, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). In its first professional year, La Boite had paid over $200,000 in wages to actors, directors and designers, had employed over 30 actors, and provided a venue for fourteen outside hirers (ibid.)4.

3In addition to the mainhouse programme, Rider had the place buzzing again with a range of activities, some already established and some, innovations. Robby Nason professionalized the operation of The Actors’ Centre, La Bamba was rejuvenated with a new administration, and La Boite Youth Theatre extended its activities With a creative development grant from the Australia Council, Susan Richer, Youth Theatre Director, set up the Hereford Sisters, a young women’s physical troupe. Another innovation was a Play Advisory Committee, set up by Rider, which assessed ninety scripts in 1993, four of which had a public reading (AD’s AGM Report, March 7, 1994, Comans Private Collection). .

4 The newly professional company still relied however, on volunteers for backstage crew and front of house. By 1998 all backstage crew were paid staff but the use of a small number of volunteers as front of house ushers was still continuing in 2003, a not unusual practice in small and medium-sized companies.

246 Having noted the solid financial management of the first six months of the year, the Queensland Arts Division converted La Boite’s $100,000 loan to a one-off grant on July 1, 1993 (ibid.). Overall, the net result of a successful year was recognition from both funding bodies: “Our work was rewarded by the news that our funding from Arts Queensland was to be considerably increased for 1994, and that the Australia Council was granting us Annual Funding for the first time” (ibid.).

That this success came at a time when small theatre companies around Australia were suffering the effects of the early 1990s recession made it all the more remarkable. In an article in The Australian on the precarious situation of small companies, Matthew Westwood reported that Sydney’s Marian Street Theatre closed its doors early in 1994 when its subscriber base crashed and others such as Vitalstatistix in Adelaide, Anthill in Melbourne, Black Swan in Perth were all “walking a tightrope” trying to strike a balance between “pursuing a creative vision and financial responsibility” (The Australian, March 1994 [no date on clipping], Rider Private Collection). La Boite was walking the same tightrope however and Murphy’s comments underscore the reality of that tough first year: the article reported her as saying that while “sale of real estate, a State government grant and new operational systems have helped turn the company around…1993 was still a ‘shocking’ year for small companies like La Boite which sold only 73 subscriptions” (ibid.).

• The ‘psychology’ behind the first year of professional operations 1993 was undoubtedly a make or break year for La Boite. Rider recalls the doom- sayers who told her “ ‘You will never make that theatre work, it’s only got 200 seats and people certainly won’t come to Australian theatre’” (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.465-467). She was determined to prove them wrong and developed a strategy of presenting to the theatre-going public, the media and the funding bodies an ‘aura’ of professional success: I thought the first thing we have to do is make the theatre appear successful. I had learnt from Adelaide that, even if you are justified in saying that you haven’t got enough funding, it actually casts a negative sort of picture of the company and that’s not a good idea …you can’t look desperate, you have to look successful … we had to look energetic, we had to fill the building so that every time people came there was something going on. That’s what I felt was really important because energy feeds energy. People come and think this is a buzzy place, I’ll come back again.

247 (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.467-477) Faced with creating her first season on a shoe-string budget – “of doing shows that, in fact, behind the scenes were very, very cheap” (ibid.: 483-484) - Rider used a number of strategies. She directed all but two of the new productions herself, and had return seasons of two shows, Wallflowering and The Matilda Women, which meant shorter rehearsal periods and, in the latter case, no royalties to pay because Rider had written it, and “I didn’t ever take royalties for shows that were mine” (ibid.: l.488).

• Down to business with a strategic plan In 1994, Philip Pike retired as Chair and Peter Lawson, a Brisbane stockbroker, was elected to this position. His business-like approach was stamped early in his first statement to the media: “In 1994 we will focus on marketing the theatre effectively and will present programs that, in the main, are commercially acceptable” (ANZTR March 1994 Chronicle, p.121). His comment that “We believe this will dispel the incorrectly held perception of La Boite as a fringe or experimental theatre” (ibid.) underlined not only the company’s distancing of itself from the kind of programming favoured by the previous artistic director, David Bell, but signalled that from now on La Boite was to be run like a business that must have broad audience appeal for its product.

By the beginning of 1994 the La Boite Theatre Strategic Plan 1994-1998 and the La Boite Theatre Marketing Plan were in existence (Rider Private Collection), developed, as a requirement of the funding bodies, by staff and Council with the support of an outside consultant (Murphy Interview, 17 May, 2004: ll.188-192). These important documents guided La Boite’s direction for the next four years, after which an updated version was created. To succinctly grasp the ‘identity’ that La Boite sought for itself from this year on, and as a point of reference for analysis of its success or otherwise in pursuing its stated goals, a summary of key elements of the Strategic Plan follows.

La Boite’s first mission statement as a professional company declared La Boite to be “an integral part of the cultural life of the people of Queensland through the creation and presentation of diverse and dynamic theatre of the highest possible standard” (La Boite Theatre Strategic Plan 1994-1998, p.1, Rider Private Collection). To establish “a professional theatre of excellence and integrity”, its Organizational Values were to:

248 Aim for the highest possible standards; demonstrate confidence in Australian playwriting; combine innovation and a deep-rooted identification with important issues; place a deliberate emphasis on women in the arts; seek to affirm the place of youth culture in society; show an awareness of Aboriginal and Islander culture; actively promote the work of local theatre artists; and exploit the uniqueness of La Boite’s venue. (ibid.)

And its Performance Indicators were: Consistent income from the box office and evidence of subscriber loyalty; a demonstrated benefit of the programme to the development of theatre in Queensland; a programme that challenges the prevailing practice; ability to budget with accuracy and exercise financial control of programme; increased income from other sources and sponsorship in kind; long term planning and policy development undertaken by the Council of Management. (ibid.)

Some of the strategies to develop its artistic goals were to: Seek out ways in which to nurture Queensland artists in the development and promotion of their work; commission writers to create new work within Queensland; actively encourage links with other theatre companies, playwrights and playwright’s support organisations to assist in the selection of scripts; maintain a Play Advisory Committee; give priority to Queensland theatre workers in all areas of employment; actively seek outside hirers of the La Boite complex whose values are in sympathy with our own; and instigate a New Writing Laboratory for the development of scripts to a stage of production or near production. (ibid. p.2)

Its major Marketing and Management goal was: To establish and maintain a marketing programme for the theatre which will make it an identifiable production house and a community resource which attracts the support of its members, its audiences, the arts community and the business community. (ibid.)

Murphy remembers that this strategic plan was considered exemplary - “at the time we were congratulated on it” (Murphy Interview, May 17, 2004: l.199). Over the next five years, the company worked to this plan and realised just about every one of its stated goals.

Rider’s Artistic Leadership 1994-2000 The study to this point has examined how La Boite was able to transform itself into a professional company. From now on - post 1993 - it concerns itself with how it

249 sustained its existence as a professional company and, despite set-backs and crises, continued to flourish to 2003, the end point of this study. A full account of Rider’s vast artistic output during her next seven years as La Boite’s artistic director is not possible within the confines of this thesis. Instead, this section has highlighted those aspects of her artistic developments which responded to the company’s strategic plan and which contribute to an overall understanding of how La Boite progressed artistically under her leadership. Please see Appendix 4 for a full list of each year’s productions.

• Championing of Queensland and Australian plays Rider’s championing of new works by Queensland playwrights and new Australian plays was unprecedented in the State’s cultural history. The development of La Boite’s strong identification with this kind of new work under Rider’s influence gave the company a market-enhancing profile that contributed substantially to its capacity to continue to move forward as a professional operation. Her first foray into the development of new works at La Boite was Hilary Beaton’s No Strings Attached5. Published by Playlab Press to coincide with its 1994 La Boite season and directed by Rider, she noted that this play “was a fine example of the close work that can occur between a number of artists who believe in and are committed to the success of a new work” (Artistic Report, March 27, 1995, Rider Private Collection). Gough called it “the best-crafted new play by a Queensland playwright in a long time” (The Bulletin/Newsweek September 27, 1994 in ANZTR Sept. 1994, p.22).

To support the development and commissioning of new plays, Rider set about creating resources within the Theatre and building relationships with organizations such as Playlab Inc. and Currency Press6. Annual reports record that some of her early initiatives were the appointment of Louise Gough as Dramaturg in Residence through an Australia Council Literature Board grant; the setting up of a Play Advisory Committee to assess unsolicited scripts; Springboards, a play reading program to develop new scripts based on a collaboration between emerging and established

5 Hilary Beaton won a 1994 Matilda Award for her play No Strings Attached, the first such award to a writer (1994 Artistic Report, Rider Private Collection). 6 Currency Press was established in Sydney 1971 by Katharine Brisbane and Philip Parsons to publish the work of Australian playwrights (Milne, 2004: 163). It now not only publishes creative works in a range of Australian performing arts but also publishes critical texts, biographies, cultural studies and reference works (Milne, 2004: 163; http://www.currency.com.au/ cited December 14, 2005).

250 playwrights, directors and actors; and an Affiliate Writers’ Scheme which formalized support to writers. Her determination that Brisbane’s second major professional theatre was to become a hothouse for developing new work resulted in an impressive thirteen productions of new works commissioned by Rider between 1994 and 2000, the most successful of which were Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls by Philip Dean, X- Stacy by Marjory Forde, A Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard, After January by Philip Dean, adapted from the novel by Nick Earls, Georgia by Jill Shearer, 48 Shades of Brown by Philip Dean, and Milo’s Wake by Marjory Forde and Michael Forde. Other new plays that had successful seasons were Sara Hardy’s She of the Electrolux; Greg Andreas’ Milk and Honey; Scar by Stephen Davis and Maryanne Lynch; Matt Cameron’s Mr Melancholy; and Shaun Charles’ Rio Saki and Other Falling Debris. Six of the commissioned works were subsequently published by Currency Press7 and three received Matildas8.

Until 1997, her seasons were exclusively Australian except for her yearly Shakespearean play which she consistently set within a contemporary, if not Australian, context to ensure accessible productions for Brisbane audiences. With growing confidence that La Boite’s constituency would support an entire program of Australian theatre, the usual Shakespeare was dropped in 1997 and for the first time during her term, Rider produced her first ever season of six Australian plays (see Appendix 4). Her interpretation of that all-Australian season was that it was both a critical and box-office success and “represented one of La Boite’s strongest years since professionalization in 1993” (La Boite Theatre Inc.1997 Annual Report p.1, La Boite Archives).

Opening the 1997 season was Rider’s production of Mr Melancholy, a new, prize- wining play9 by Matt Cameron about love and solitude and which earned John

7 Published by Currency Press in association with La Boite were Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls by Philip Dean (1996), X-Stacy by Marjory Forde (1999), A Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard (2000), After January by Philip Dean, adapted from the novel by Nick Earls (2000), Georgia by Jill Shearer (2000), 48 Shades of Brown by Philip Dean (2001), and in 2002 Milo’s Wake was published by Currency Press in association with Playbox Theatre. 8 Philip Dean won a 1995 Matilda Award for Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls; Margery Forde received a Matilda Commendation for X-Stacy, commissioned and produced by La Boite; and Michael Futcher and Helen Howard received a Matilda Award for A Beautiful Life, developed through La Boite in conjunction with their own company Matrix (1995 & 1999 Annual Reports, Rider Private Collection). 9 Mr Melancholy won the 1996 New Dramatists’ Award.

251 Batchelor a Matilda Award for the lead role. Attracting a solid audience response of 62% capacity (ibid.: 4), it was critically well reviewed, with The Courier Mail reporting that “Director Sue Rider has allowed the play and the actors to unfold slowly like flowers, and the result is heart-achingly beautiful. This is a rare and wonderful production, and I urge you to see it (ibid.: 5). But the big box-office successes of her all-Australian season were Graham Pitts’ Emma Celebrazione! directed by Jim Vilé – drawing strong support from the Italian community, it broke box office records for La Boite as a professional company with 92% capacity houses - and, attracting large school’s audience, Nick Enright’s Blackrock directed by Jackie McKimmie, close behind with 90% (ibid.: 5-6). Two other 1997 productions also relied for their success on youth audiences - Michael Gow’s Away, of which Katharine Brisbane wrote to director Sue Rider: “…how moved I was by the production. I think it is the best I have seen” (ibid.: 7), and Scar, commissioned by La Boite for the inaugural Stage X youth arts festival10, written by young Brisbane playwrights Stephen Davis and Maryanne Lynch and directed by Sean Mee. Rider wrote in her report that “Scar has been widely recognised as an important undertaking for its support of two emerging playwrights and for its consequent contribution to the development of theatre in Queensland” (ibid.:7). Too violent for most school audiences, it attracted the non-school youth market, but, despite local and national media attention, achieved a disappointing 46% capacity overall (ibid.). For her last play of the season Rider, pursuing her policy of showcasing Brisbane’s senior artists, entered into a co-production with QPAT of John Misto’s The Shoehorn Sonata at the Cremorne Theatre with senior artists Bev Langford and Kaye Stevenson. Directed by Jim Vilé, it was favourably reviews but failed to find an audience (ibid.: 8).

In fact, the all-Australian year recorded a deficit of $54,843 (due to some extent to infrastructure expenses) which fortunately the company could afford due to accumulated funds of $238,811 (La Boite Theatre Inc. Treasurer’s Report for the year ended 31st December 1997, La Boite Archives) and which did not deter the company from continuing to develop its niche market in new Queensland and Australian works. Audiences continued to grow in response to this programming policy, with the company recording an unprecedented 78% capacity and a return to the black with a

10 Stage X is a QPAT biennial event established in 1997. This major youth arts festival emphasizes site specific and multi media performance and is now run over a four month period (Milne, 2004: 388).

252 surplus of $22,200 by the end of 1998 (La Boite Theatre Inc. Treasurer’s Report for the year ended 31st December 1998, La Boite Archives).

It was two new plays by Queensland playwrights that most excited critics and audiences in 1998. Margery Forde’s X-Stacy, commissioned by La Boite, on the timely theme of dance parties and designer drugs, had strong appeal to the youth market which “took the box office by storm” achieving 90% capacity (La Boite Theatre Inc.1998: 6, La Boite Archives) and was a noteworthy example of the “substantial support processes” offered by La Boite to the writer in the form of “workshops, readings, dramaturgy and script consultation” (ibid.). A Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard, a co-production with the Energex Brisbane Festival and Matrix Theatre about an Iranian immigrant and his family, who, in fleeing from one nightmare world seek ‘a beautiful life’ in Australia, was highly praised by most critics (The Australian, August 31, 1998; City News, September 3, 1998; Brisbane News, September 9, 1998; The Sunday Mail August 30, 1998). Cotes wrote: Every now and then a play comes along that moves the world a little with its gentle beauty and searing truth. A Beautiful Life is such a play…This is, quite simply, one of the best local plays I have seen in 20 years. It will make you shudder and rejoice in the same breath, and you will come away with a new appreciation of the fragile freedom we enjoy in this country. (The Courier Mail, August 31, 1998)

In 1999, Rider took the number of plays by Queensland writers to an unprecedented four, the same year that La Boite received a Special Matilda Commendation “for outstanding contribution to support and development of new Australian works” (1999 Annual Report 1999: 4, La Boite Archives). She continued to exclusively program Australian works to 2000 with the exception of the 1999 co-production with Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

In 2000, the last year of Rider’s artistic directorship, two more Rider commissions were premiered – Philip Dean’s After January adapted from the novel by Nick Earls, directed by Lewis Jones, and Milo’s Wake by Margery Forde and Michael Forde, directed by Jim Vilé. After January was the biggest box office success of Rider’s term, achieving 98% audience capacity (La Boite Inc. 2000 Annual Report: 5, La Boite Archives). School groups flocked to this production, attracted by its storyline of

253 a year twelve student waiting for his tertiary offer, and meeting a girl with a nose- ring, at Caloundra. Milo’s Wake was not far behind with 92% (ibid.: 8). Rider commissioned Margery Forde to “create a play exploring the unique nature of the Irish in Australia” and she reported that it was “an immediate hit with critics and audiences who praised the writing, direction, design, music and acting, particularly that of Sean Mee whose exceptional performance in the title role marked a triumphant return to the stage after ten years” (ibid.).

• Positive discrimination towards Queensland theatre workers Another policy to which Rider stayed true for the duration of her term was the priority she gave to employing local theatre workers. Given La Boite’s long history as a training ground for Queensland theatre workers, and the proliferation of acting and technical production graduates from Queensland institutions now keen for professional work in Brisbane, it would have been surprising if she had done otherwise. Although QTC had a reputation for favouring ‘southern’ artists, especially in lead roles, the defunct TN! Theatre Company had been strongly Queensland-centric and this stable of artists now looked to La Boite for work. She almost exclusively used Queensland actors, including many who received Matilda Awards or Commendations for their work at La Boite11, and actively promoted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists by employing blind racial casting in a number of plays including Freedom Ride, The Taming of the Shrew, Low, and Romeo and Juliet.

Not too many Queensland artists got to direct however, as Rider dominated in this area, directing twenty productions herself out of a possible forty-five. In this way, she was able to create a distinctive house style and keep costs down. The small band of other directors included Jim Vilé who directed eight, Sean Mee four, Jennifer Flowers three, Lewis Jones three, Mark Bromilow two, Jackie McKimmie two, David Fenton

11 La Boite actors included AFI (Australian Film Industry) Award winners Deborah Mailman and Russell Dykstra and ‘locals’ (Matilda Awards winners and recipients of Matilda Commendations to 2000 in bold): Gael Ballantyne, Charles Barry, John Batchelor, Chris Betts, Paul Bishop, David Brown, Andrew Buchanan, Liz Buchanan, Melinda Butel, Simon Chan, Larisa Chen, Sandro Colarelli, Karen Crone, Lorrain Dalu, Paul Denny, Caroline Dunphy, Sue Dwyer, Julie Eckersley, Carita Farrer, Jennifer Flowers, Michael Forde, Barbara Fordham, Damien Garvey, Eugene Gilfedder, Elise Grieg, Jack Heywood, Kevin Hides, Lewis Jones, Sarah Kennedy, Caroline Kennison, Bev Langford, Samantha Lovejoy, Barbara Lowing, Lesley Marller, Ingrid Mason, Roxanne McDonald, Sean Mee, Christopher Morris, Helen Moulder, Errol O’Neill, Yalin Ozucelik, Leah Purcell, Rebecca Riggs, Hayden Spencer, Kaye Stevenson, Maria Tusa, Scott Witt, Anna Yen.

254 one, Michael Futcher one, and Scott Maidment one. Although Christopher Smith, who formed a close artistic relationship with Rider, designed for La Boite more than anyone else (twelve productions), other set designers included Jamie Maclean, Bill Haycock, Noelene Hill, Andrew Raymond, Greg Clarke, Maria Cleary, Kate Stewart and Alison Ross. Lighting designers included David Walters, Matt Scott, Mark Lloyd Hunt, Andrew Meadows, Geoff Squires, Glenn Hughes and Adam White.

• Support for young emerging artists Once La Boite achieved professional status, the old reliance on Youth Theatre to attract Australia Council funding vanished but La Boite Youth Theatre, an entity that operated as a separate cost centre with its own Youth Theatre Director12, remained until 1997. La Bamba, however, disappeared after 1994; Rider became more interested in providing opportunities for emerging artists to learn their craft and showcase new form work through various experimental theatre festivals such as Shock of the New! (1994 to 1997)13 and Newboards (1998 to 2000)14. One significant work that had its genesis at Shock of the New! was Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s The 7 Stages of Grieving15, which began as a creative development project there and opened the following year at Metro Arts Theatre, Brisbane (Milne, 2004: 280). Newboards won the 1999 Playlab Award in recognition of its services to new work in Queensland. Theatre critic Alison Cotes wrote in The Courier Mail: Anybody worried about the future of live theatre should have been heartened by the Newboards Festival at La Boite last week. This showcase of new ideas and emerging talent showed not only that our young performers are inventive, committed, concerned and intelligent but there is an audience out there wanting to see and hear what they have to say. (Nov. 3, 1999, p.45.)

12 Susan Richer was Youth Theatre Director of La Boite Youth Theatre from 1992 to 1995; Louise Hollingworth from 1996 to 2000. Renamed Backbone Youth Arts in 1996, it was independent of La Boite by 1997 when it established its own management committee and took full financial responsibility for its activities (1995 Annual Report.p.16, La Boite Archives). 13 Shock of the New! was coordinated by Louise Gough in 1994 and 1995, Jean-Marc Russ in 1996, and Fraser Corfield in 1997 ( La Boite Theatre 1995 Artistic Report, La Boite Archives; 1996 & 1997 Annual Reports, La Boite Archives). 14 Newboards was co-ordinated by Fraser Corfield. 15 The 7 Stages of Grieving had a return season at Metro Arts in 1996, the same year it was published by Playlab. In 1997 it made an important contribution to The Festival of Dreaming, one of the arts festivals held in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 (Milne, 2004: 390-391).

255 • Programming for school and youth audiences As already noted, Rider’s programming often had strong appeal to school and youth audiences; one observation that can be made about Rider’s artistic directorship was the importance she placed on building enduring relationship with teachers of Drama and English in schools. With burgeoning numbers of students in Queensland secondary schools throughout the 1990s taking Drama as a school subject, the demand for appropriate in-house productions and touring shows was enormous. To tap into this market, Rider formed the La Boite Schools’ Company in 1994 with the aims of “embracing the aesthetic processes of young people”, of challenging “preconceived notions of theatrical form, content and style” and making theatre accessible to young people throughout Queensland (AGM Artistic Report, March 27, 1995, Rider Private Collection). In a productive association with the Queensland Arts Council Schools’ Touring Program, La Boite toured three shows between 1994 and 1997 - My Shoes Are Too Big for primary schools and Move Right Along and An Ordinary Bloke With A Difference for secondary schools. Although the La Boite Schools’ Company ceased to exist after 1997, touring of mainhouse productions with secondary school appeal had been a priority for Rider since the successful 1994 tour to regional Queensland of Taming of the Shrew. Other tours with strong schools’ appeal were Away, X-Stacy, Hamlet, Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirl, What Is The Matter With Mary Jane?, A Beautiful Life, and After January. In Brisbane, student groups attended all of the above in big numbers plus other in-house plays with direct appeal to young people, such as Cosi, Blackrock, and Romeo and Juliet.

Rider’s success in attracting the youth market with her strategic play choices eventually became an issue of contention when, towards the end of her time as artistic director, the Board Chair voiced concerns that she had turned La Boite into a theatre in education company, a perception possibly fuelled by an article in The Courier Mail by Paul Galloway (May 29, 1999 p.15). Yet, at the time, it seemed that Rider’s pursuit of the school market was in line with Australia Council policy which supported campaigns by performing arts companies around Australia aimed at attracting the sixteen to twenty-six age group (Aldred in The Courier Mail, April 21, 1999, p.42). For example, in a bid to appeal to this market QTC launched its 1999 Go Live campaign in a Brisbane nightclub with a logo featuring body piercing, a trail of blood, the by-line ‘We’re after some young blood’, and the promise of a ‘pay your

256 age’ ticket (ibid.). On the other hand, La Boite’s programming, hailed as “ahead of its time” by the Australia Council (ibid.), already had proven attraction for the youth market without the need for gimmicky campaigns. As Debra Aldred commented in her article “Is there a TEEN in the house?”: One theatre company that continues to succeed in the youth market is Brisbane’s contemporary theatre in the round, La Boite, where 50 percent of audience are aged under 26. This compares to the QTC, where school and tertiary students make up 7 percent of total audiences. (ibid.) Brisbane theatre critic and commentator Paul Galloway did not share the view that pursuing this market was a positive outcome for the company, publicly voicing his serious concern that La Boite’s programming with an eye for the school market meant it was losing credibility with adult audiences. He wrote: This year La Boite, who have [sic] always had an eye on the youth market, has I think overstepped some invisible line, giving up the pretence of being a theatre for adults. Four out of La Boite’s season of six shows are for a youth audience. … Unlike adult plays, which can be about anything, youth theatre has to be about something. It has to be relevant; it must teach as well as entertain. This X-Stacy is about drugs, Mary Jane is about bulimia, and, love having no utility, this Romeo and Juliet contrives to be about race. … In the meantime, adults are having their choices curtailed. …Theatre needs school audiences and it should encourage school audiences, but not at the expense of its own vitality. (The Courier Mail May 29, 1999, p.15) In a letter to the editor the next day, Rider called Galloway’s article “a thinly-veiled attack on everything that is successful about La Boite Theatre” (The Courier Mail, May 30, 1999). She defined the La Boite audience as “sensitive and discerning, embracing myriad ages, points of view, yearnings, cultures and beliefs” and found it “offensive to suggest that La Boite is ‘subordinate’ to any one of them” (ibid.). Her parting shot was “critics’ awards, increased subscriptions and regular capacity houses speak for themselves” (ibid.). Despite her defence of her programming policy, the issue did not disappear and soon became a matter of Board concern.

• Tours, partnerships, co-productions Annual reports and correspondence files (La Boite Archives) reveal that Rider worked strategically to create touring opportunities and co-productions and partnerships with other companies in order to increase activity and productivity at La Boite, and to build the company’s profile and reputation throughout Queensland and nationally. Strong

257 relationships were built with the touring organizations, Queensland Arts Council16 and NARPACA17, and ten major State and/or national La Boite tours were undertaken between 1993 and 2000 including productions of Peta Murray’s Wallflowering, Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet, Philip Dean’s Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirl, Michael Gow’s Away, John Misto’s The Shoehorn Sonata, Graham Pitts’ Emma Celebrazione, Margery Forde’s X-Stacy, Wendy Harmer’s What is the Matter With Mary Jane?, Michael Futcher and Helen Howard’s A Beautiful Life, and Philip Dean’s After January (Artistic Director 1993-2000 Summary Document, Rider Private Collection).

Especially in the last few years of her term, Rider’s correspondence files reveal her strong advocacy of La Boite’s work to theatre companies in other states, always with a view to co-productions or outright sells of La Boite productions, particularly by Queensland writers18 (La Boite Archives). This strategy did not bear much fruit, but it was certainly a measure of her determination to have La Boite product more nationally recognized. There were however a number of successful co-productions that Rider negotiated: in 1995 La Boite joined with Teatar Di Migma from Melbourne for the world premiere of Miss Bosnia; in 1997 The Shoehorn Sonata was a co- production with the Queensland Performing Arts Trust at the Cremorne Theatre directed by Vilé; A Beautiful Life directed by Futcher was a much praised 1998 co- production between La Boite, Energex Brisbane Festival and Matrix Theatre; in 1999, La Boite joined with Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts19 for a highly successful co-production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Sue Rider with assistant director, indigenous artist Nadine McDonald: and in 2000, Stephen Sewell’s The

16 Queensland Arts Council (QAC) is Australia's largest Regional Arts Network providing a range of performances, exhibitions, workshops, masterclasses, arts related services to Queensland communities (http://www.qac.org.au/htm/ cited November 11, 2005).

17 Northern Australian Regional Performing Arts Centres Association was formed in 1983. It serves members in regional Queensland and the Northern Territory with performing arts tours (http://www.narpaca.asn.au/ cited November 11, 2005). 18In 1999, for example, she made suggestions for co-productions and outright sells to Neil Armfield of Company B-Belvoir Street Theatre, Peter Matheson of Melbourne Theatre Company, Aubrey Mellor of Playbox Theatre Company, Rosalba Clemente of State Theatre South Australia and Ros Horin of Griffin Theatre (Rider Correspondence Files 1999, La Boite Archives). 19 Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts began operations in 1994 with Wesley Enoch as its inaugural artistic director.

258 Secret Death of Salvador Dali directed by Scott Maidment was a co-production with Stret and Fret Production House in association with the Energex Festival 2000.

Rider’s Achievement by 2000 – A Very Successful Theatre Company Evidence gathered strongly suggests that Rider’s artistic leadership was at the forefront of La Boite’s successful transformation into a fully professional theatre company in 1993 and its artistic consolidation and development over the eight years of her term. The evidence of Annual Reports and theatre reviews overwhelmingly suggests that her programming for most seasons was artistically well received and, in the main, financially successful. The mediocre critical response to her 1996 season, described by Alison Cotes as “a bad year for the usual feisty La Boite” (The Courier Mail, December 28, 1996, Weekend 6) was most unusual and still found financial success at the box-office for in-house performances and regional and national tours (1996 Annual Report: 1, La Boite Archives). Equally unusual was her one real artistic failure, The Popular Mechanicals which opened the Powerhouse Theatre in 2000 and whose lack of success, discussed in detail in Part Two of this chapter, had direct repercussions for Rider’s future at La Boite.

In the final year of Rider’s term as artistic director, La Boite was an extraordinarily successful company with an average occupancy of over 80% per season (2000 Annual Report, La Boite Archives) and box office revenue of $463,700 was the highest in its history (2000 Financial Statement for the year Ended 31 December 2000, La Boite Archives). With a turnover of $1.4 million in 2000, it had employed 100 theatre professionals at a cost of $866,000, it had received $583,000 in Arts Queensland and Australia Council funding and had ended the year with an operating surplus of $33,550 which Treasurer Karen Mitchell called “another fabulous effort” (ibid.). In that year, as well as five mainhouse productions, there were three successful tours: A Beautiful Life toured nationally, X-Stacy toured to ACT and South Australia and After January toured to eighteen regional Queensland communities (La Boite Theatre Annual Report 2000: 2, La Boite Archives). In 1999 and 2000, Rider had commissioned four new plays, two of which, After January and Milo’s Wake, were part of the 2000 program (ibid.:11) while the other two - 48 Shades of Brown by

259 Philip Dean based on the novel by Nick Earls20 and The Mayne Inheritance by Errol O’Neill based on the book by Rosamond Siemon21 - went on to have successful seasons after Rider left.

It was against this background of what seemed like unarguable success for Rider that, in the same year that she received a Special Matilda Award for services to Queensland theatre as La Boite’s Artistic Director since 1993, she was asked to step down from her position by the La Boite Chair Athol Young and the Board.

PART TWO Funding and Financial Security It is doubtful the company would have been so advantageously placed in 2000 without the relentlessly tough financial management of both Council Chair Peter Lawson and General Manager Deborah Murphy in the early years of its professional life when finances were still very finely balanced and when even a 10% drop in box office income could produce a deficit (Council Meeting Minutes, Nov. 27, 1995, La Boite Archives). In his last year as Chair, Lawson had the satisfaction of securing a new base grant allocation of $340,000 (a $50,000 increase on the previous year) from the Queensland Government’s Arts Advisory Committee (Letter from Joan Sheldon to Peter Lawson, Nov.1996, La Boite Archives). Within a year, that amount was increased to $434,000 and the company elevated to multi-level, recurrent funding (Letter from Joan Sheldon to Athol Young, Oct. 1997, La Boite Archives). Positive government-level support was useful to the company during these years of change and development: from 1994, Kathryn Lowe of the Arts Division championed La Boite’s cause and from the mid-1990s Joan Sheldon, Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for The Arts, enjoyed a very positive relationship with the company, impressed with its support of “Queensland artists and playwrights and its extensive annual regional touring” (op.cit.). In 1997, after six years of commitment to La Boite, first as Treasurer then as Chair, Lawson handed over to Athol Young a well funded and financially secure company.

20 Directed by Jean-Marc Russ, 48 Shades of Brown had two successful seasons in 2001 and 2002. 21 Directed by Sean Mee, The Mayne Inheritance by Errol O’Neill was part of the 2004 season.

260 Over the next several years, Arts Queensland and Australia Council funding together amounted to $568,000 and successive operating surpluses build up the company’s reserves (1998 & 1999 La Boite Theatre Inc. Treasurer’s Reports, La Boite Archives). In his 1999 annual report, Chair Athol Young wrote “the organisation is in excellent shape to take on the challenges of the future” (1999 Annual Report, La Boite Archives). In fact, it had performed so consistently well over a number of years that the Australia Council announced that from 2000 La Boite would receive triennial funding (ibid.). Already on recurrent funding from Arts Queensland, the company gained increased confidence for the future from this announcement.

Issues with La Boite’s Facilities and Physical Location Despite the reality of La Boite’s artistic and financial success however, there were other issues related to La Boite’s future viability that had been simmering away for years. In 1995, Production Manager Mark Lloyd Hunt made a report to Council that notified them of serious shortcomings in the capacity of La Boite’s physical environment to meet the needs of “a very large small company” (Report to Council on Future Resources from Production Department, La Boite Archives). With the destruction by fire of Studio 2 in 199422, rehearsal space was now limited, there was no space for wardrobe, the Green Room was now overflowing with props, costumes, paint and stored equipment. Large props were stored in an area that was susceptible to rain, there was no props making area, no safe chemical area. The lower courtyard was used for set making, an extremely problematic area with no cover, uneven ground “a damp unsuitable area for power tools” and “not big enough to use on a constant basis for set construction” (ibid.). Inadequate office space was also an issue: up to eight artistic, managerial and administrative staff were accommodated in a room that measured approximately 5 by 9 metres (Board of Management Meeting, July 22 1996, La Boite Archives).

In short, a whole series of problems had developed that Young (Board member at the time), recalled “didn’t meet Workplace Health and Safety Standards, didn’t meet modern standards for fire, and we had the indignity for the theatre company of patrons

22 Studio 2 in Sheriff Street was both a rehearsal space and wardrobe. The insurance company, suspecting an inside job, delayed honouring the claim for several years and in the end La Boite received only $46,800 when $100,000 had been considered an appropriate claim (Minutes of the 1997 AGM, March 24, 1997, La Boite Archives; Murphy Interview, May 17, 2004: 143-150).

261 being carried up the stairs if you arrived in a wheelchair” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.333-335). A Workplace Health and Safety Report confirmed that the conditions staff worked under didn’t meet health and safety standards and the Theatre could end up in the Industrial Court if standards were not met (ibid.: ll.125-128). At the same time, parking became an increasingly vexatious issue amongst local residents and businesses tired of La Boite patrons monopolizing parking spots. And, finally, there was the question of La Boite’s seating capacity. As Jennifer Blocksidge had pointed out in 1978, a 200 seat theatre was too small to sustain a professional company.

• Early moves to re-develop or re-locate It was General Manager McDonald who helped the Board recognize that La Boite had outgrown the building and a solution must be found. Option number one was relocation – “Donna had us on buses going to look at properties that were put forward by various government bureaucrats” (ibid.: ll.306-308) - but this was abandoned by mid-1996 when the best prospect for relocation, the Old Museum at Bowen Hills, proved unsuitable. The other sites that the Board unsuccessfully investigated later were Roma Street Parklands and the Judith Wright Centre. From 1996, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Jim Soorley had entertained ideas of relocating La Boite to the planned Powerhouse precinct (Cotes in The Courier Mail, April 7, 1997 p.14). David Hinchliffe, Brisbane City Councillor for La Boite’s ward of Petrie Terrace, agreed that “the Powerhouse would be ideal” but when quizzed about assisting La Boite financially to make this move, he was unwilling to make any kind of commitment (ibid.).

Option two was to forget about relocating and concentrate on the redevelopment of the present site in Hale Street. The centrepiece of this redevelopment would be to extend the capacity of the Theatre itself (Letter from McDonald to Central City Planning Team, BCC, September 6, 1996, La Boite Archives), which would have been a popular solution to those alarmed at the prospect of the company abandoning its iconic La Boite building, and which would help to make staying a more financially viable proposition. To this end, in 1998 the original architect Blair Wilson was employed to draw up plans. To stay in its present location was Rider’s preferred option: “We saw the theatre as a tremendous asset in terms of the theatre’s work, we’d

262 also looked at the history of other companies that had moved from their home base and seen that in a great many cases the theatres died as a result” (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.884-886).

Before she could take this option to the next stage however, McDonald had resigned, worn out, according to Young, by the job and the personalities she had to deal with, particularly Rider and Lawson – “she was drained” by “the challenges of working with a very strong character like Sue Rider” and a Chair “who didn’t believe in Donna as a General Manager” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.263 -264; ll. 100-101). Young credits her with restructuring systems which set “the foundations for good corporate governance” and bringing onto the Board people “who were able to re-focus what the theatre company’s role was”, such as Karen Mitchell, formerly Director of Finance at QPAC, who joined the Board as Treasurer in 1998 and worked strategically to secure La Boite financially (ibid.: ll.112-115; ll.168-172).

• Whitehead’s main agenda – to re-locate When Craig Whitehead succeeded McDonald as General Manager in 1998, he received a very clear message from the Board that the key concern it wanted him to address was “the whole issue of where the company was going to live” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: 16-17). The impossibility of staying where they were became quickly obvious when Whitehead took Wilson’s La Boite re-development plans to the Queensland Government. Crucial to the plans was the increase of audience capacity, however “The one thing we could not get approved was increasing the capacity of the venue, so really on the basis of that, not one additional dollar could be earned from the venue, so it really wasn’t viable” (ibid.: 33-35). So, a refurbishment of the Theatre which would cost $2 million would still only have 200 seat capacity, making such a project both financially and logistically non-viable (Aldred in The Courier Mail, Jan. 26, 2002 p.24). In hindsight, Rider realised that the government’s reluctance to engage with the company’s plans was based on their own plans, as yet unannounced, to re-develop Lang Park (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.393:398).

The urgency to re-locate stepped up once it became clear in August 1999 that the Queensland Government was indeed going ahead with a major redevelopment of a 60,000 capacity Suncorp Stadium (previously Lang Park) and its environs.

263 Whitehead’s press release to The Courier Mail warned that La Boite could close if the upgrade went ahead (Aldred, Sept. 13, 1999, p.21): “The impact of increasing usage of the stadium (with early predictions that the ground will host up to two games a week) coupled with possible parking restrictions in the surrounding residential area, could cripple the theatre’s intimate nature and public accessibility” (ibid.).

It was at this point that Lord Mayor Jim Soorley re-ignited the possibility of La Boite becoming the resident company of the BCC property, the Brisbane Powerhouse, due for completion as a major new Arts Centre in 2000 23. Whitehead, Young, and Mark Lloyd Hunt worked very closely with the BCC in developing concrete plans for the company’s residency, devoting “almost all of our efforts and time” to this project (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.369-360). Arts Queensland also supported such a move, indicating that “La Boite would have a very good case to approach Arts Queensland for financial help to relocate, and for an increase to our funding to cover administration, rehearsal space, and theatre rent” (General Manager’s Report to Board Meeting, March 15, 1999, La Boite Archives). Market research indicated audiences would accept the move and the company was confident its style of productions would transfer well to the new venue (ibid.).

Nothing was to be finalized however until the appointment of the artistic director of the Powerhouse. Once on board, new artistic director Zane Trow began negotiations with La Boite. Whitehead and Rider made it clear that such a move must not compromise the company’s identity: “… if La Boite was going to relocate to the Powerhouse, we wanted the relationship to go beyond a landlord / tenant and be more of a partner with the Powerhouse. We were being forced to sell our venue, we didn’t want to also lose our autonomy and our brand” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.153-156).

23 An initiative of Brisbane City Council, the redeveloped Brisbane Powerhouse – Centre for the Arts situated on the banks of the Brisbane River at New Farm was opened on May 10, 2000 by Lord Mayor of the day Cr Jim Soorley. Its website describes it as “a unique mid-sized venue featuring cutting-edge performances from Australia and overseas” (http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org/content/, cited October 10, 2005).

264 Although Trow’s background was in contemporary live art and new media, and the kind of text-based theatre that La Boite represented was probably anathema to his vision for this new centre for contemporary arts, initially negotiations went well with Whitehead reporting Trow’s positive response: Zane was very frank in his desire to have La Boite at the Powerhouse and indeed he sees it as being imperative. To that end he spoke very promisingly of building a relationship with La Boite beyond tenant landlord (sound familiar) special rates, deals, assistance with marketing, co-productions, and guarantee against losses. (General Manager’s Report to Board Meeting, April 3, 1999, La Boite Archives). Nevertheless, negotiations soon broke down completely due to a “philosophical difference in how La Boite and the Council viewed its presence at the Powerhouse and the costs of the rental charges” (General Manager’s Report, April 27, 1999, La Boite Archives). Young’s perception was that plans to become the resident company began to unravel immediately after Trow took up his position as artistic director: Zane Trow arrived way down the track when we were at the stage of negotiating a lease for the offices; we were at the stage of trying to finalise the lease arrangements on the building, Zane arrived, and Zane said “No, my vision is not to have any resident companies, however, I would like La Boite to produce the opening show”. (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: 366-370)

According to Whitehead, Trow’s knock-back to La Boite was understandable. He could empathize with Trow’s concern about program flexibility which would be seriously diminished by La Boite’s demand for a twenty-five week block for its season of plays in one of the two formal theatre spaces. In the end, it was Whitehead’s view that all these issues “were too large to overcome” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: l.156).

Trow remembers the ‘idea’ of a resident company as one that was never seriously considered by any of the Powerhouse power-brokers: David Fishel from Positive Solutions, who drove all the early work on the Powerhouse with Chris [Bowen] always gave me the impression that they had resisted the “resident company” idea from the start, and that the BCC/Premiers Task Force that they initially reported to had always agreed with them – diversity in programming would allow far more art forms and cultural voices to speak to a larger diverse audience, rather than ending up locked into a single company’s subscriber base. (Trow, La Boite at the Powerhouse email to the author, Jan. 24, 2006)

265 In interview, Sean Mee, who was to succeed Rider as artistic director, revealed his disquiet at the planned re-location to the Powerhouse, mainly because of the difficulty of re-creating ‘the round’ which he believes was demonstrated by the failure of Rider’s attempt to direct Popular Mechanicals in-the-round (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.521-523). Although recognizing that “it was a blow because the theatre thought the Powerhouse was the answer” Mee thought at the time that “it would have been a step back creatively” and, in retrospect, even believes that the company may have been lost because “at that stage, the company didn’t have a strong enough creative aesthetic that would have survived the Powerhouse” (ibid.: ll.517-525).

When considered together, Mee’s reservations and the reasons that negotiations fell apart all add up to a lucky escape for both La Boite and the Powerhouse. It is difficult to imagine a company that for seventy-five years had thrived as an independent organization used to running its own ‘show’, bending to the will of an organization larger and more complex than La Boite. On the other hand, the Powerhouse’s profile may well have suffered from too close an identification with such an established enterprise as La Boite. Yet, at the time, its best hope for re-location gone, the company found itself in an extremely vulnerable position.

Issues with the Artistic Director • The Board’s disquiet about Rider’s performance In the last several years of Rider’s term, the Board appeared to be slowly losing faith in their present artistic director’s ability to take the company forward in the way it envisaged was in the best interests of the organization.

Board Chair Young felt that the increasingly vexed issue of how to guarantee a viable future for a Theatre under threat to its location was compounded by an artistic director too narrowly focussed on art-making and not enough on the real issues of the future. His perception was that La Boite had an artistic director “who was in denial about most of those things, who just simply believed in making art with nothing else” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: 80-81). Young felt strongly that once it was clear that redevelopment of the present La Boite site was not viable and that the development of Suncorp Stadium would seem to make any continuing future there untenable anyway, then an entirely different strategy had to be developed to find a

266 new home for La Boite. He commented: “Part of that strategy was that we needed an artistic director who could see that there was a need for a new home. And Sue had announced at one of the Board meetings that we had no need for a new home that we would just stay where we were …” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.315-354).

Whitehead, who enjoyed a good working relationship with Rider, has a less black and white view – and memory - of Rider’s involvement in “the real issues of the future”: Sue had a great love for the old venue and had a great desire to see the company stay at Hale Street, if at all possible. It is probably true that she lacked the same level of urgency that the Board and I had for the relocation of the company, but she certainly wasn’t standing in the company’s way. Sue was involved in the discussions with the Powerhouse and the Judith Wright Centre, and the early discussions with Matt Foley. (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.137-139)

The last several years of Rider’s artistic leadership were, in Young’s view, a matter of “maintaining the status quo” rather than looking to the future, and of moving the company dangerously close to becoming a theatre in education company, for which it was not funded (op.cit.: ll.72-77). He was not impressed by the yearly reporting of an average ticket price of between $16 and $18 dollars, an indication that school group bookings were dominating the ticket sales. He remembers one year when less than 12% of ticket sales were adult tickets (ibid.: ll.236-237). Overall, he felt this was a strong indication that box office was in fact shrinking, that an ‘adult’ part of its traditional audience was being lost. Whitehead conceded that “At that particular time, for a large number of our shows our principal audience was school audiences” and felt the Board had difficulty with this emphasis because it didn’t seem to fit with “La Boite’s stated objective of being a national company” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.501-503). However, La Boite’s success with school audiences both in Brisbane and through its regional tours should be seen in the context of the times: in 1999 the Australia Council was pushing for companies to increase its youth audience between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six. The issue was probably more of balance – that too much emphasis had been placed on attracting the school groups when the company really needed to focus on audience development in a range of age groups.

267 • Programming issues and The Bumpy Angels dispute Over the last three years of Rider’s term, programming issues became a matter of concern by the Board. The late arrival of the following year’s artistic program to the Board, without a budget which arrived even later, made it difficult for Board members to assess its financial and box office feasibility (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.518-523). This was seen as an issue of “serious concern” by the Board (ibid: 522). The late arrival of the planned 2000 season presented the Board with a particularly difficult negotiation over Rider’s 24programming of her own work Bumpy Angels as the company’s production for the high profile opening of the new Brisbane Powerhouse (Minutes of Board Meeting, August 23, 1999:1-.3). The Board challenged Rider on the play’s poor match with the Theatre’s core values of innovation, excellence and contemporary relevance combined with commercial viability and basically vetoed the play, an unusual step for any Board of a theatre company to take (ibid.). During the Board Meeting, Rider defended her choice: Bumpy Angels has a very broad audience appeal, it is innovative, it is challenging, it takes contemporary issues but looks at them at a time that is set in the 50s. … I was looking for a play of celebration with music, song, and dance, something that moves people, to open the Powerhouse. The people who will be attending the first production at the Powerhouse will be doing so to have a good time, in the way that people attend musicals for a good time. Because of the marketing that the Powerhouse and La Boite will throw behind the opening production whatever we do is going to be successful. (ibid.:2-3) This was to be a high profile event and the Board felt that such a choice as Bumpy Angels would compromise the company’s image: “The Board are … very aware of the key role and the key opportunity that a relationship with the Powerhouse…presents” (ibid. p.1). In fact, after the Board’s initial advice that Bumpy Angels was unsuitable, Rider tried twice more to insist on her choice (Whitehead, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.336-343). Whitehead unsuccessfully counselled her against her third try; she went ahead “as a matter of principle” (ibid.: 540-541). The result was a “seething” Board and a meeting that “ended in tears for Sue” (ibid.: 543). Finally, the Board and Rider agreed on a replacement – Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor’s The Popular Mechanicals.

24 Bumpy Angels was originally written in 1992 as the graduation play for QUT’s Academy of the Arts acting students. Set in Brisbane in 1954 during Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Australia, it was a play with song and dance about unmarried mothers.

268 Interestingly, Trow agreed with Rider’s first choice of Bumpy Angels: “…when Sue Rider originally presented Bumpy Angels [as a possible opening play] I realised that this, for her and for them, was a risky challenging venture that spoke of Australian history and the role of women in emerging (post-) colonial societies, and had the potential to utilise the vast (for La Boite!) physical space of the theatre itself” (Trow, La Boite at Powerhouse email to the author, Jan. 24, 2006, Comans Private Collection).

The Board’s perception of the unsuitability of Bumpy Angels was not the only issue it had with the 2000 program, expressing concern that “The season presented to the Board contains two plays that have yet to be written and two plays not confirmed” (Minutes of Board Meeting, August 23, 1999). Overall, this was a very telling scenario that demonstrated the widening gap between the Board and the Artistic Director.

• Concerns about the company’s strategic direction Mee’s impression was that from about 1997 concerns were being expressed by the Board about the strategic direction of the theatre: … although the plays were doing quite well, the company seemed to be not focussed strategically. The issue of the building – its relocation – had been bubbling away since 1994/95 but it wasn’t being strategically grappled with. So when Craig Whitehead comes on as General Manager – a good stable, hard working general manager … he is just ready to do things. But still the company seemed to be both creatively and politically not moving forward.

My understanding of the situation was that that was put to Sue and when she was asked to respond and she responded with a steady as she goes which I think was not sufficient for the Board. It was clear at my interview that the Board was totally focussed on a new strategic direction for the company. (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.181-195)

Kaye Stevenson, a Board member for many years, recalled that over a period of about three years there had been “a feeling of dissatisfaction about what the Board perceived was the future direction of the company” (Stevenson Interview, Sept. 15, 2003: ll.208-209). There were some questions raised about Rider’s choice of plays which were “appealing to certain members of the community, but certain other members of the theatre going community were finding it all very bland and not very

269 interesting any more” (ibid. ll.213-215). Stevenson’s perception was that “there seemed to be no grand plan, no grand vision about where we were going. And Sue didn’t seem to be addressing it” (ibid.: ll.224-226 ). As a Board member loyal to Rider and admiring of her artistic work, Stevenson took three years to be convinced that it was time for a change of artistic leadership but in the end she felt the company was getting stale “even despite the fact that we were doing well in the box office in most instances. I mean when Sue left the company it was as healthy as it’s ever been in its life” (ibid.: ll.232-234).

But it was the Board’s growing concern that effective strategic planning was being frustrated because certain areas of financial management were not embraced by Rider, that prompted a rethink about the role of the artistic director and led to the restructuring of the position to CEO/Artistic Director. Young recalls that in meetings prior to Rider’s leaving, the Board had asked Rider to begin to focus more sharply on budgets and marketing. Her response, according to Young, was that “she had no desire to look at money, that was the general manager’s role” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.529-530). It was her seeming disengagement from the wider concerns of the organization and her distress at being asked to engage with issues she believed were outside her brief, that Young believed indicated to the Board that she had grown “far too comfortable in the role and had failed to address challenges that were coming up, and not able to respond to potential challenges” (ibid.: ll.541-542).

The Board was also concerned about sponsorship and the company’s poor track record to date of developing cash sponsorship that would give the Theatre the means to grow. There was plenty of in-kind sponsorship but corporate sponsorship was becoming increasingly necessary to pursue, given the lack of growth in the funding dollar. As Young recalled: We had no other process of earned income. And we were hearing from government constantly that there would be no increase in funds. I can remember sitting around a table in Arts Queensland when, as we walked in the door, Arts Queensland said “Don’t come here expecting new money, you won’t get any. You’ll get the grant that you got last year”. (ibid.: ll.286-290) Whitehead’s comment about cash sponsorship during this period was that it was “very difficult to do in that particular venue” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2004: l.232).

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• Funding body concerns about the artistic program Although there was no reason to suspect that ongoing Arts Queensland and Australia Council funding was in any real danger, according to Young some concern had been raised “that the artistic program was not what they were funding us for” (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.554-555). Private meetings with Australia Council personnel had convinced Young that “the potential was there to put us on notice, to begin to review our funding” (ibid.: ll.262-263).

Mee, who had been a member of the Theatre Board of the Australia Council, agrees that there was some disquiet expressed by this Board in relation to “a very eclectic, unfocussed kind of artistic policy at work” and a certain unevenness in the quality of the work (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.214-215). Although Mee considered this criticism not completely fair, nevertheless “when the wind blows, you must respond” (ibid.: l.226) and this, he believes, is what Rider did not do.

General Manager Whitehead concurred that there were problems with La Boite’s relationship with the Theatre Board. He reported that in 1997 the Theatre Board had expressed concerns about “the artistic vision of the company and the strategic and financial management of the company… There was a lack of confidence in the company” which resulted in La Boite being placed on annual funding instead of the much preferred triennial funding (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.372-375). However, Whitehead made it clear to me in interview that both he and Rider responded to these concerns, preparing “a new artistic vision” which was “adopted by the Board as their artistic policy, and the basis by which they would assess each season of plays”(ibid.: ll.377-378). It read: “The artistic vision of La Boite Theatre is to nurture the creation of new writing and to create and promote theatre of innovation and excellence which is accessible and affordable in a distinct and welcoming environment” (La Boite Theatre Annual Report 1998). Difficulty with the Board arose when Rider was considered not to be guided by this artistic goal in all her program choices, as demonstrated in her insistence on choosing Bumpy Angels for the opening play at the Powerhouse Theatre.

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• “A seminal moment” –the artistic failure of The Popular Mechanicals According to Whitehead there were high expectations riding on Rider’s production of The Popular Mechanicals staged in the round at the new 400 seat Powerhouse Theatre: “The Board wanted us to make a bang moving in there, it was an opportunity for us” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.173-174). The expectation was that this would be a re-worked, updated and localized version that would exude “a similar kind of celebratory feel achieved by QTC with The Marriage of Figaro that opened The Playhouse at QPAC” (ibid.: ll.180-181). Trow recalls the high profile nature of this event and the marvellous opportunity it was for La Boite “to have attracted international attention” if they had done “something remarkable”: National arts eyes and audiences were on them, with Powerhouse bringing ABC TV & Radio, Fairfax and News Corp. arts journalists from around the country up for the opening, with every arts aficionado in Brisbane eager to see the results of BCC arts expenditure, with Arts Queensland, Australia Council, the UK and politicians and advisors, and venue and festival directors and artists from across Australia, the UK and North and South America. (Trow La Boite at Powerhouse email to author, Jan. 24, 2006, Comans Private Collection) The production didn’t measure up to expectations and was reported as being “panned across Brisbane” (Aldred in The Courier Mail, July 27, 2000). Cotes called it “a tired old play” and “quite the wrong choice to open the slick, high-tech, wonderfully rejuvenated Powerhouse” (The Courier Mail, May 12, 2000, p.19).

Whitehead believes its failure should be judged in the context of all the problems the company encountered in this new theatre which was “in an unfinished state ... it didn’t suit in-the-round style of performance … and the electrics and acoustics were problematic” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.163-165). Trow, on the other hand, had felt from the beginning that the company “were not up to it”; in fact he had been negotiating to present Janis Balodis’ The Mercenary as the opening production but bowed to pressure from his own Board to “let La Boite have first go” (Trow La Boite at Powerhouse email to author, Jan. 24, 2006, Comans Private Collection).

This was a significant failure for La Boite, judged by the Board to be “a seminal moment for the company” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: l.554). Whitehead said

272 that he thought the Board saw it as a test to see if Rider could program for a larger venue: “I guess in their eyes she failed the test” (ibid.: l.556). His perception was right. The artistic failure of The Popular Mechanicals, according to Young, convinced the Board finally that its considered opinion to seek a new artistic director was the right one (Young Interview Dec. 11, 2003: ll.372-380). How different an outcome might have been achieved if the Board had trusted Rider’s original choice of Bumpy Angels is an interesting, but, in the end, futile speculation.

The Re-structured Senior Management Positions Young, realising the delicacy of confronting Rider with a request for her resignation25, waited until the whole Board was unanimous in supporting a restructure of the organization without the present artistic director (ibid.: ll.382-387). The Board’s vision was that the artistic director be replaced by a chief executive officer responsible for the Theatre’s financial management, artistic direction, marketing and its accommodation and physical infrastructure (Draft Position Description June 9, 2000, p.1, Athol Young Archives). In other words, the CEO’s leadership role would be to cover “all aspects of the theatre’s operation and development” (ibid). This was a dramatic departure from the ‘old’ structure which placed artistic matters as the major focus of the AD’s work whilst other matters of financial management and marketing etc. were firmly in the hands of the General Manager. The new vision for the General Manager (Operations) was to assist the CEO in running the company as the deputy CEO of La Boite and be responsible for “the management of financial operations; management of staff; supervision of the operations of the Theatre; realising the artistic plan for La Boite; promotion and audience development; and maintaining accommodation and physical infrastructure” (ibid.). Underpinning this new management structure was the Board’s vision of a CEO and GM working in a much more complementary way than had previously been the case. Given the extreme nature of the ‘shift’ in both job descriptions, it is not surprising that both Rider and Whitehead reacted negatively to these proposed changes.

25 Rider had never been on a contract, and although it was mooted a number of times either by the General Manager or Rider herself, it was never followed through. In interview, Rider acknowledged that it hadn’t seemed a priority because she had always felt so secure in her position. By 2000, however, she regretted not having the security of a contract (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.833-847). Conversely, the Board probably regretted never giving Rider a contract as ‘not renewing’ her contract before having to ask for her resignation in 2000, might have been a more professional and less painful strategy.

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Rider had had the opportunity to respond to a February 2000 draft of these positions. In her analysis, Rider expressed a major concern that “artistic direction was only one of four strands of responsibility and action by the CEO” (Letter to Athol Young from Sue Rider p.2, February 8, 2000, Athol Young Private Collection). Drawing on her knowledge of how companies such as Playbox and Belvoir Street Company B worked, she reasoned that it was not feasible for the AD to be involved in “direct implementation of plans” in financial performance, marketing and physical infrastructure (ibid. p.3). She said “It would take a superhuman being!” (ibid.). She believed the planned restructure of these positions failed to recognize “the time, energy and level of expertise required for the programming and implementation of artistic work” (ibid. p.2). She thought that the proposed model shifted the balance “from a current healthy working relationship to a major imbalance with one position weighted out of all proportion and the other reduced to the point of demotion” (ibid. p.3). She found untenable a model which she believed risked the integrity of La Boite’s artistic product. She wrote: One reason for La Boite Theatre’s success over the past 7 years had been consistent quality of artistic product. This has come about not through chance or luck, but through vision supported by energetic research, planning, programming, developing, nurturing and monitoring. La Boite has an outstanding reputation amongst theatre professionals for work ethics and highest professional standards. Place alongside this an acute awareness of the necessity for budgetary care and we have an organisation of which we are all rightly proud. (ibid. p.4) A cynical response to the Board’s restructuring of the AD’s position could be that it was made so unattractive to an artist such as Rider, whose overwhelming concentration in her role had been on artistic product, that there would be no chance of her applying for such a position. The General Manager Craig Whitehead was also unhappy about the re-structured senior positions. He felt his own role had been considerably diminished (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: l.198) but guessed that the incorporation of some of the GM’s responsibilities into the AD’s job description was the Board’s attempt “to provide more impetus for the artistic director to address audience development issues and to take more of a leadership role within the organization” (ibid.: ll.200-202).

274 Rider Asked To Resign On April 20, 2000, Young took Rider to lunch to explain that the Board, while appreciative of her comments (and those of General Manager Craig Whitehead who had also reacted with concern), would not be changing its overall vision for new CEO and General Manager positions (Notes on Sue Rider’s Meeting with Athol Young, April 20, 2000, Athol Young Private Collection). It was at this meeting that Young asked Rider if she would consider standing aside as the Artistic Director of La Boite at the conclusion of her 2000 season responsibilities in early October – and accept a one-off payment of $20,000 upon departure (File Note: “My Conversation/meeting with Sue Rider”, Thursday 20 April 2000, Tongue and Groove Café, West End, Athol Young Private Collection). He took care to explain that this request “was not a criticism of her or her performance” but that it was “a desire by the Board to develop a changed and strategic artistic vision for La Boite that would allow the organization to move to its next stage of growth and development and allow the Board to address the changing circumstances facing the organization” (ibid.). He felt this was a very good time for a career change as she would be leaving La Boite with a legacy of great artistic and financial success. He realised too that she herself had obviously been ready to move given her recent applications for Artistic Director positions at QTC and the State Company of South Australia (ibid.). Such an arrangement “would allow Sue to resign at her own timing allowing her departure to be dignified and her considerable contribution to be recognized publicly. It would also allow Sue an extended period to plan her future career moves” (ibid.).

Rider was shocked to be asked to stand aside and be told that in the new management structure she “would not fit in” (Notes on Sue Rider’s Meeting with Athol Young, April 20, 2000, Athol Young Private Collection). She requested a meeting with the full Board (to which Young agreed) to have input into the restructure and future direction discussions. After this meeting for which she thanked the Board “for listening to my point of view and responding to issues I have raised regarding the proposed restructure of management positions” (Letter to Chair and Board of La Boite Theatre from Sue Rider, June 11, 2000, Athol Young Private Collection), she then requested that the Board consider a revised timeline for the restructure and her departure. Rather than leaving in early October and appointing the new CEO in time for that person to launch the 2001 season, she suggested the Board contract her for a

275 further nine months, delay the CEO appointment until March or April of 2001, allowing her time to finish drawing up the 2001 Program and effect a suitable hand- over to the new CEO (ibid.). Her proposal was to no avail however. The Board went ahead with its original time-line and on July 18, 2000 released a press statement under the headline LA BOITE THEATRE TO SEARCH FOR NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR. While thanking Rider for steering the company “through a very successful period” the article stated that La Boite’s Board had altered “the structure of the management of the company to allow the organization to better handle the changing circumstances facing performing arts companies in Australia today” (Press Release, 18 July 2000 “La Boite Theatre to Search for New Artistic Director”, Athol Young Private Collection).

Media Response to Rider’s Forced Resignation The Courier Mail picked up on the story immediately, announcing “Theatre director has to make way for ‘new growth’” but with no comment from Rider (Aldred, The Courier Mail, July 20, 2000, p.6). However, within a week Rider made a brief but significantly worded media statement: “All I want to say is that I’m not interested in muck-raking because it benefits no one,” Rider said yesterday. “The facts are simply that the board made a decision, I counselled against it, I have spent the last two months proposing ways in which their desired outcome could be reached. The decision for me to go could be achieved differently and honourably. They chose not to take my advice.” (Aldred, The Courier Mail, July 27, 2000, p.8)

Aldred reported in this same article that “The shock decision… has destabilized Brisbane’s arts industry and may force Rider to leave Queensland to pursue her directing career” and quoted Michael Gow, QTC Artistic Director as saying “The arts scene is already volatile. This has made it more vulnerable. This decision was handled appallingly” (ibid.). A more balanced feature article was produced by Arts writer Martin Buzzacott (The Australian, July 28, 2000, p.12). Under the headline “Rider on the storm: La Boite shake-up”, he wrote: Sue Rider is not the kind of person you’d expect to lose her job. At a time when theatre companies nationwide are busting a gut to increase audiences and attract tomorrow’s generation of theatre-goers, Rider has garnered an impressive set of statistics for Brisbane’s La Boite: a 62 percent increase in box-office takings during the past two years; an average 80 percent

276 occupancy…; an audience of which 70 percent are aged between 17 and 35; and an operating surplus since 1998. (ibid.) When challenged on this seemingly impeccable record, Young was quoted as saying: … it is not a matter of statistics but about preparing the company for an increasingly competitive future and giving it a riskier creative profile … The issue for the Board is where we’re going not where we’ve been … The Board’s attitude is that it was time for a change for no other reason than that it was time for a change…we need to move on. (ibid.) In a full page feature article by Kristine Olsson in The Courier Mail (August 5, 2000, p.3 BAM) the media nightmare surrounding Rider’s dismissal hotted up under the damaging headline: “Behind the Scenes … Gossip, bad blood and public humiliations. La Boite theatre company has seen better days. What went wrong and who’s to blame?” It was Young who bore the brunt of this media ‘field day’ that continued for some weeks. In interview, Young recalled how difficult that time was: It became a difficult phase in terms of handling a number of journalists, both national and local in ensuring that we weren’t going to enter into a phase of personal nit-picking and personal denigration because the organization was greater than either myself or Sue. (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.480-494) In steering the company through that difficult period, Young reminded himself that “in the history of the company [this episode] was a very minor blip” (ibid.: l.500).

According to Whitehead, Rider had expected “a lot more support from within the industry” when her dismissal was announced and that “the Board would be forced to reinstate her” (ibid.: ll.573-574). When this didn’t happen, his guess was that most people in the industry thought that eight years had been a good run (ibid.: ll.577-578). With the wisdom of hindsight, it is hard to disagree that it would have been a much better outcome for Rider if she had taken the initiative herself to leave earlier before suffering the indignity of being forced out.

Conclusion In terms of this study’s investigation, by far the greatest legacy of this era was the historic professionalization of the Theatre that Rider (guided by an astute General Manager and Council Chair) achieved in 1993 and the extraordinary period of growth and development that followed to 2000 as the company worked to consolidate and further develop itself as Brisbane’s second largest professional company.

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On her last day at La Boite (October 5, 2000), Aubrey Mellor, Artistic Director of Playbox in Melbourne emailed this message to her, a heartfelt summary of her eight year artistic contribution. Within his listing of her achievements is the legacy that, willingly or not, she was to pass on to her successor – Sean Mee - providing him with a solid foundation on which to build his own vision: Dear Sue, I wish I could be with you today and share in the enormous good will extended to you as you unyoke yourself from the enormous burden of an artistic directorship. Only those who have experienced it can understand the thousands of demands over and above the directing of a play. You have so triumphed in your time at La Boite as to appear as fresh as when you first began. During that time, the entire performing arts industry has been made aware of the steady growth of La Boite and its course in backing Australian writing to the hilt. Your brave rebuttal of cultural cringe has resulted in the extremely important development of Queensland writing. From La Boite productions have come a number of published scripts now in national and international circulation and the confirmation within the industry and public of the wealth of talent in your state. I salute you and wish I could share with you the champagne of this day. Love and respect - Aubrey Mellor, Artistic Director, Playbox.

Whilst Rider was undoubtedly the key element to La Boite’s success during this period, this chapter has emphasized the crucially important role of the strong organizational leadership provided by General Managers Deborah Murphy, Donna McDonald and Craig Whitehead, and Council Chairs Philip Pike, Peter Lawson and Athol Young, in the initial professionalization of the company, in the difficult early years of professional status, and in managing the re-location and artistic leadership issues that arose in the late 1990s. In the final years of the decade, a committed, hard- working Board led by Young, despite opposition from some parts of its constituency, doggedly pursued a change agenda for the company which insisted on development, on the forward movement of La Boite, and ultimately on the power of the Board over the artistic director.

The drama of Rider’s departure, although traumatic at the time for all involved, did no permanent damage to the company and proved once again the resilience of La Boite’s constituency in accepting change and moving on. However, Rider’s departure and the new CEO/AD and GM positions clearly signalled that La Boite was entering another stage in its evolution and development, one that was to be characterized by a much more corporate management structure and a more strategic outlook.

278 CHAPTER TEN The Mee, Whitehead and Young Era 2001 - 2003

Sean Mee circa 2000, La Boite Archives Introduction As an arts practitioner with twenty-five years experience, Sean Mee was well known and respected in the Brisbane theatre community at the time of his appointment as CEO/Artistic Director of La Boite Theatre Company. Young’s analysis of the Board’s choice acknowledged that Mee had both the capacity to steady the waters after the storm surrounding Rider’s dismissal and progress the theatre in the way the Board wanted: ... the selection came down to Sean because there was a feeling that the process of Sue moving on had been slightly damaging for the organization and that what we needed was someone who could put in place the artistic vision, or the policy, that the Board had determined was important to it - that the work was about us here in Brisbane in Queensland – and he could do it in a way that could develop La Boite towards a national and international focus … … the other candidates couldn’t bring back that great sense of a family that La Boite always had. (Young Interview, December 11, 2003: ll.585-603)

Mee had a long history with the company – he had been part of the La Boite ‘family’ since 1975 – and he had always enjoyed a mutually respectful working relationship with Rider (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.152-154). Her general approval of her successor was a useful placatory gesture on the Board’s part. Martin Buzzacott commented in an article on Mee written the day after his appointment that “If there are any wounds to heal after that uncomfortable transition, it seems that the softly spoken and popular Mee is a well-qualified appointee” (The Australian September 8, 2000, p.14).

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On his appointment as artistic director in October 2000, Mee interpreted the Board’s call for a new strategic direction to mean “that the theatre company has to be relocated both physically and creatively to a new space” (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.207-208). The first task, the physical re-location of the Theatre, was presented to Mee by the Board and the General Manager Craig Whitehead as a matter of urgency. When the Lang Park Stadium, home of Brisbane rugby league and located across the Hale Street inner city by-pass from the Theatre, got the go-ahead by the Queensland Government for major re-development in August 1999, the scope and scale of the proposed stadium (now called, ‘Suncorp’) rendered any future in its present location virtually impossible after 2003. La Boite’s Board and GM agreed they now had no choice but to concede that the company’s days at Hale Street were numbered, and that indeed its days as a theatre company were also numbered if a solution was not found. An analysis of how the drama of the re-location was played out and resolved by the actions of the three key leaders of this period – Sean Mee, Craig Whitehead and Athol Young - forms Part One of this chapter.

Mee’s other brief from the Board was to re-locate La Boite ‘creatively’. If Sue Rider had been found wanting in terms of her vision for the company’s artistic future, then the onus was on Mee to articulate a clear way forward artistically and to convincingly action that vision. Part Two is an account and evaluation of the steps Mee took to stamp his artistic vision on the company.

PART ONE The Physical Re-Location to QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct • The re-location imperative Of the three central players in the re-location endeavour it was Whitehead, guided by the Board, who took the major leadership role in the negotiations with Government and QUT which culminated in the move to The Roundhouse in 2003, although Mee played a crucial role as the public ‘face’ of the company and its spokesperson. On Mee’s appointment, Whitehead asked him to play one key role throughout the re- location process: “… to make the artistic work as good as you can - I’ve got a fulltime job that is going to be this relocation, so I need you to take up a lot of the slack just making sure the company is staying on track”. There were weeks where I

280 spent five days of that week at meetings, running from meeting to meeting to meeting. (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.362-366)

As noted in the previous chapter, Whitehead had already taken the lead role in the relocation imperative since his appointment in 1998. Indeed, on his arrival, “where the company was going to live” was the key issue the Board had asked him to address (ibid.: ll.16-17). The first step was shifting the administration out of the cramped, unhealthy space in Hale Street, a process he began in 1999 (La Boite Inc. Board Meeting, August 23 1999, La Boite Archives) and completed in 2001 with a move to a suite of spacious offices in the Thomas Dixon Centre at West End. The re-location of the Theatre proved a lot harder.

This was not a project, however, that La Boite was conducting in isolation. According to Whitehead, the company had been talking to Government for some years about the rundown state of the building and the need to find a solution: “We had said that the building was falling down around our ears, that 200 seats just wasn’t large enough for the company” (ibid.:ll.111-112). In the late 1990s, the Minister for the Arts, The Honourable Matt Foley MP was planning the allocation of a $260 million Queensland Government Millennium Arts Project to be dedicated to “the upgrading and expansion of arts and cultural facilities throughout Queensland”1. It was officially announced by Foley and the Premier of Queensland, The Honourable Peter Beattie MP in May 2000. In retrospect it would have seemed logical to assume that Queensland’s second major theatre company, given its serious location issues (caused, in the main, by Government’s decision to redevelop Lang Park), would be included as one of the ‘projects’ to receive funding to support a re-location. This was not the case2. La Boite had not been included. Whitehead still does not understand why. Mee believes the matter wasn’t lobbied properly by the La Boite Board which “was sending signals that it was quite happy. That it wasn’t urgent enough” (Mee Interview Oct. 15, 2003: 558),

1 http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/arts_project_millenium.asp cited Dec. 29, 2005

2 The Millennium Arts Project included the new Queensland Gallery of Modern Art; a major redevelopment of the State Library of Queensland; the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts; new premises for the Queensland Theatre Company; the Musgrave Park Cultural Centre; and 16 projects throughout regional Queensland (http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/arts_project_millenium.asp).

281 but Whitehead disagrees, and as it was he who had attended meetings with Foley and made what he believed was a clear case for their inclusion, his position on the matter has credit: … the year that the Millennium Arts Project was being worked out, I think we had met with Matt Foley three or four times to discuss the impact of Lang Park and the need for the company to re-locate and we needed some dollars to do that. From our point of view we made the issues of the need to relocate or re-develop La Boite very obvious to Government and it had been going on for some years … it would have made life a hell of a lot easier if we’d been included. It would have made the process a lot easier. Perhaps La Boite just wasn’t on the radar at that particular time. (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.113-129)

As discussed in the previous chapter, various options that came to nothing had been canvassed with Government, such as the re-development of the present site or a possible Brisbane Powerhouse re-location. Even the idea of La Boite selling the property and becoming an itinerant company working out of various Brisbane theatres such as the Cremorne and the Playhouse had been canvassed. But the enormous cost of theatre hire and the strong chance of losing its brand identity ruled that out. As Whitehead commented: “We’d have to take our brand and pitch it at QPAC, we’d have to wait until QTC had slotted in their seasons and then we’d get the scraps from them. We just weren’t in a position to afford to have shows in venues like The Playhouse” (ibid.: ll.342-345).

• A new option – QUT’s planned precinct Pursuing yet another option, early in 2000 Whitehead met with the Public Works Department of the Queensland Government to canvass the possibility of La Boite being included in the Arts Precinct planned for the Roma Street Parklands development. It fulfilled the company’s criteria for re-location in that it was close to the CBD and close to the Hale Street location. If located too far away, the company feared losing its audience – “We were very concerned about the experience of TN! and their move from Bowen Hills to Woolloongabba and what impact that had on the company” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.66-68). Whilst that option came to nothing, it was at this meeting that mention was made of a new development planned for the Kelvin Grove Campus of QUT (ibid.: ll.70-72). Soon after his appointment, Mee was invited to attend a breakfast meeting at QUT about these plans. He heard that the university, with substantial state government support, was building a creative

282 industries precinct on the old Gona Army Barracks site adjacent to the present Kelvin Grove campus. This precinct would form part of a wider concept called the Kelvin Grove Urban Village which would include residential and commercial areas, student and seniors’ accommodation, a village centre with shops and supermarket, and an Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation. Mee, Whitehead and the Board agreed that La Boite would fit very well into this development.

From his long association with QUT as an associate lecturer and long-term industry relationships with now high ranking university personnel such as Professor Peter Lavery and Professor Rod Wissler3, Mee could claim useful contacts at QUT. As Mee recalled: Having come from QUT just two years before, I knew that there was this thing on the go – this Creative Industries Precinct. And so I made a few inquiries and basically we wedged our way in. We got invited to a couple of meetings … and people were saying “What’s Sean doing here?” and I said “I am here for La Boite because we want La Boite to be part of this thing” and everybody looked at me – because the Precinct was all about film and television by that stage - as if I’d just farted! (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.526-532)

However, QUT became interested in the idea of including a theatre building for La Boite in its plans when Whitehead, Mee and Young put their case: that a contemporary performance company dedicated to producing commercially viable new work was extremely compatible with the whole concept of creative industries which was to provide “a unique opportunity for artists, researchers, educators and entrepreneurs to easily connect and collaborate with others to create new work, develop new ideas and grow the creative industries sector in Queensland” (http://www.qut.edu.au/services/aboutqut/ciprecinct.jsp cited Dec. 29, 2005). It was certainly a unique opportunity for La Boite. Not too far from its present home in Hale Street, and just two kilometres from the centre of the city, such a central location would cause little disruption to its community of patrons and had every chance of enhancing it. This would be especially so after the completion of the urban village, an Australia- first experiment in integrated living involving education, residences, businesses, retail and recreational facilities. More importantly, most of the cost would be met by QUT

3 Both Lavery and Wissler had been former Heads of Drama at QUT and had previous involvements in the theatre industry ; Wissler, for example, had been artistic director of TN! 1982-1987.

283 and the Queensland Government; the company could look forward to opening its 2004 season in a brand new 400 seat theatre-in-the-round with a modest $500,000 direct contribution from La Boite itself.

Strong support came from Arts Minister’s Matt Foley. With the Queensland Government already a partner in the planned $60 million Kelvin Grove Urban Village project, Foley’s role was to convince Treasury to grant $3 million towards the theatre building, an essential contribution for QUT to be in a position to invite La Boite into the project. Whitehead estimated that if a new La Boite theatre had been included in the Millennium Arts Project, such a “stand-alone facility” would have cost government between $7 million and $8 million (Yallamas in The Courier Mail, Oct. 20, 2001), so a mere $3 million to relocate the company should have been a powerful argument to Treasury. However, Arts Minister Matt Foley’s request for more money, not unreasonably, fell on deaf ears; Treasury’s response was that the La Boite project should have been budgeted for in the $260 million allocated for the Millennium Arts Project (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.543-552). The ‘no’ from Treasury was an acute disappointment to Mee, Whitehead and Young and seriously stalled negotiations with QUT.

• The ‘deadlines’ saga In July 2001, Mee, Whitehead and Young had been given a deadline by QUT - the company had until December 31, 2001 to decide whether or not they were ‘in’ the project. La Boite’s decision hinged completely on obtaining a promise from the Queensland Government, before that deadline, that it would provide the required $3 million to make the project viable. With the sale of the organization’s Hale Street properties, La Boite would have no trouble providing $500,000 as its contribution. The remainder would be financed by QUT. There was no negotiation on the QUT deadline but the next Queensland Government’s Budget’s Estimate Committee Meeting (the body that had the power to allocate this kind of money) was not due to be held until January 2002, after the QUT deadline. There was no negotiating this meeting date either. It seemed that this extraordinary opportunity to have a new theatre built for it by QUT and the Queensland Government was going to slip through the company’s fingers.

284 As Mee recalled “The issue became political” (ibid.: ll.566). The Theatre called on community support and let the government know that unless funding for the location was guaranteed in time, then La Boite Theatre would cease operations by the end of 2003: “I was adamant about that. I said that there was absolutely no point in going on. I had been there before with TN! and I’m not going to allow this company to wither on the vine. I will shoot it in the head rather than that” (ibid.: ll.589-591).

The public campaign was spear-headed by a letter writing campaign strategically managed for La Boite by consultants. It was Queensland-wide and called on all parts of the La Boite constituency – for example, any school which had supported one of the company’s many tours was asked to write a letter, as was any audience member attending a La Boite show. Ministers were impressed with the hundreds of letters appearing on their desks and congratulated La Boite on its strategic campaign (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.709-719).

The Courier Mail joined the fray4 with this headline in the Arts pages “Brisbane theatre fights for survival - DO or DIE” (Yallamas, Oct. 20, 2001, p.24). Lisa Yallamas’ article reported: “The possibility that the lack of government action could result in the theatre’s demise is especially galling for the company because recent results have shown La Boite to be one of the fastest growing theatres in Australia” (ibid.). In the public forum of the October 2001 launch of the 2002 La Boite Season, Mee announced that oblivion faced the company if this opportunity slipped through their fingers. Biting the hand that feeds you – in this case the Queensland Government without yearly grant (much bigger than the Australia Council’s) the company could not have functioned –was a risky political ploy. However, Mee believed that the alternative absolutely meant closure for the company, “so politically we had to agitate” (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: l.626). Sandra McLean reported “A tearful Mee told a packed theatre the 2002 season would be La Boite’s last at Hale Street” and quoted Mee as calling on “those who believe in the living tradition of this theatre to tell the Government of their concern and to stress the importance of this theatre” (The Courier Mail, Nov. 3, 2001 p.24).

4 Arts Editor of The Courier Mail, Rosemary Sorensen had met with Young and agreed to support La Boite’s public campaign. Over the critical time she published a number of articles on the company’s plight (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.765-766).

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When asked in interview if the situation was in fact as dire as Mee had intimated in his launch speech (which both Whitehead and Mee had worked on), Whitehead stated that while he was “always confident that it (government support) would happen” there was certainly a need “to shake the government … and the community up a little bit” to counter the feeling of complacency that surrounded the Theatre’s existence, “a feeling that La Boite has always been there and it will continue to go on regardless” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.91-92). The launch speech was also intended to target the “large number of people who just couldn’t understand why La Boite was wanting to re-locate” (ibid.: ll.94-96). So the speech was, intentionally, “a call to action”: We needed to get the community mobilized, we needed to get the artistic community to realise that this is significant, that if we don’t move indeed the company will fall. And we needed to get people talking to the Government. We had some bureaucratic will and we needed to get some political will, to get the Government to decide that yes, this is important. (ibid.: ll.97-101)

The final strategy was to be a planned, full-page $16,000 advertisement in The Courier Mail with a call to the public and the Government to respond. The ad was to state categorically that because of the Queensland Government’s inaction in financially supporting La Boite in its planned move to QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct , the company would close at the end of the year, because with no home it had no future (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.722-735). Whitehead advised the Arts Minister’s office that this ad was to appear in three days’ time. On day three, Minister Foley’s office rang Mee asking that the ad be withdrawn – which it was - pending new negotiations. And on Christmas Eve, the Premier, the Hon. Peter Beattie and the Minister for Employment, Training, Youth and the Arts, the Hon. Matt Foley invited Mee and Whitehead to the Executive Building to announce their commitment to providing the necessary $3 million, with the support of QUT, to build a theatre which La Boite could use in the Creative Industries Precinct (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.617-621). QUT’s deadline of December 31 had been met, with a week to spare.

The Queensland Government had circumvented its own procedures by finding a way to fund the project without actually involving the Budget Estimates Committee. How

286 it happened was that all government departments involved in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village development got together - The Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Department of State Development, Department of Housing, Department of Public Works, and Arts Queensland – and worked out how each could make a contribution to add up to the required amount. And in the end a package of $3 million was brokered. A very satisfactory outcome for La Boite and one which Mee believes demonstrated, in the final analysis, the Queensland Government’s good will towards the company. In his 2002 annual report, Mee called this a “whole of Government” response, “reflecting the high value that La Boite, and creativity and artistic endeavours generally, are held across Government” [sic] (La Boite Theatre 2002 Annual Report: 2, La Boite Archives). According to Young, “the Premier, the Treasurer and the Arts Minister all felt that we had gone way beyond what they could expect from an Arts organization in this fight” but to their credit and given that “we were left out of the millennium arts fund by a stupid oversight in bureaucracy …” they responded well to the hard-line tactics of the company (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.748-758). For Whitehead this was a triumphant conclusion to what had been “a frantic twelve month period of negotiation and meetings” with high-ranking government personnel, including the Premier, several Cabinet Ministers, and Director Generals and senior officers of all government departments with a vested interest in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll. 76-80).

• Criticism from some quarters Considering La Boite’s almost thirty years of activity on its Hale Street site, it was not surprising to find that some people were initially distressed and disappointed at the planned re-location and, particularly, the selling of the property that included the Theatre, one worker’s cottage and a piece of vacant land (the previous site of the cottage destroyed by fire). As Mee recalled: “Both Craig [Whitehead] and I were under a lot of criticism from a lot of people. When we announced that we were relocating and that we were selling the building, the phones ran hot, letters and all sorts of things” (Mee Interview: Oct. 15, 2003: ll.648-650).

Keeping the outrage under control Whitehead attributes to the company’s efforts to communicate the reasons for the move to industry and members, an effort that turned “our staunchest critics initially” into “our greatest supporters” although he

287 acknowledges that “there is an element of the industry who will never forgive us for selling the Hale Street theatre” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: 350-354). Mee and Whitehead’s argument that it was not possible to save both the building and the company and that the building had to be sacrificed to give the company a future, seemed to meet with resignation, if not full acceptance (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.658-659). Mee felt strongly that, although unpopular in some quarters of its constituency, the abandonment of the iconic Hale Street building and the move to Kelvin Grove was in fact maintaining “the faith of the company” and protecting “the living tradition of this company” (ibid.: ll.593-596). To have let go of this golden opportunity to re-locate to a building much more suited to its growing professional stature would, in Mee’s opinion, have spelt the end for La Boite, and certainly his interest in it: “I’m not going to turn this theatre company into a youth theatre company because you might as well get rid of La Boite. Take the money you get from La Boite and build a new youth theatre company – but don’t call it La Boite” (ibid.: ll.597-601).

Public Relations Manager Rosemary Herbert’s view was that most people with a vested interest in La Boite accepted that there was an inevitability about the Theatre having to move at some time, and that time had now come: Most of them said that they had known from the time that land was purchased and the theatre was built there that eventually we would have to move because they always knew that service road was going to go. And it was only people like Bruce [Blocksidge] and Blair [Wilson] … obviously it’s sentimental for them. But it was time to move on. (Herbert Interview, Oct. 10, 2003: ll.455-461)

• Heritage listing Mee told me that since 1995 there had been two applications by individuals to the Queensland Heritage Council for La Boite Theatre to be heritage listed, but that both had been withdrawn, probably in response to Sue Rider’s request that they not go ahead (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.663-666). The third application however, was made in 2003 by the Heritage Council itself and announced at the same time that Whitehead, Mee and Young were preparing to put La Boite up for sale, and just after

288 receiving a very optimistic independent valuation assessment on the property5. The heritage listing immediately made this property a less attractive prospect to a buyer, because now, any re-development of the building was subject to the conditions of the listing. Heritage Council Chairman, John Brannock, argued that “La Boite was rare as the first and only purpose-built theatre-in-the-round in Queensland and the first in Australia” (The Courier Mail March 1, 2003, p.5). He had a very legitimate point but Whitehead, Mee and Young, at that time, could not see past the negative effect of a heritage listing making the property difficult to sell and reduced in value (ibid.: 676- 680).

Their fears were realised when the property was passed in at auction at $850,000 (the reserve price was $950,000), the real estate company reporting that “uncertainty over the heritage listing slowed down the bidding” (The Courier Mail, Aug. 4, 2003, p. 6). Mee was prepared to go back into battle with the government over what he saw as “two arms of government” conspiring “to take us to pieces” (Mee Interview, Oct.15, 2003: ll.682-683). Further political action was circumvented when the property was eventually sold for $900,000, considered a reasonably good outcome. Whitehead continues to see the heritage listing as a negative move, believing that its position across the road from a $55million, 60,000 capacity football stadium means “it is no longer a viable theatre venue” and “to drive past it and to see it as essentially a derelict building at the moment is I think incredibly sad. If they hadn’t put the heritage listing on it, right now, it would probably be a house, units, it would be used” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.323-326).

• La Boite at The Roundhouse Once the relocation was officially announced at the end of 2001, Whitehouse expected plain sailing only to discover a serious misunderstanding between QUT, La Boite and the Queensland Government. It was the understanding of La Boite and the Government that “enough money had been allocated to cover the construction of the theatre, rehearsal venue and offices” (ibid.: ll.269-270). QUT’s understanding was that only the theatre had been funded (ibid.: ll.271). La Boite faced the very

5 The 2002 valuation of La Boite’s buildings and land was estimated at $750,000, a significant increase on the previous valuation of $500,000 (La Boite Theatre Inc. Treasurer’s Report for the year ended 31 Dec. 2002, La Boite Archives).

289 disappointing possibility that the company would be operating out of multiples sites, one for the theatre, another for rehearsals, and a third for administration offices – a “very difficult and expensive” proposition (ibid.: l. 273). Whitehead successfully argued the case that with no animation of the site during the day, QUT, La Boite, students, lecturers, businesses, would all miss out. That final battle was won in La Boite’s favour.

The Roundhouse Theatre (http://www.roundhousetheatre.com.au cited Dec. 29, 2005)

By the end of 2003, the company had moved to the $4.3 million purpose-built 400 seat Roundhouse Theatre complex on a 25 year lease in an integrated space that also houses QUT’s Enterprise Centre6. With an exterior of orange brick and distinctly round in shape, ‘The Roundhouse – Home of La Boite Theatre’, is strikingly visible from Kelvin Grove Road. The interior houses a rehearsal facility, company offices, and a performance space with a raked auditorium seating 400 with flexibility to convert from in-the-round to a thrust stage. Commented Mee in his 2003 Annual Report: Importantly, the La Boite trademark of intimacy and accessibility to the actors and action of the play has not only been retained but enhanced. I like to think that we brought the past with us and built this new venue to in some way

6 “The Creative Industries Enterprise Centre develops new and existing businesses, products and services in the creative industries” (http://www.ciprecinct.com.au/spaces/centre.jsp cited Dec. 29, 2005).

290 replicate and improve upon the rich creative and cultural legacy of Hale Street”.(La Boite Theatre 2003 Annual Report: 3, La Boite Archives)

Interior of The Roundhouse Theatre (http://www.roundhousetheatre.com.au cited Dec. 29, 2005)

The formal relationship with QUT is that La Boite operates as an autonomous entity with no interference from the university. In return, QUT uses the performance space for three hours of lectures a week and occasional special events. Whitehead explained the operation of the 25 year lease : QUT own the property, they lease it to the Department of Public Works on a 25 year lease with an informal agreement by all parties that that lease will be renewed in 25 years. We then sub-lease the venue for 25 years from the Department of Public Works under the same terms as the head lease. (Whitehead, Oct. 4, 2005: ll. 463-466). Older members of the Theatre had serious reservations about La Boite selling off its real estate and moving into a university environment, not fully trusting that such an institution would always be a benign, ‘arms-length’ landlord. Kaye Stevenson and Bruce Blocksidge probably voiced the concerns of many others when they expressed these reservations: I am concerned that we have given up our real estate … It’s all very well to say we have virtual autonomy over this new building and we’re paying a peppercorn rent. But we don’t own it, we’ve got a 25 year lease (which is great) but that doesn’t mean the company can’t fold. We still have to be financially viable. Not that we couldn’t have folded owning our own real estate, I suppose. But even if we’d lost our funding, if we weren’t measuring up, we still had something that would generate an income so that we could still put on plays somewhere. (Stevenson Interview, Sept. 15, 2003: ll.425-532)

291 I’m told that they will have a 25 year lease. If we only had a 25 year lease we’d have been out of La Boite five or ten years ago. I was there at the beginning and we would have been out ten years ago. What comfort is there in that? They might have the lease renewed but who knows? (Blocksidge Interview, Oct. 31, 2002: ll.164-167)

The more extreme view about La Boite’s move was expressed by Graeme Johnston, former director and costume designer: I’m predicting that within two years there won’t be a La Boite. It will disappear. There is no guarantee of autonomy. I just think this move is the worst thing it could have done. Foolishness… a biblical phrase springs to mind: They have sold their birthright for a mess of potage. (Johnston Interview, Sept. 27, 2003: ll.4-7)

Chair of the La Boite Board, Athol Young has no reservations whatsoever about the company moving to QUT (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.777-780). He is pleased that the unique, distinctive architecture of the building sets it apart from the others in the precinct. He emphasized in interview that QUT has no role on the La Boite Board: “We’re an independent unit which happens to be sitting within a creative industries precinct” (ibid.: ll.787-788). And he is realistic about a future in which most organizations, in order to survive, will not be able to go it alone, but will depend on the kind of partnership that La Boite has created with QUT: I think the future of an organization anywhere … is the ability to develop strong partnerships and synergies, and few of us will have the ability to move great projects forward into the future on our own. All of us will have to go looking for strategic partners. I think the relationship at QUT is likely to develop into a ‘win win’ for all of us. That’s my belief. It’s also the belief of the Board. (ibid.: 795 - 800).

Conclusion It was a momentous decision in the Theatre’s history to sacrifice a much loved, iconic Australian theatre building and the security of real estate, for another kind of future in a very different environment. That, in the end, it was achieved without too much dissent from the La Boite constituency is a tribute to the three men who steered this course – Mee, Whitehead and Young –and to Rosemary Herbert who was careful to keep everyone informed of each step along the way and whose longevity with the company ensured sensitive handling of those older members most affected by the move. Mee especially was able to characterize this move within the context of the Theatre’s whole history; he understood that what kept BRT/La Boite ‘alive’ for all of

292 those seventy-nine years was the making of just this kind of hard and courageous decision often against the will of others. In speaking about these generations of Queensland theatre workers, he said in his annual report: The longevity of this Company is testament not only to their tenacity and passion, but also that each generation has had the foresight and the courage, often against stiff resistance, to take that necessary step, to compel the Company to go beyond its own comfort zone and make a place for itself in the future. The challenge for us now is to live up to this outstanding legacy of achievement. (La Boite Theatre 2003 Annual Report p.3 http://www.laboite.com.au/pdf/2003%20Annual%20Report.pdf cited Dec. 29, 2005).

He called 2003 “a year of generational change, a point in time where the past and the future occupied our thoughts as never before in the 79 year history of the organisation” (ibid.). The past was honoured in a theatrical ‘goodbye’ to all the memories associated with the Hale Street theatre, and also, for some older members, memories of the original La Boite in the Sexton Street timber cottage. Under the leadership of Herbert, this ‘goodbye’ was a celebration – a two night season of theatrical memories called The Final Bow (Sept. 26-27, 2003), created and presented by former and present La Boite theatre makers representing each of the decades since the 1960s. The future was represented by the move to The Roundhouse Theatre, new home of La Boite.

There seems little doubt that to have stayed at Hale Street would have handed a death sentence to Brisbane’s second professional theatre company. It had long outgrown the facility and it was definitely time to move on. The dynamic evolution of the company would not have been possible if it had stayed in the Hale Street premises: its development and progression would have been increasingly compromised in what had become an economically non-viable 200 seat theatre within an environment so dominated by a colossal football stadium that it was destined to discourage its faithful patrons from attending theatre performances in the now dwarfed and inaccessible La Boite theatre.

PART TWO The Artistic ‘Re-location’ of the Company Mee’s second task, the artistic ‘re-location’ was “about placing La Boite Theatre Company on the national agenda” (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.283-284); this

293 would be achieved, he said, by a refocussing from “a large community based company” into “a small nationally-focussed company of excellence in the creation of new work” (ibid.: ll.210-211). There is no doubt that Rider had already achieved considerable recognition for La Boite state-wide and nationally in the area of new Australian work, so how did Mee, as the new artistic director, set about achieving his artistic ‘task’?

First, there was a stripping away – there were no more Shakespeares or, he claimed, school tours7 (ibid.: 290). Springboards and Newboards disappeared as well. Second, there was a concentration on turning La Boite into a Brisbane version of Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre8 by only programming Australian plays (ibid.: 291-294), a goal which Rider achieved in her 1997, 1998 and 2000 seasons and which Mee consolidated with Australian-only works from 2001 onwards. The third step was to take La Boite product out of Queensland and into the national arena through national tours, a goal that Rider had achieved only on a small scale with interstate tours of A Beautiful Life and X-Stacy and which Mee expanded on in 2002/2003 with two more successful tours. The fourth and final step was to work towards programming new, Queensland generated works only, a goal Mee achieved in 2004, the company’s first year in The Roundhouse. This was a clever, strategic move to capture a niche market, partly motivated, Mee claimed, by a perception that QTC was drawing closer to the kind of small scale works that La Boite favoured : …with the appointment of Michael Gow, QTC was downsizing, pulling its program much, much closer to La Boite not because it needed to do that but because that was Michael’s disposition. He much preferred the smaller chamber works so for us to do English contemporary theatre and for him to do English contemporary theatre and they have got six times more money - we can’t win. And again you have to position yourself and move before it’s critical in order to be able to position the company so that you’ve got a marketable thing that works in the marketplace but also works at a strategic level. (ibid.: ll.296-303)

7 In fact, the company’s Scattered Lives, devised and directed by Sally McKenzie, and her commissioned work A Safer Place toured to schools between 2001 and 2003 as part of QAC’s Ontour Inschools program (Annual Reports 2001, 2002, 2003).

8 Playbox Theatre, now called Malthouse Theatre, has had a long tradition of producing new Australian works (http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/aboutus/history.html cited 1 June, 2006),

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• A re-vitalized artistic direction under Mee By 2001, the strategic direction of the company under the new artistic director had been clearly articulated by a new mission statement – “La Boite Theatre is a contemporary company with a reputation for creative leadership that draws on the resources of the Queensland community to produce works, and artists, of national significance” (Annual Report 2001 p.4, La Boite Archives) - and a set of core outcomes, one or more of which must be present for any La Boite project to go ahead: • A clear and robust marketing/audience potential that seeks to expand the size and range of audience that can access the Theatre’s programming • A strong entrepreneurial outcome that extends the perceived range of La Boite’s activity • A strategic outcome favourable to the medium term objectives of the Theatre • An articulated developmental outcome for artists that will provide results in the long term • A developmental trajectory towards national and international touring. (ibid.) The ‘flavour’ of the artistic program that Mee was interested in developing was further articulated in a set of supporting statements: • The Theatre expresses an articulate and rigorous aesthetic that is instantly recognisable for the robustness, intensity, boldness and the intelligence of the transaction between the audience, the space and the actor. • The Theatre is young, energetic, open, generous and exciting, attracting a strong, contemporary, loyal, audience by projecting an exciting image, matched with muscular programming that surprises, jolts, stimulates. • At the centre of our world must stand the actor, for they are the ones that the audience must fundamentally engage with. Therefore the theatre is nothing if the actors do not understand, and take responsibility for what the Theatre is trying to achieve. (ibid.)

The artistic policy that Mee, Whitehead and the Board agreed on to meet the strategic outcomes was a three-pronged approach: in order of priority, any creative program could comprise commissioned new works, Australian works of contemporary currency, and works that fell into the category of “Australian icons” (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.433-437). The 2001 and 2002 seasons, for example were a mixture of commissioned new works and contemporary works, whilst the 2003 season (necessarily shorter because of the November move into The Roundhouse) had no commissions, two iconic works (Louis Nowra’s Cosi directed by Adam Cook and

295 David Williamson’s The Removalists directed by Lewis Jones), a return season of the popular 2002 production of Margery and Michael Forde’s Still Standing directed by Andrew Buchanan and Daniel Keene’s Half & Half directed by Mee.

Under Mee’s artistic leadership, the company increasingly embraced the programming of new Queensland works generated through La Boite’s commissioning service to local playwrights. With twenty La Boite commissions between 2001 and 20039, probably only Playbox under the artistic directorship of Aubrey Mellor could claim this kind of commitment to Australian writing. This was an all-out effort to badge La Boite with a particular creative identity ready for its move to The Roundhouse: What we should be investing in is our commissioned work. If there is a play out there of contemporary currency, that we think it is valid to do, then yes, I can do that. However, if there is one play of contemporary currency and another play of new work I will choose the new work first, if I can prove that financially and strategically they are better. (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.436-440) Indeed, what had emerged, during Rider’s time as artistic director and then during Mee’s first three years to 2003, was that Brisbane and Queensland audiences delighted in seeing their stories on La Boite’s stage or in touring venues. The transformation of a number of novels by popular Brisbane writer Nick Earls into equally popular plays, by playwright Philip Dean, proved a winning formula for La Boite’s artistic programming. Just as popular were the commissioned works by Brisbane playwrights Margery and Michael Forde. The success of these playwrights’ works in particular suggested strongly to the company that this was a niche market that La Boite would do well to exploit.

9 In the 2001 season, commissioned new works were 48 Shades of Brown by Philip Dean, based on the novel by Nick Earls, directed by Jean-Marc Russ, and Way Out West by Margery Forde and Michael Forde, directed by Mee. The 2002 season had three commissioned works: Still Standing by Margery and Michael Forde directed by Andrew Buchanan; The Holden Plays: My Love had a Black Speed Strip by Brenna Lee-Cooney adapted from the novel by Henry Williams, directed by Ian Lawson, and The Kingswood Kids by Angela Betzien, directed by Leticia Caceres; and Black Chicks Talking written and directed by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee. 2003 commissions, destined for mainhouse productions in 2004/2005 were Urban Dingoes by Norman Price, Zigzag Street by Philip Dean, adapted from the novel by Nick Earls, The Mayne Inheritance by Errol O’Neill, Creche and Burn by Elise Grieg, The Drowning Bride by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard, and James and Johnno by Margery Forde and Michael Forde.

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Mee’s Goal – To Create a Company of National Significance • National, international and regional touring In an interview with arts journalist Martin Buzacott the day after his appointment, Mee said: “The time has come for La Boite to take its position as a theatre company of national significance. It’s well-placed for that because it’s financially healthy, it’s got a good, stable staff who’ve been here a long time, and it produces important new work” (Buzzacott in The Australian, Sept. 8, 2000: 14).

Touring out of Queensland was one way to reach this goal. In the company’s three remaining years at the Hale Street theatre, Mee achieved two significant national tours. In 2002, managed by Performing Lines and with the assistance of Playing Australia, Milo’s Wake by Margery and Michael Forde, directed by Andrew Buchanan undertook the longest national tour ever by a Queensland production (La Boite Theatre 2002 Annual Report: 10). On tour for 26 weeks, it performed to over 30,000 people in 29 venues, forming part of the subscription season for the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Melbourne’s Playbox, Sydney’s Glen Street, Riverina Theatre Company, Wagga Wagga and Q Theatre in Penrith and twenty-three other towns in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania (ibid.). The second national tour, early in 2003, was Black Chicks Talking by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee directed by Purcell and Mee, a co-production with QPAC in association with Bungabura productions, which toured to the Sydney Festival and Perth International Arts Festival, the first Queensland production ever to be invited to both festivals. Of its in-house production at QPAC’s The Playhouse the year before, Mee had commented that “Strategically, Black Chicks Talking placed La Boite at the forefront of contemporary creative endeavour in Australia” (La Boite Theatre Annual Report 2002, La Boite Archives).

Black Chicks Talking may have been an important play for La Boite to champion but it was not universally a critical success, locally or nationally. Sorensen wrote in her review of this greatly anticipated Brisbane production: “If the first act of this play about indigenous Australian women is flawed, the second act was a small disaster” (The Courier Mail, Dec. 16, 2002: 11). Critical of Mee’s claim of a “landmark production” she said that “alongside Bangarra’s work presented this year at QPAC, or Kooemba Jdarra’s festival production of Purple Dreams” this production was “way

297 behind” (ibid.). Michael Bodey’s review of the production on tour to the Sydney Festival was damning, naming Black Chicks Talking as one of the “chief disappointments” of the Festival: “Sean Mee and Leah Purcell’s erratic Black Chicks Talking had effective moments but it also possessed moments barely above high school standard” (Bodey in The Daily Telegraph, Jan. 24, 2003). These negative comments were balanced by more positive reviews in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, with comments such as “an important night in the theatre…deeply moving and brilliant… riotously funny” (in La Boite 2003 Annual Report: 9).

Much more critically successful on tour (although not universally so, either) was Milo’s Wake, which had won Best Play at the 2001 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards (La Boite Theatre 2001 Annual Report: 3). J. Harris in The Adelaide Advertiser commented on the success of the writing in revealing “with quite intimate cruelty, some of the worst of the Irish character and culture” tempered with “wit and music which keeps the audience giggling, guffawing and foot-tapping” (April 22, 2002: 84). Kate Herbert, writing in Melbourne’s Herald Sun conversely found fault with the writing: “the relationships do not develop, the play keeps stalling in its action and there are no consequences to any of Milo’s actions …the play fails to fulfil its promise” (May 14, 2002: 51).

Mee continued to put a high priority on regional touring of new Queensland works: in 2001 Milo’s Wake toured with QAC/NARPACA to thirty regional centres and a new Margery and Michael Forde play (created in association with the Centenary of Federation Queensland and QPAC), the Fordes’ Way Out West directed by Sean Mee toured south-west Queensland communities before its in-house season at La Boite. An outstanding critical and financial success in its 2001 premiere season, 48 Shades of Brown by Philip Dean based on Nick Earls’ novel, directed by Jean-Marc Russ, was remounted for a successful 2002 QAC tour to six Queensland centres (La Boite Annual Reports, 2001: 6; 2002: 10). In 2003 yet another new Forde play Still Standing directed by Andrew Buchanan followed its highly successful 2002 and 2003 La Boite seasons with a 2003 QAC regional tour.

298 According to Mee, evidence of the company’s national standing is the high regard Long Paddock10 has for the company’s work: Our profile in the national arena at places like Long Paddock is much, much stronger than it’s ever been … we’ve received three invitations to present work there in what they call Sounding Board which is given to a limited number of companies with substantial touring reputations, to pitch what’s in progress … You don’t get automatic entry. What you do is, if there is enough interest, you get invited to put it in. So we’ve been invited to four meetings in a row with projects. (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.306-316) The goal to tour internationally, not surprisingly, proved much more difficult for Mee to realise. In 2002, the company claimed in its Annual Report “wide spread critical acclaim” for its international tour to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and London’s Riverside Studio of a co-production with Brisbane’s production house Strut and Fret of Stephen Sewell’s The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (La Boite Theatre 2002 Annual Report: 11). Beyond this, international recognition remains a still elusive goal for Mee and the company.

• Partnerships and collaborations In the three years to the end of 2003, Mee worked successfully to create an advantageous partnership with QPAC, which raised the profile of the company particularly when co-productions had their seasons in QPAC’s Playhouse theatre11. One example was their first co-production in the Playhouse - Secret Bridesmaids’ Business - Mee reported on the strategic outcomes for this project: We wanted to successfully produce a play outside the confines of the Hale Street venue. We also wanted to reach a much broader audience with our work. …In every respect, the production met our goals. It was financially successful and our relationship with QPAC was enhanced by this entrepreneurial collaboration. (La Boite Theatre 2001 Annual Report: 10).

10 Long Paddock is “an Arts On Tour initiative that brings together venue managers, programmers, producers and touring agencies to discuss options for national touring in Australia and develop funding applications” (La Boite 2003 Annual Report, La Boite Archives).

11 Between 2001 and 2003 partnership productions with QPAC included Way Out West at La Boite Theatre; Secret Bridesmaids’ Business by Elizabeth Coleman directed by Lewis Jones, at QPAC’s Playhouse; Black Chicks Talking (with Bungabura Productions) which also performed at The Playhouse; Ukulele Mekulele by David Megarrity directed by Mee for the Out of the Box Festival at QPAC; and Louis Nowra’s Cosi directed by Adam Cook at The Playhouse.

299 This success was not repeated however with the co-production of Cosi in February 2003 which had trouble finding an audience in the large Playhouse. According to Mee, the outbreak of the war in Iraq caused audience numbers to plummet, not just for this production but for all arts events during this time (La Boite Theatre 2003 Annual Report: 4). Other useful local and national partnerships that Mee developed to 2003 were with Playlab, The Centenary of Federation Queensland, Energex Brisbane Festival, Out of the Box Festival, QUT Academy of the Arts – Theatre Studies, Brisbane Ethnic Music and Arts Centre, Playbox Theatre, and the State Theatre of South Australia.

• Artistic re-location underpinned by a new relationship with the Board It was to a more powerful Board, post-Rider, that Mee had to ‘prove’ that any play choice – commissioned, contemporary, or iconic – or any La Boite project, partnership or collaboration was financially and strategically appropriate for the company. Mee believes that the relationship between the artistic director and the Board changed on Rider’s departure: “They had a sea change at the end of Sue’s time. They had decided that they would … take back control of the company from the artistic director. Basically that is what they said. And I don’t think they have relinquished that control” (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: ll.407-410). In real terms this meant for both Mee and Whitehead that each play choice had to be advocated to the Board according to its strategic outcome/s – “I have to provide well reasoned and creative goals for it. That’s the way I like it and that’s the way Craig Whitehead likes it, because then we know that the Board – everybody – is happy with where we’re going. There were constant fights in Sue’s time between the Board and Sue” (ibid.: ll.411-414). On the eve of the company’s first season in The Roundhouse, Mee stressed that: … right now the strategic outcomes are the most important for the company. It is absolutely insufficient to think that we can pin the hopes and the future of the theatre company on just doing plays well. It’s just not going to happen because you can’t control that. But what you can control is the strategic direction of the company and the message you send to your financiers. And that’s something you can control, easily and well by being articulate and rigorous and sticking by the strategic outcomes – not by just picking things off the shelf. (ibid.: ll.422-428)

300 Although both Mee and Whitehead were appointed to newly re-structured senior management positions in Oct. 2000, how the jobs were actually undertaken between 2001 and 2003 was dictated by the urgent need for Whitehead to concentrate fully on securing the re-location to QUT (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.363-366). Nevertheless, as re-location plans fell into place, Mee and Whitehead were increasingly able to work on the development of the artistic program as a team effort. Whitehead’s comments in interview reveal their close working relationship and the reality of how the unrealistic demands of both positions as originally conceived (see previous chapter) were sensibly re-negotiated to allow for a manageable partnership with each partner working to his strengths: Sean and I have a particularly close working relationship. Sean and I work very, very closely on the development of the program. We work closely on what do we think should be the budget priorities for the coming year in relation to the artistic program, so it’s much more of a melding of the two roles.

And Sean is much more interested in the marketing side of things than Sue was. It’s interesting, Sue was interested in connecting the artistic elements to what the image of the company was whereas Sean is much more interested in audience and how can we continue to grow that audience. Sean is very excited when we get the survey results in as to what percentage of new audience we had in for that particular show. So there’s a much more day to day interest that Sean has particularly in that area. He doesn’t manage it or set the marketing plans or anything in those lines but certainly in his mind, when he’s programming, he’s thinking about what’s artistically right for the company, how it will fit with La Boite’s strategic plan and is there an audience for this particular work. So he’s melded some business imperatives and some marketing imperatives into his artistic vision. (ibid.: ll.478-493)

Financial Ups and Downs For the first time in the company’s history, in 2001 box office revenue ($639,300) exceeded core government funding ($583,350) (La Boite Theatre Inc. Financial Statements for the year ended 31 Dec. 2001: 20), attributable to the 30.05% increase in its Brisbane audience. It was a year for which Mee could rightly claim “unprecedented artistic success” (2001 Annual Report: 3). In 2002, while core government funding stayed exactly the same, the box office revenue dropped to $439,280, explained by the Treasurer Karen Mitchell as “largely due to a significant investment in the Black Chicks Talking co-production” (which, in light of its indifferent artistic reception was not a good investment) but also due to the

301 maintenance of two premises, Hale Street and the Thomas Dixon Centre, and “an overall rather disappointing box office (La Boite Theatre Inc. Financial Statements for the year ended 31 Dec. 2002: 1). Whitehead blames this “tough year”, to an extent, on the negative psychological effects of world events on audiences, keeping them at home rather than venturing out into public places - the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States, the Bali terrorist attack, and the Moscow Theatre hostage killings (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.259-263).

Despite the ups and downs of the company’s financial situation between 2001 and the end of 2003, the anticipation of increased revenue with the move the following year into the 400 seat Roundhouse was invigorating. As Whitehead recalled, the reality of the 200 seat Hale Street theatre was the impossibility of taking full advantage of successful productions like 48 Shades of Brown – “At Hale Street it was our most successful production ever, with box office revenue of $128,000” (ibid.: ll.406-407). The following year, in The Roundhouse Theatre, Zigzag Street (like 48 Shades of Brown, also by Philip Dean, based on a Nick Earls’ novel) “delivers a box office result of $323,000” (ibid.: l.409). He commented that “At Hale Street no matter how successful the production, we couldn’t cover the productions costs. At The Roundhouse we can make a significant profit which can be reinvested into the company” (ibid.: ll.409-412).

According to Young, the financial well-being of the company at the end of 2003 had much to do with the quality of the General Manager, Craig Whitehead. Recalling why he was appointed in the first place, Young said of him: He had a certain level of business skill, he had a great understanding of theatre, he had run a small contemporary theatre company in partnership with someone and he stepped into the role as someone who was dynamic, who was corporate who was commercial in his outlook, who was a delightful young man. (Young Interview, Dec. 11, 2003: ll.409-413)

With no recent growth in government funding, cash sponsorship was increasingly more important to the company’s financial well being, so Whitehead’s realisation of close to $100,000 in cash sponsorship in the year of the move to The Roundhouse was cause for celebration. As Young commented: We’ve always had in kind sponsorship and I have to give credit to Rosemary [Herbert] and others for that, but to get cash sponsorship that allows you to do

302 work – in kind sponsorship just allows you to save a bit of money here and there. But cash sponsorship allows you to develop a whole different program. So we’ve developed corporate links which are terribly important if the organization is going to have any future. (ibid.: ll.636-641)

The artistic and financial success of the company, installed in its new home at The Roundhouse by the end of 2003, gave Whitehead hope for a better deal from the Australia Council. As the company went into 2004, it was still on triennial funding but Whitehead says “we have been tapped on the shoulder” to be considered for funding through the Major Organisations Fund “which is a significant change in our relationship with the Australia Council and their level of confidence in La Boite” (Whitehead Interview, Oct. 4, 2005: ll.381-391). In interview, just a month after the move to The Roundhouse, Young asserted his complete confidence in the financial management of the company and his excitement for its future: “… in 2003, I now feel really confident that structurally, financially, organizationally, La Boite is incredibly well managed. That our corporate governance, in terms of a small, not for profit organization, is extraordinary” (Young Interview, Dec.11, 2003: ll.417-421).

Conclusion The culmination of these three years in the company’s history was the successful achievement of the ‘physical and creative re-location’ of La Boite Theatre. Chair of the Board, Athol Young, wrote in his 2003 Annual Report : 2003 was an historic year of significant change for the organisation. We said farewell to our Hale Street home of 31 years and we moved to our new home at The Roundhouse Theatre in the Creative Industries Precinct. Artistically we took an exciting but challenging step forward in launching a 2004 season of Queensland works. Organisationally we prepared to strategically refocus the company to be able to meet the next phase of its growth and development. (La Boite Theatre 2003 Annual Report: 2)

Artistic Director Sean Mee acknowledged all who had been party to the historic changes, but cautioned that challenges for the company were not over yet: Due to the support of Government and the community, La Boite Theatre Company can now contemplate a constructive creative future. However, significant challenges remain, not the least of which is the continuing spiral of costs and the static nature of core Government funding, which now extends to a decade. (ibid.: 3)

Of its artistic future, Mee made this assertion:

303 The future of the company is going to be getting Queensland generated plays and productions out into the national market place. And if at the end of my artistic directorship that’s what the company is known for nationally, well I will have achieved what I set out to do… (Mee Interview: ll.324-329) The last three statements by Young and Mee are indicative of the force that so often accounted for La Boite’s ability to survive another day – the ability of those in leadership positions to passionately envisage and articulate a future for the Theatre and to fight to the point of exhaustion to achieve it.

La Boite at The Roundhouse (http://www.roundhousetheatre.com.au cited Dec. 29, 2005)

304 CHAPTER ELEVEN The Findings Effective Leadership and its Manifestations Introduction The thesis question proposed at the beginning of this study was: Over its long history to 2003, how did La Boite Theatre negotiate its transformation from an amateur repertory society to an established professional company and, despite set-backs and crises, survive, change and develop in an unbroken line of theatrical activity? The major finding is that central to its successful transformation and sustained existence post-professionalization was effective artistic and organizational leadership committed to evolution and change. Characteristic of this leadership was an integrity of purpose and a vision for a future that might have varied from leader to leader but which consistently set the Theatre apart from other groups; and an ability to successfully negotiate crisis, of which there were many, in all the Theatre’s modes of operation – amateur, ‘pro-am’ and professional.

The study found that less effective leadership was the breeding ground for stalled development and crises. Yet in each example of such difficulties, the emergence of either an effective Artistic Director and/or Council President and/or General Manager was the main factor in re-energising the company and, in some instances, preventing the Theatre doors from closing. As each eventful period was surveyed, a number of common features, similar driving forces, comparable preoccupations or - as I have chosen to call them - ‘manifestations’ of effective leadership emerged which can verifiably account for this particular Australian theatre company’s capacity to not only survive seventy-eight years of uninterrupted theatrical activity but to transform itself into a flourishing professional company, a distinctive achievement in the history of Australian theatre organizations.

Chapter by chapter, this study examined the contributions of all artistic leaders between 1925 and 2003 and found that it was those with passion and commitment to this organization (which, in some cases, was extraordinary) blended with either a strong artistic vision and/or powerful organizational abilities and/or ability to support La Boite through serious crisis, who were key to its theatrical evolution, its managed

305 transformation into a flourishing professional company, and its continued forward movement post-professionalization. Those artistic leaders who, more than others, made this kind of distinctive contribution were Barbara Sisley, Babette Stephens, Jennifer Blocksidge, Rick Billinghurst, Malcolm Blaylock, Mike Bridges, Jim Vilé, Sue Rider and Sean Mee. Beyond this group, the study found that the individual contributions of Andrew Ross, Mary Hickson, Patrick Mitchell and David Bell, although problematic for a range of reasons analysed in this study, all made worthwhile artistic contributions, of the kind that generally supported La Boite’s reputation and profile for innovative and challenging work. This was especially true of Ross and Bell, both of whom had been instructed by the La Boite Council of the day to pursue professional seasons, and both of whom produced quality, professional artistic work.

In addition to Artistic Directors, a number of Council Presidents and General Managers emerged in this study as pivotal to La Boite’s prosperity as an amateur theatre and to its successful transition into a pro-am company and eventual transformation into a flourishing professional company. They included Council Presidents Professor J.J.Stable, Babette Stephens, Bruce Blocksidge, Jennifer Blocksidge, Helen Routh, Philip Pike, Peter Lawson and Athol Young, and General Managers Deborah Murphy and Craig Whitehead, all of whom took strong, sometimes visionary, leadership roles. Some were found to be particularly effective in resolving crisis situations, and encouraging tough decisions when in some instances more generally favoured ones would have seen the organization slide backwards.

Within Part One of this chapter, findings related to effective leadership are summarized chronologically. Beyond integrity of purpose, vision and crisis management, a number of other recurring manifestations of effective leadership emerged that were found to be distinctive and deeply relevant in understanding how this particular theatre company succeeded in its long transformational journey. Part Two summarizes these manifestations as significant findings in relation to the key question of this study.

306 PART ONE How Effective Leadership Supported the Transformational Journey Findings in relation to its amateur years, 1925-1975 • Barbara Sisley and Professor J.J.Stable The study found that in the genesis of the amateur Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society was an integrity of purpose so powerfully established and embedded into the fabric of the organization by its co-founders that it continued to resonate for many decades, sustaining it in times of crisis and giving it confidence to evolve, when the time came, into a pro-am and, later, a professional company. The analysis of data from its first twenty years of operations indicates that its capacity to begin its Repertory operations in such exemplary fashion, to survive its first major artistic crisis, and to thrive despite the Depression and World War Two, had much to do with the vision and quality of the artistic and organizational leadership that co-founders Sisley and Stable were able to provide, supported by capable and hard-working Councils, often comprising leading Brisbane citizens. Although proudly amateur, there was, in the tradition of Australian repertory theatre, and under the influence of former professional actor Barbara Sisley and academic J.J. Stable, a striving for professional standards that, although not always realized, from its genesis characterized the operation of this organization.

Foundational ideas about repertoire and programming were also established in these early decades; a balanced repertoire of serious drama, classic works, contemporary well-made plays, comedies and Australian plays was a key reason the theatre thrived as a successful amateur company. Although inconsistently applied, Stable and Sisley’s policy of fostering the Australian play and of mentoring Queensland playwright George Landen Dann set in train an eventual determination to identify the company not only with Australian plays but with Queensland playwrights and their works. Set in train also was the desire for ‘a home of our own’ as the logical counter to the ever soaring costs of hiring theatres, yet wisely resisted by Stable as not financially achievable at that time.

As this study revealed, La Boite faced and overcame many crises, the first of which was in relation to BRTS’s production of Dann’s In Beauty It Is Finished. Stable’s

307 consistently measured and thoughtful media responses showed his fine sense of the importance of generating an appropriate public image and of cultivating a good relationship with the press, who were clearly an influential part of the Theatre’s constituency. By not withdrawing Dann’s play, Stable demonstrated his effective leadership by upholding the Theatre’s integrity of purpose rather than bowing to the pressure of public opinion.

• Babette Stephens After something of a hiatus in relation to change and development during the difficult post-World War Two years, Babette Stephens’ emergence as a substantial and dominant presence re-invigorated BRT and restored the vitality and strong community support it had enjoyed in the best of the Sisley and Stable years. Her initiative in buying property, on the advice of good business managers in the Council, led to the organization’s acquisition of a substantial ‘property portfolio’ in Hale, Sexton and Sheriff Streets, Milton. Under the assured guidance of President Bruce Blocksidge and Councillor Alderman Lex Ord, she was persuaded of the efficacy of establishing the first ‘La Boite’, in one of the properties, thus realising the long-term dream of ‘a home of our own’. The ‘experimental’ nature of this new space in the converted cottage, which Stephens publicly championed despite private reservations, attracted a new, younger audience and a new set of active participants, all of whom contributed to BRT’s dynamic evolution at this time. The success of this risky but visionary step paved the way for the Theatre’s further dynamic evolution with the building of the second La Boite, Australia’s first, purpose-built theatre-in-the-round, on the site of the first. It was this accomplishment of theatre and property ownership that gave La Boite the cultural and financial collateral to confidently make the transition to pro-am status within four years of La Boite’s 1972 opening, and later to support its pursuit of fully professional status.

Through the force of her powerful personality and the theatrical and cultural credibility with which she was associated in Brisbane, Stephens gave a significance and importance to BRT’s artistic work that did much to sustain its reputation for producing theatre that aimed for professional standards and for producing actors whose professional careers were directly attributable to their BRT ‘training’.

308 The study found, however, that the repertoire Stephens programmed, notable for the absence of any Australian plays except for her production of Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year, if sustained for too long would have jeopardised BRT’s future in a changing cultural landscape. Whilst guaranteeing good audiences and consistent media coverage for the good quality, West End–type plays and high entertainment value of her seasons, Stephens moved BRT away from the Australian repertory movement’s commitment to producing serious classic and contemporary drama, including Australian, not usually seen on the commercial stage. So entrenched was she as a member of what Meyrick calls the “anglo generation” (2002: 5), it was fortuitous that her artistic dominance waned at that crucial moment in Australia’s theatrical history when the New Wave of Australian playwriting emerged. By bowing out when she did, Stephens made way for Jennifer Blocksidge, who although also English born, embraced the “New Wave generation” (Meyrick, 2002: 7), which this research confirms as vital to the success of La Boite’s status transformations.

• Bruce Blocksidge and Jennifer Blocksidge Following the end of the Babette Stephens’ era Bruce Blocksidge and Jennifer Blocksidge emerged as defining, visionary forces in a period that produced great change and development. Significant outcomes of their effective organizational and artistic leadership were the opening of Australia’s first purpose-built 200 seat theatre- in-the-round; a dramatic change in repertoire; an important and historic status transition from amateur to pro-am with the appointment of La Boite’s first professional artistic director; and the building of a national profile and reputation as an ‘alternative’ theatre company. All four outcomes were highly significant contributions to the Theatre’s journey, still many years away, to fully professional status.

The study found that their effective leadership was characterized by an integrity of purpose and vision for the Theatre that they both shared, although it manifested in different ways. For example, President Bruce Blocksidge, a well-respected and successful businessman moved BRT towards a more professional operation administratively and in 1972 confidently steered to completion the award-winning ‘La Boite’ building, destined to become an iconic theatrical landmark in Brisbane. Honorary Director Jennifer Blocksidge re-defined what BRT could stand for and

309 could become, artistically and organizationally. She changed BRT irrevocably from the safe and conservative theatre it was under Stephens’ leadership to a much riskier, more challenging and contemporary enterprise. She set up financially important funding relationships with the Queensland Government and the Australia Council, introduced the professional Early Childhood Drama Project (ECDP), and in an historic step towards realising her vision for an eventual professional company, led the move to pro-am status with the appointment of Rick Billinghurst, the Theatre’s first professional artistic director.

Findings in relation to its pro-am years, 1976-1992 • Rick Billinghurst and Jennifer Blocksidge The appointment of Rick Billinghurst as La Boite’s first professional artistic director in 1976 exerted profound change on the Theatre’s positioning as a new, exciting, risk- taking theatrical force both in Brisbane and nationally. The dynamic nature of La Boite’s evolution during his tenure was the outstanding result of his artistic leadership. Staying on as President, Jennifer Blocksidge was able to temper Billinghurst’s purposeful but sometimes alienating leadership style. She supported his great achievement of defining La Boite as a community theatre through his concept of the Energy Wheel which impressed funding bodies and significantly contributed to the on-going funding that La Boite enjoyed during the 1970s. The whirl-wind of his four year tenure ended with President Jennifer Blocksidge leading a major review of all activities that confirmed La Boite’s pro-am status but also opened the door of possibility for La Boite to become Brisbane’s professional ‘alternative’ theatre company in the future.

Artistically, Jennifer Blocksidge and Billinghurst set La Boite on a trajectory that shaped its legitimate claim to theatrical ‘alternativeness’ in Brisbane, to a strong national identification with producing new local and Australian works, and to attracting to this exciting performance space a new generation of directors, actors and theatre workers.

310 • Malcolm Blaylock The kind of change that characterized Malcolm Blaylock’s short era could be labelled dynamic but organic, evolving naturally out of concepts and ideas established by Jennifer Blocksidge and Rick Billinghurst, and with respect for its long history as an amateur company and its recent history as an exciting pro-am company highly attractive to younger audiences and to young amateur and semi-professional theatre workers.

To state that Malcolm Blaylock’s personality and temperament were major factors in his successful three years at La Boite is far too simplistic a reading, yet, temperamentally very different from Billinghurst, his ability to get on well with everyone involved with the Theatre and its constituency guaranteed him full support from staff and community when faced with a serious funding crisis in 1981. He was as much CEO as artistic director and his deep involvement in the management of the Theatre was a great strength of his tenure. Blaylock was largely successful in realizing his artistic vision for La Boite as a professionally-run community theatre noted for programming innovative, risky Australian and non-Australian plays - some with a clear political and socially critical agenda.

• Mike Bridges and Helen Routh At the mercy of changed Australia Council funding policies that forced the professional agenda onto La Boite, Andrew Ross’s task as artistic director was difficult from the outset. But his intolerance of the entrenched amateur philosophy at La Boite and of existing structures like ECDP, plus his particular communication style made for a volatile situation that became impossible to control. The evidence from this era suggested financial messiness and a lack of accountability generally that allowed over-spending on artistic product which exacerbated the overall funding crisis with which the Theatre was dealing. The lack of good financial management strategies was fully recognized in the crisis situation that had to be managed following Ross’s departure. In a significant developmental step in the management evolution, when an artistic director’s appointment was finally made in 1986, it was as a Managing Artistic Director, combining the roles of AD and CEO. Yet Ross must be credited with La Boite’s first real foray into professional mainhouse productions, its

311 first production of a commissioned work by a Queensland playwright, and its first season of three professional TYP productions.

How La Boite managed its survival through the worst financial and policy crisis in its history - the aftermath of its premature pursuit of professionalization - was a classic example of La Boite’s power to rally support from its constituency. In this case it was Mike Bridges and Helen Routh in particular who emerged from that constituency as willing to give excessive amounts of their time and professional expertise (and in Bridges’ case, even substantial amounts of his own money) in the painful operation of re-securing La Boite’s standing. However, the enormous benefit of theatre ownership and a property portfolio cannot be overestimated in understanding how this crisis was surmounted; the study found that without the asset of the theatre building in particular, where amateur productions and other activities could proceed even without funding, it is doubtful that La Boite would have survived.

• Jim Vilé The Vilé era, which brought stability and a restored sense of identity to La Boite, was an example of the organization’s ability to re-energize itself after periods of stalled development and/or crisis, in this case through the emergence of a leader capable (as Babette Stephens had been) of re-igniting all parts of its operations. Vilé was – like Blaylock - temperamentally well suited to its now restored pro-am status and was able to recognize and capitalize on its greatest asset, theatre ownership. By filling the theatre it owned with pro-am productions run on tight budgets plus a plethora of other paying activities that included Theatresports, La Bamba, workshops and festivals, he was able to show a profit within one year. This was an extraordinary achievement, given the $32,000 deficit of the previous year.

His insistence on ‘balanced diversity’ remained a winning policy throughout his four year tenure and his decision, supported by the Management Committee, to back away from further development in Youth Theatre, was the right one and maintained the Theatre’s sense of integrity to its core values. Vilé so revitalized La Boite during his four intense years as its artistic director that the idea it might transform itself into a professional company became increasingly more likely as the next step in its organic growth and development, especially given the increasing pressure from the industry.

312 • Philip Pike In the wake of La Boite’s artistic and financial success at the end of the 1980s, what should have been a graceful transition into professional status in the early 1990s became instead a truly tumultuous three year period: two artistic directors resigned in painful circumstances and a crisis situation of financial failure and near bankruptcy developed, bringing the company dangerously close to closure. Yet, as always, powerful leadership – in this case from Council President Philip Pike - determinedly negotiated through the crisis, supported by a tough-minded Council Treasurer Peter Lawson and a sympathetic Queensland Government. The data makes blatantly clear however, that the day was ultimately saved because La Boite was able to sell one of several properties it owned in the Hale Street precinct.

At the end of 1989, Patrick Mitchell inherited from Vilé a very active and very successful theatre company. To all intents and purposes Mitchell, as the incoming Artistic Director, was set for a dream run, yet by October 1990 he had resigned, forced out by the clear-sighted, decisive President at the time, Philip Pike. Once convinced that Mitchell was out of his depth, Pike and his Council moved quickly to persuade Mitchell that to stay on was not in his or La Boite’s best interests. Although earlier Council Presidents had had strong business backgrounds, Pike was the first to emerge from the corporate sector (he was marketing director with the Queensland Performing Arts Trust) and the first to bring to La Boite the kind of hard-edged business sense that was to characterize successive Council Chairs, Peter Lawson and Athol Young. Cruel as this episode may have been for Mitchell, it was the decisive and uncompromising nature of Pike’s organizational leadership that averted even unhappier times for the inexperienced artistic director.

Mitchell was quickly replaced by David Bell, who, with the support of Pike and the La Boite Council and under pressure from the industry, took the company first into a profit-share arrangement as a transitional step toward the company becoming fully professional, then into a season of three professional productions the following year. Despite artistically successful shows, they failed financially and La Boite found itself in serious debt. In hindsight, the Council’s lack of judgment in allowing both Mitchell and Bell to ‘muddle through’ without a financial manager needs to be recognized in any analysis of this period. However, once Pike and Lawson realized the full extent of

313 the financial wreckage left in the wake of this attempt to ‘go professional’, they exerted their tough, corporate-bred leadership, placing such pressure and blame on Bell that he had no option but to walk away.

Unquestionably, property ownership was central to La Boite’s survival during this unstable period; unable to trade out of debt, the Council’s controversial step of selling one of its properties was a move that gave the company the necessary financial collateral to help persuade Arts Queensland to support its bid to achieve professional status. This was a difficult decision but one Pike, Lawson and the Council did not baulk from taking despite the disquiet it created amongst some members. This kind of powerful leadership that made decisions based on how to strategically position La Boite for the next step in its evolution, rather than on how to keep all sections of its constituency happy, was to emerge again when the company was faced with re- location issues in the late 1990s.

Findings in relation to its professional years, 1993-2003 • Sue Rider, Philip Pike, Peter Lawson, Deborah Murphy, Athol Young If full professional funded status was the vision of Pike and his Council, it was Sue Rider’s artistic leadership and Deborah Murphy’s administrative leadership that were central to La Boite’s successful transformation into a fully professional company. Throughout La Boite’s journey to professional status, periods of stalled development and crisis have characteristically been re-energized by effective leadership. In this case, it was Rider who principally played that role, rescuing the Theatre at this moment, from possible oblivion. Manifest in her leadership was a deep respect for La Boite’s history coupled with – at least for most of her term - a purposeful, strategic and dynamic approach to change. Although amateur participation had ended she was able to nurture the Theatre’s constituency and develop in audiences a sense of loyalty to La Boite and connectedness with its performance space. Like Sisley, Stephens and Blocksidge before her, Rider is English by birth, but, like Blocksidge, she was culturally focussed not on the English canon but on Australian works. Picking up the thread begun by Sisley and Stable and developed by Blocksidge, Blaylock and Vilé, Rider progressively committed La Boite’s programming to Australian plays and increasingly commissioned and premiered more and more Queensland works in in-

314 house and touring productions, thus creating for La Boite a distinctive profile which served it well in its bid for national recognition.

Crucial to the success of La Boite’s transformation to full professional status was the contribution of Administrator Deborah Murphy who worked tirelessly with Pike, Lawson and Rider balancing a financial tightrope to overcome their inherited debt of over $100,000 and to build crucial relationships with the Queensland Arts Division and the Australia Council. After six months of successful trading the Arts Division converted their $100,000 loan (awarded as a consequent of the property sale) to a one- off grant with a promise of on-going funding, and within a year the Australia Council had granted the company annual funding. Despite a nation-wide recession, La Boite found itself launched as a funded professional company with a cautiously hopeful future. By 2000, it was a highly successful Australian company with an average occupancy of over 80% per season, employment of 100 theatre professionals, box office revenue of over $450,000, funding of over $550,000, and an operating surplus of $35,550 – plus a theatre building and property and land valued at $500,000.

Its success did not make it crisis-proof however: that it had out-grown its Hale Street location, and that the Board’s perception was that Rider, after too long in the job lacked the kind of vision and forward thinking that it and the Australia Council required, were the crisis issues that emerged in the late 1990s. Athol Young and his Board took two extremely hard and not universally popular decisions – to physically relocate the company and to ask Rider to resign. Rider supported the former decision, but resisted the latter. What Young had hoped for was a sensitively negotiated and dignified exit. Instead, the matter exploded into the public domain with resultant acrimony and some outrage from sections of La Boite’s constituency. Traumatic for all involved, the difficult decision to force Rider’s resignation was another example of that recurring characteristic of effective leadership that puts decisions based on the future of the company ahead of the individual or the minority opposed to change.

• Sean Mee, Craig Whitehead, Athol Young After periods of upheaval, La Boite always prospered if the new artistic director appointment was someone who understood and respected its history, who knew how to build on what had gone before, but was not afraid of change, and had the personal

315 and professional qualities to inspire the Theatre community with their vision for La Boite’s future. Sean Mee’a appointment as CEO/AD proved both popular and strategic bringing some semblance of calm to the company after the turbulence of the previous months. Mee’s artistic ‘re-location’ of the company, whilst certainly a continuation of Rider’s artistic vision, focussed that vision much more sharply and strategically. Producing Australian-only works that were commissioned, contemporary or iconic for his first three seasons, Mee then moved the company to Queensland-only works for his 2004 season. The roll-out of his artistic vision produced a significant and positive shift in the company’s identity and an increasingly distinctive profile that worked in the company’s favour with audiences, funding bodies, and sponsors.

An important development post-Rider was Young’s re-alignment of the power of the Board in relation to the artistic director, restoring the balance of power to the Board and rendering the possibility of any destructive power-play between Board and AD a thing of the past. In a thoroughly business-like arrangement, the onus was on Mee and Whitehead to argue their programming to the Board according to the company’s strategic outcomes.

Facing perhaps the most serious crisis in its history – the relocation issue – and the very real possibility that the company could close, La Boite was guided by three highly effective leaders in Mee, Whitehead and Young who weren’t afraid of change; who had a strong conviction that if La Boite was cut loose from its Hale Street moorings, it would not sink; that La Boite ‘the Company’ was stronger than La Boite ‘the Building’. A number of times throughout its history, effective leadership has been characterized by decision-making that has gone against the wishes of at least some of La Boite’s constituency. Such was the case in the re-location drama. However, such also was the loyalty of the bulk of its constituency that there was, eventually, general acceptance of the inevitability of major change. Indeed, these three key leaders of this period were adamant that their actions were protecting the integrity of purpose and the “living tradition” of La Boite (Mee Interview, Oct. 15, 2003: l.596). In fact, the pressure placed on the government by La Boite’s constituency through the company’s public campaign had a significant role in levering the government, at the eleventh hour, into finding $3 million towards the proposed new building. That La Boite

316 Theatre Company now resides in the $4.3 million purpose-built 400 seat Roundhouse Theatre within QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove was a great triumph for all vested interests including Queensland State Government, QUT, and the La Boite constituency but would not have eventuated without the exceptional leadership of Mee, Whitehead and Young.

PART TWO Recurring Manifestations of Effective Leadership Through surveying each period a number of recurring manifestations of effective leadership emerged that this study found to be deeply relevant in understanding how the theatre succeeded in its long transformational journey. They include: the sustained and committed nature of some leaders’ involvement, particularly that of four women and the first Council President; the capacity to embrace and implement change, not recklessly but through an organic, measured and controlled approach, particularly in relation to status and location changes; the desire for ‘a home of our own’ and the goal of property ownership, particularly in relation to the purpose-built theatre in Hale Street, Milton and The Roundhouse in Kelvin Grove; a contemporary, progressive, and risk-taking orientation towards repertoire and programming including a commitment to the Australian play; an emphasis on nurturing good relationships with its constituency guaranteeing its loyalty and support especially in times of crisis; and the ability to inspire amongst the constituency a powerful sense of belonging to and identification with La Boite, especially since the 1972 opening of La Boite Theatre.

• The distinctive contribution of four women The generative contribution of four women - Barbara Sisley, Babette Stephens, Jennifer Blocksidge, and Sue Rider – was found to be highly significant in La Boite’s development because of the sustained and dedicated commitment of each over long periods of time, for the professional standards that each aspired to for the Theatre and personally delivered, and for the high community profile and reputation that the Theatre enjoyed because of each woman’s authoritative and charismatic artistic presence and cultural influence. The only man who rivalled the duration and standing of these women’s contribution was Professor Jeremiah Joseph Stable, co-founder and first Council President. This study has identified his important work in BRTS’s

317 genesis, his role in moving it forward organizationally, the positive benefits of his high cultural status in Brisbane, and the stability his twenty year formal association gave to the Theatre.

Both Sisley and Stephens developed BRTS/BRT as a high profile amateur Brisbane theatre with a reputation for professional standards. Jennifer Blocksidge emerged as critical change agent at a crucial moment in La Boite’s evolution, guiding its transition to pro-am status and its national identification with risky, contemporary, Australian theatre. Sue Rider made a major contribution by leading its transformation into a flourishing professional organization within a year of her appointment. Her strong focus on the programming of Australian works and on nurturing the creation of new writing earned La Boite a distinctive local and national reputation.

In relation to Sisley, Stephens and Blocksidge, cultural and social arguments related to women’s central role in society as being ‘in the home’ thus freeing up time for extra-curricula activities such as amateur theatricals, do not hold. Sisley, who never married, worked full-time for a living as Brisbane’s leading Speech and Drama teacher throughout the twenty years of her BRTS involvement. Although Stephens and Blocksidge, married to men in prosperous professional careers, did not have the same pressure to earn a living as Sisley, they nevertheless established careers in the theatre industry within the time span of their BRT involvement. Indeed, Stephens came to her BRT leadership roles having already worked professionally on stage and radio, and continued to develop her stage, film and television career whilst carrying out her role as BRT President between 1957 and 1959 and Theatre Director from 1960 to 1969. Blocksidge, a qualified Drama teacher from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, held the position of Honorary Theatre Director from 1969 to 1975, then President between 1976 and 1978, crucially leading the important transition to professional artistic direction with the appointment of Rick Billinghurst in 1976. When Rider took up her appointment as Artistic Director in 1993, she was already an established professional actor and director and came to La Boite with an already intimate knowledge of the company and the theatre space, having begun directing there from 1986. Remaining in her role until 2000, Rider has the distinction of successfully leading La Boite’s transformation to full professional status in 1993 and of being the longest serving professional artistic director in La Boite’s history.

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The evidence presented in this thesis strongly indicates that these four women, all charismatic personalities and talented professional artists, made an out of the ordinary contribution to La Boite’s evolution and eventual transformation into a fully professional company. The integrity of purpose with which each approached her role and their shared capacity to enthuse their constituencies to support their individual visions for the Theatre resulted in decades-worth of artistic credibility for the company and decades-worth of forward-thinking organizational and structural guidance. How the Theatre was able to develop, change and transform itself is at least partly answered through understanding the full impact of their combined fifty-seven years of artistic and organizational leadership.

• The evolutionary nature of La Boite’s journey from amateur to professional and the role of subsidy

Evolution, which means a process of gradual change and development that takes place over a period of time, is the right word to describe the way the Theatre went about creating its future and securing its ongoing survival. This study found that fundamental to the survival of La Boite Theatre over seventy-eight years to 2003 was its capacity, despite some moments of seeming stagnation, to artistically and organizationally evolve in status and reputation by embracing change and opportunities rather than standing still and taking safe options. However, it also found that change was successful when approached gradually, in an organic, measured, and strategic way; and dramatically unsuccessful when forced prematurely and without the full support of all vested interests, including the funding bodies, as was the case with the first two attempts at professionalization in 1983 and 1992.

When federal government funds became available for the first time in 1969 via the newly created Australian Council for the Arts, the possibility of a transition into professional status became, in theory at least, a reality for all three of Brisbane’s amateur companies. Only Twelfth Night took the opportunity, beginning its professional life in 1971, one year after QTC was established as the State’s flagship professional company. La Boite stayed happily amateur for the time being but, under Jennifer Blocksidge’s guidance, judiciously set up ECDP as its first foray into professional theatre. The Queensland Education Department and Australia Council

319 funding that ECDP attracted for its work with children indirectly provided infrastructure support for the pro-am mainhouse productions; after the demise of ECDP, La Boite management prudently maintained youth theatre activities as a policy priority which attracted Australia Council funding even though it was blatantly clear that the main preoccupation of this Theatre and most of its constituency throughout its pro-am life was its mainhouse productions.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the various manifestations of the Queensland Government’s Arts divisions held fast to its policy of tying La Boite’s subsidies to its pro-am status. It was not until the government changed in the early 1990s that this policy was overturned in favour of funding for professional companies only. With the Labor Government’s decision to withdraw financial support from TN!, an action which precipitated its demise, La Boite seized the funding opportunity which opened up; under the artistic and organizational leadership of Rider, Murphy, Pike and Lawson, the company took the calculated gamble that the Queensland Government would not abandon yet another iconic Brisbane company, and became professional. The gamble paid off and La Boite has enjoyed solid Arts Queensland support ever since. Australia Council funding soon followed; by 1999 La Boite had joined the ranks of the triennially-funded small to medium-sized companies, a status it continues to enjoy.

• Property accumulation and theatre ownership When it mattered, the organization seemed to be always guided by good business sense – that is, by what it could afford to achieve at the time – with the result that it took one affordable step at a time. This was very evident in the Theatre’s gradual realization of its long-held dream of acquiring a home of its own. In the early decades, despite certain frustrations with hiring or leasing Brisbane theatres, the financial realities associated with a volunteer organization dependent for its survival on the vagaries of membership and box-office, stopped any foolish risk-taking. The strategic accumulation of real estate in the form of income-generating cottages in Hale, Sheriff and Sexton Streets, Milton, preceded the next low-risk step of the gutting of one house to become La Boite’s first theatre-in-the-round, before the next Queensland Government-backed venture that saw the demolition of another cottage and the realization of a forty-seven year dream, the purpose-built La Boite in Hale Street.

320 Once that site became non-viable, the fortuitous outcome of the next desperate search for another ‘home’ was the three-way financed project with the Queensland Government, QUT and La Boite Theatre Inc., and a twenty-five year lease of the bigger, 400 seat Roundhouse in the Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove. On both of these major building projects, the crucial financial support provided by the Queensland Government was forthcoming because La Boite had the good fortune to own property.

This study found that the buying of real estate in the 1950s and 1960s and the building and ownership of Australia’s only purpose-built theatre-in-the-round made a significant contribution to La Boite’s capacity to develop and was profoundly important to its ongoing existence in the face of life-threatening crises in the early 1980s and 1990s. Without the collateral of real estate to place on the table of arts funding bodies during times of financial crisis, it is doubtful whether La Boite would have sustained its long existence as a pro-am theatre, or been able to make the transition to professional status, or managed the costly move to The Roundhouse.

• The contemporary nature of the repertoire and its Australian content An important manifestation of effective leadership, that this study revealed as significant in understanding how La Boite succeeded in its transformation to a professional company, was a progressive policy towards programming mainly contemporary repertoire including a commitment to the Australian play. Whilst there is an array of inter-connected reasons for constituency devotion, it was prompted, more often than not, by the plays. The quality of the Theatre’s repertoire or programming, ‘contemporary’ from the very beginning, attracted and sustained generation after generation of ever-changing, loyal members keen for active participation in theatre or as audience members.

Following the English Repertory Theatre model, the plays produced in the early decades were constitutionally bound to be of literary and educational merit and not the kind you would see on the popular or commercial stage. Yet, within this constraint, careful programming produced a balanced repertoire of serious drama, classic works, contemporary well-made plays, comedies and Australian plays and was a key reason

321 the theatre thrived as a successful amateur company in its first twenty years of its existence.

Stable and Sisley’s policy of support for the Australian play, inconsistently applied as it was during their era, remained identified enough with the Theatre for it to re-emerge in the early 1970s, contributing at that time to La Boite’s identification as Brisbane’s ‘alternative’ theatre company, and to its consequent attractiveness to funding bodies, crucial in its transition to a pro-am theatre. After its successful transition to professional status, La Boite built its national reputation not only on its overwhelming support for the programming of Australian plays in its seasons, but, by the late 1990s to the programming of Australian-only seasons and the commissioning and production of new Queensland works.

Although Babette Stephens’ English-dominated repertoire could arguably be considered a stagnating influence, it was cannily right for sustaining BRT as a viable organization through the difficult World War Two and post-war years, a period when Australia was still a victim of its own cultural cringe and still to discover the full meaning of nationalism as it applied to the Arts. Later, under Jennifer Blocksidge and Rick Billinghurst’s influence, programming changed in response to the challenge of the New Wave of Australian playwriting, attracting to the Theatre a new breed of active members – younger, less conservative. Successive directors during its pro-am years continued to develop La Boite’s strong identification with alternative, often risky theatre, and increasing identification with Australian works. It was this exciting, contemporary repertoire that attracted artists back as professional theatre workers when the company evolved into its professional stage.

It was this ‘alternativeness’, the aspiring to high standards, the risk-taking, the Australianness, the seriousness, the fun, of the artistic work at La Boite, that has always, it seems, allowed the Theatre to claim a community of supporters and to take its constituency with it, even when the vision for the Theatre’s future was sometimes opposed by sections of that very community, as happened with the transformation to professional status, the sale of the Hale Street theatre, and the re-location to Kelvin Grove.

322 • The culture of constituency strength, support, and loyalty This study found that constituency strength, support and loyalty was an enduring feature of effective leadership. Until the company’s first foray into professionalism in 1992, its constituency of paid up members, active participants, audiences both local and regional, theatre critics, theatre supporters and the theatre industry, were a formidable body at various turning points in La Boite’s history, demanding a voice in times of financial crises and proposed status changes, and loyally rising to the challenge when called upon to publicly advocate for the Theatre when outside forces threatened its existence, such as Blaylock’s ‘call to arms’ when funding was withdrawn in 1981. By the late 1980s, a section of that constituency – now professionally trained in dedicated university courses plus those aspiring to a professional career and influenced by the general professionalization of the theatre industry in Brisbane - exerted ‘hard love’ on La Boite by objecting to working for free (although many continued to do so) and demanded the professionalization of the company be considered. This pressure by theatre workers, resisted by other parts of the constituency, was a significant factor in La Boite’s determination in the early 1990s to seriously pursue the professional agenda.

After the demise of TN! in 1991, the decision by Arts Queensland to support the professionalization of La Boite was a crucial factor in the success of the company’s transformation. Had this step not been taken at this time, the previous goodwill of those wishing to work professionally would, most probably, have dried up. Although some former members continue to regret the loss of amateur opportunities at La Boite, this theatre company, in choosing to become professional, was driven not only by market forces but by its own inherent desire to progress and develop. Post-1993, despite the dwindling of paid-up membership in response to the end of any further amateur involvement, constituency support could still be marshalled for a public campaign when required, most notably in the 2001 re-location crisis.

How much La Boite could rely on its constituency in times of crisis post-2003 is a matter of conjecture. During its professional years, for mainly funding-related reasons, the company gradually divested itself of all activities until in 2003 its core business was mainhouse and touring productions. As its constituency narrows to mainly subscribers and schools, sustaining and nourishing the affection and loyalty

323 that, in the past, proved so valuable to La Boite’s very existence, may require a concerted effort by the company in the future. Sean Mee, actively involved with La Boite since the 1970s, was a shrewdly wise appointment as the AD to take La Boite through the unsettling post-Rider years and the momentous change of venue.

• The special sense of belonging that La Boite inspired La Boite’s theatre in Hale Street was always more than a building. It was a performance space that had very special appeal because of the possibility its idiosyncratic architectural configuration offered of an unusually intimate relationship between actor and audience. It is this subjective appeal of the space itself that accounts for the “generations around Australia and around the world” who have “a great affection for La Boite” (Blaylock Interview, September 28, 2003: ll. 457-461). Attractive to artists and audiences for its alternativeness and independence from the mainstream of conventional theatre, it was seen by Bell as, “a radical building … an interesting building, it made the papers …a very glamorous place to be” (Bell Interview, May 13, 2004: ll. 478-480).

In interviews with me, many people tried to explain the particular attractiveness of the performance space that made performers, designers, technicians, production crew etc. care so deeply about it. Ross said: … I felt that that place, that building had something special about it…It was real, it had a life, a soul about it and it had a lot of energy. It did seem to stir up passions and loyalties and that was its virtues as well as its shortcomings [sic]. It was there because a whole lot of artists put energy into it and it had an audience. (Ross Interview, April 30, 2004: ll. 355-365) The performance space, that box-like, intimate interior of the Theatre, in which every look, movement and word was seen and heard as if in close-up, had an immediacy and intimacy that made audiences connect with the play and the performers in a way that was not possible in larger venues around Brisbane such as the Princess and the SGIO (Suncorp) theatre, and later the Lyric and the Playhouse. Patrick Mitchell recalled “The sheer joy of working in that space” (Mitchell Interview, September 4, 2002: ll.319-320). For the actors, it was the kindest of spaces, allowing the shortcomings of modest talents to be camouflaged by the lesser ‘craft’ demands of the small space. For more able actors, the intimacy of the space allowed for powerfully focussed

324 performances and visceral experience for audiences, showcasing the performers in ways that were more difficult to achieve in bigger, colder, more demanding venues. The quality of actors, directors and designers, attracted to La Boite for both its challenges and charms as a performance space, account for the large number of artists whose work at La Boite was consistently awarded by Matildas, but the building itself deserves some acknowledgement.

It was this subjective power of the iconic building, the inclusive nature of the performing space for both audience and artists, that seemed to engender notions of identification, gratitude, pride, a sense of belonging to something both extremely contemporary yet steeped in history, that bound people to it, that gave it a very strong cultural identification in Brisbane, and made communities care very much about La Boite and its destiny.

The performance space in The Roundhouse has been deliberately designed to be a larger version of the original Hale Street La Boite. Less forgiving of actors’ shortcomings, less intimate for audience members, more demanding to direct and design for, the space presents new challenges. At the same time, the wisdom of the design is in both its connection with the past and in the symbolic statement it makes about La Boite’s capacity to change and develop, about its community status as Brisbane’s second major theatre company, and about its potential to grow in state and national cultural significance.

Significance of the Study La Boite’s slow evolution to professional status has meant that a sizeable portion of this study concerned its amateur and pro-am history, a history which, as this study has shown, had great significance in shaping the professional company it has become. The study demonstrates the value of looking carefully at Australia’s amateur theatre history in order to better understand the nature of the professional theatre operating in Australia today. Amateur theatre, Katharine Brisbane stated in her 1993 inaugural Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture ‘Yesterday the World, Tomorrow Australia’, is “the key to the personality of the Australian theatre today” (Brisbane, 2005: 335). I would go so far as to say that the health of the performing arts today is the legacy, not of the profession but of the amateur movement; and that

325 throughout our history every original idea and progressive development has been advanced, directly or indirectly, not through the professional but through the amateur theatre. I believe we need to look at this history if we are to understand the structure and outlook of our subsidy systems; the changes in our commercial theatre, the dilemmas of our state theatres and the reasons why so many regional companies have failed. (ibid.)

La Boite has to date worn its amateur past proudly and the professional company that thrives in Brisbane today remains deeply conscious of that legacy. At the first Season Launch at the new venue in Kelvin Grove, Artistic Director Sean Mee publicly acknowledged that this new beginning for the company was made possible not only through the vision of the state government and QUT, but by “the endeavour of generations of Queensland theatre workers” : They have borne this Company upon their shoulders for nearly 80 years; nurturing it, changing it, sometimes shaking it up but always with the same intent: to keep the Company creatively viable.

The longevity of this Company is testament not only to their tenacity and passion, but also that each generation has had the foresight and the courage, often against stiff resistance, to take that necessary step, to compel the Company to go beyond its own comfort zone and make a place for itself in the future. … The challenge for us now is to live up to this outstanding legacy of achievement. (Mee, 2003, Comans Private Collection).

La Boite is currently one of thirty-five small to medium-sized triennially funded Australian theatre companies. In the 2003 analysis of the triennially funded theatre organizations, commissioned by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council for the period 1998 to 2002, Theatre Board Chair Ian McRae reported that “These companies are a vital part of the theatre ecology in Australia … the powerhouse that keeps the artform vibrant and contemporary”. Overall, the report found that these companies make “a very significant and demonstrable contribution to Australian culture” because:

• They create most of the new, innovative work for the Australian theatre. • They are the biggest international exporters of Australian theatre. • They feed the wider industry with creative talent, ideas and styles of production. • They provide significant access for the public to the Australian theatre and have an audience largely different from the major theatre companies but of a similar size. (http://www.ozco.gov.au/arts_resources/publications/theatre_triennial/ published December 13, 2003, cited 10 February 2006)

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This timely recognition of the outstanding contribution companies such as La Boite are making to contemporary Australian theatre adds potency to my assertion that the history of this organization is now of national significance and interest. However, alarmingly, the Theatre Board’s commissioned analysis also found that: • the trend is that their costs will overtake their revenue within two years; • they are increasingly reliant on non-core funding to finance their core business output - new innovative theatre; and • their capacity to further increase earned and other income is limited. (ibid.) Such findings place La Boite – and every other triennially funded theatre company - in a seemingly vulnerable position in regard to future viability. This study of La Boite’s transformation from an amateur group to a flourishing professional company over seventy-eight years of uninterrupted activity highlights the distinctive cultural significance of this company to Australian theatre and, by implication, suggests that to lose such a company would be a tragedy. To 2003, La Boite’s effective artistic and organizational leadership has guided the company though crisis and change with success; in uncertain times, as this report suggests, La Boite now has new challenges to test its leadership into the future.

Further Research To date only limited scholarly research has been undertaken in the area of Brisbane’s theatrical history, either amateur or professional. The Queensland Theatre Company, now in its thirty-sixth year of operations and TN! Theatre Company, operational between 1936 and 1991 are two organizations whose histories are of key importance to the cultural and social history of Queensland yet, to date, have not been the subject of full scholarly investigation. Similarly, the Brisbane Arts Theatre in its seventieth year of amateur activity, is ripe for further research to build on the work already carried out by Jennifer Radbourne (1978; 1987). In relation to La Boite, my study, through necessity, has left many areas of potential research unexplored, such as ECDP, Youth Theatre, the apprentice model of training actors, directors, designers and technicians, directing and designing for theatre in the round, and theatre criticism. As the company continues to evolve and prosper in its new setting in The Roundhouse, it will remain a site of scholarly research interest.

327 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS Brisbane Repertory Theatre Collection of 247 Archival Boxes, 1925-1997, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL109. George Landen Dann Collection of 3 Archival Boxes, 1930-1976, Fryer Library, University of Queensland. UQFL65. J.J.Stable Collection of 1 Archival Box, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL S135 (Permanent Staff Files). La Boite Archives 1925-2003, stored by Rosemary Herbert at La Boite Theatre. Queensland Performing Arts Centre Museum, Heritage Collection. La Boite materials from 1925 to 2003.

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Comans, Christine: assorted programs 1975-2003; Council documents 1993-1995. Kerwitz, Annette: programs, media material, 1983-2003. Lumer, Rod: assorted programs, minutes of AGMs, Newsletters 1960 –2000. Nason, Michael: Rick Billinghurst’s scrapbooks - reviews, articles, letters 1976-1979. O’Neill, Errol: assorted reviews, press notices, programs 1982-1998. Radvan, Mark: production photographs 1982-84. Rider, Sue: assorted Board & administrative documents, private correspondence, media materials 1993-2000. Stevenson, Kaye: Booklet, The Old “LA BOITE” 1967-1971. Young, Athol: Board documents, correspondence 1998-2000.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTIONS Bell, David, May 13, 2004, audio-taped interview with the author. Billinghurst, Rick July 21, 1978, audio-taped interview with Jennifer Radbourne. Blaylock, Malcolm, September 28, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Blocksidge, Bruce, October 31, 2002, audio-taped interview with the author. Blocksidge, Jennifer, July 17, 1978, audio-taped interview with Jennifer Radbourne. Bridges, Mike, September 28, 2002, phone interview not audio-taped with the author. Herbert, Rosemary, October 12, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Johnston, Graeme, September 27, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Mee, Sean , October 15, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Mitchell, Patrick , September 4, 2002, audio-taped interview with the author. Murphy, Deborah, May 17, 2004, audio-taped interview with the author. O’Neill, Errol, December 12, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Pike, Phillip, May 6, 2004, audio-taped phone interview with the author. Radvan, Mark, December 22, 2004, audio-taped interview with the author.

328 Rider, Sue, June 8, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Ross, Andrew, April 30, 2004, audio-taped interview with the author. Routh, Helen, September 26, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Stephens, Babette, March 22 & April 2, 1991, audio-taped interview with Rod Lumer and Marguerite Stephenson. Stevenson, Kaye, September 15, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Vilé, Jim, June 2, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Watson, Muriel, September 12, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author. Whitehead, Craig, October 4, 2005, audio-taped interview with the author. Young, Athol , December 11, 2003, audio-taped interview with the author.

PROGRAMS – BRTS/BRT/La Boite A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1989, Kerwitz Private Collection. A Refined Look at Existence, Souvenir Programme, June 1972, La Boite Archives. As You Like It Program, 1987, Kerwitz Private Collection. Christine, 1930, La Boite Archives. Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean March 1985, Comans Private Collection. Crystal Clear Program, 1989, Kerwitz Private Collection. Debutantes from Outer Space Program, 1987, Kerwitz Private Collection. Fountains Beyond, 1947, G.L.Dann Collection, Box 3. Goodnight World, November 1984, Lumer Private Collection. Hamlet Program, 1988, Kerwitz Private Collection. Horrotorio Program 1992, Kerwitz Private Collection. In Beauty It Is Finished, 1931, La Boite Archives. My Son the Lawyer is Drowning, 1989, Kerwitz Private Collection. On The Verge Program, 1991, Kerwitz Private Collection. The London Blitz Show, November/December 1981, Lumer Private Collection. Three Queensland Playwrights, Program Notes, Brisbane, April 1977, La Boite Archives. Summertime Blues February 1984, Lumer Private Collection. The Dover Road, 1925, La Boite Archives. The Kelly Dance 1986, Lumer Private Collection. The Paisley Pirates of Penzance, 8 & 9 February 1985 (La Bamba), Rod Lumer Private Collection. The Three Cockolds, 1987, Annette Kerwitz Private Collection.

BOOKS, ARTICLES, JOURNAL REVIEWS, PAPERS, RECORDS Afford, T. (1995) “Adelaide Repertory Theatre” in P.Parsons (General Editor), Companion to Theatre in Australia, Currency Press, Sydney, p.32.

Afford, T. edited with additional material by K. Round (2004) Dreamers and Visionaries: Adelaide’s Little Theatres from the 1920s to the Early 1940s, Currency Press, Sydney.

Andrews, J. & Brisbane, K. (1995) “Guthrie Report” in P. Parsons (General Editor), Companion to Theatre in Australia, Currency Press, Sydney, pp. 255-256.

329 Anthony, D. (1995) “Jennifer Blocksidge” in P. Parsons (General Editor), Companion to Theatre in Australia, Currency Press, Sydney, p. 90.

Arrow, M. (2002) Upstaged : Australian women dramatists in the limelight at last, Currency Press, Sydney.

Australian & New Zealand Theatre Record (1989) “1989 Brisbane Matilda Awards”, December Index, Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW. p.12.

Australian & New Zealand Theatre Record July/August 1989, Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW. pp.38-39.

Australian & New Zealand Theatre Record “November Chronicle” November 1992, Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW. p.98.

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Lunn, H. (1977) Article on Rick Billinghurst, The Australian, February 25.

Masters, V. (1983) “A stirring celebration” in The Australian, September 23.

Mauer, T. (1980), “Brisbane theatre draws the talent” in The Courier Mail, January 23, 1980 p.2.

McGregor, A. (1977) “Documentary theatre with a political point of view” in The National Times, December 5-10.

McKay, S. (1973) “His La Boite is a clay brick winner” in The Australian, March 17.

McLean, S. (2001) “Moving Theatre” in The Courier Mail, November 3, p.24.

“New Playwright-A Keen-Eyed Queenslander Kept His Work Secret” undated newspaper article, in UQFL65 Box 3, G.L.Dann’s Scrapbook 1931 – 1933.

Nemeth, M. (1993) “Courage and Determination have Paid Off”, in Time Off, November 10, 1993.

Oakley, B. (1978) “Flight Across Th Frontier” in The National Times, February 13-19 p.43.

Olsson, K. (2000) “Behind the Scenes … Gossip, bad blood and public humiliations. La Boite theatre company has seen better days. What went wrong and who’s to blame?” in The Courier Mail, August 5, p.3 BAM.

Orpheus, Review of He Was Born Gay, April, 1947.

Partridge, D. (1994) “Review of Cosi” The Courier Mail, July 23, 1994 in Australian and New Zealand Theatre Record, July 1994, published by Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW p.54.

Queensland University Gazette, June 1953 pp.2, 7 in S135 J.J.Stable.

Rider, S. (1999) Letter to the Editor in The Courier Mail, May 30, 1999.

Robertson, C. (1978) “Repulsion is he mark of the Beast” in The Australian, March 10.

Robertson, C. (1978) “The Magic of Mo” in The Australian, May 2.

Robertson, C. (1978) “Across the fence” in The Australian, 24 July.

Robertson, C. (1979) “Stew keeps the Boite pot boiling” in The Australian, February 8, p.8.

Robertson, C. (1979) “Visions of a writer on the way up” in The Australian, April 30.

Rowbotham, D. (1972) “New theatre needs stage elevation” in The Courier Mail, June 19.

Rowbotham, D. (1972) “Mod Play With Much Dialogue” in The Courier Mail, November 17.

Rowbotham, D. (1974) “Play’s Virtue – It’s Short”, in The Courier Mail, April 18, 1974.

340

Rowbotham, D. (1976) “New Director gives La Boite a hit” in The Courier Mail April 24, 1976 p.9.

Rowbotham, D. (1978) “A sit-in on next to nothing” in The Courier Mail, February 6, 1978, p. 7.

Rowbotham, D. (1978) “Resignation of cultural director”, in The Courier Mail, February 11.

Rowbotham, D. (1978) “Play brings Roy Rene back to life” in The Courier Mail, April 4.

Rowbotham D. (1978) “This ‘Beast’ s too unsavoury” in The Courier Mail, March 4.

Rowbotham D. (1978) “La Boite is doing a disservice to all” in The Courier Mail, July 24.

Rowbotham, D. (1979) “ ‘Irish Stew’ is national find” in The Courier Mail, February 3.

Rowbotham, D. (1979) “Three that ring with $ucce$$” in The Courier Mail, February 15.

Rowbotham, D. (1979) “Next nightmare is in the wings” in The Courier Mail, April 4.

Rowbotham, D. (1979) Article on Billinghurst’s departure in The Courier Mail April 4, p.20.

Rowbotham, D. (1980) Review of Roses in Due Seasons, in The Courier Mail, March 3.

Sinclair, J. (1985) “Irish Family Theme” in The Brisbane Telegraph, June 3, p.28.

Sinclair, J. (1985) “Dark Days of Our Settlement” in The Brisbane Telegraph, July 12, p.60.

Sorensen, R. (2002) Review of Black Chicks Talking, in The Courier Mail, December 16, p.11.

Stable, J.J. (1930) “Australian Play Writing (Letter to the Editor) in The Brisbane Courier, Nov. 3.

Stewart, O. (1994) “Review of Low”Rave Magazine, May 17, 1994, in ANZTR May 1994, Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW. p 63.

Strong, M. (1991) Article on Jennifer Blocksidge in The Courier Mail, April 3, p.22.

Te Pana (1947) Review of Black Limelight, in The Courier Mail, no date, UQFL65 Box 3, G4, G.L.Dann Scrapbook.

The Brisbane Courier, 31 July, 1925.

The Brisbane Courier, “The Dover Road”, August 1, 1925.

The Brisbane Courier, “Christine”, November 21, 1930.

The Courier Mail, “ ‘No Incense Burning’ Fine Production By Repertory Players” May 6, 1938.

The Courier Mail, “Death of Theatre Pioneer”, November 19. 1945.

The Courier Mail “Theatre Stage Plan”, 1948, no date, UQFL65 Box 3, G4, G.L.Dann Scrapbook.

The Courier Mail, “Sees Censorship As Hypocritical” August 4, 1969 p.12.

The Courier Mail, Article on State Government subsidy to La Boite, September 24, 1971.

The Courier Mail, Article about and photo of the Governor of Queensland, Sir Alan Mansfield, burying the Time Capsule in the grounds of the new La Boite, November 29, 1971.

The Courier Mail,” Grant takes drama to pre-schoolers”, February 26, 1975.

341 The Courier Mail, “Taking theatre to the tinies”, April 3, 1975.

The Courier Mail, Article on walk-out of Saved, April 16, 1975.

The Courier Mail, “Qld. ‘push’ in theatre”, January 10, 1977.

The Daily Mail, “Bold Experiment”, July 17, 1931.

The Daily Mail, “ ‘On Angels’ Side’ Yet Was Sordid”, July 20, 1931.

The Patriot, “In Beauty It Is Finished”, July 19, 1931.

The Pink Paper, Untitled article on In Beauty It Is Finished, Saturday Evening, July 4, 1931.

The Sunday Mail, Review of A Beautiful Life, August 30, 1998. The Sunday Sun, “La Boite Takes a New Gamble”, October 18, 1980, p.74.

The Sunday Truth, “See How They Run … At Albert Hall, Next Week”, November 12, 1961.

The Telegraph “Christine”, November 21, 1930.

The Telegraph, “Why Prize Play Was Cut”, Evening Edition, July 14, 1931.

The Telegraph “In Beauty It Is Finished - Repertory Theatre Production of New Play”, July 17, 1931.

The Telegraph, “Repertory Plays”, July 25, 1931.

The Telegraph, Review of You Never Can Tell, September 12, 1931.

The Telegraph, Review of Uncle Vanya , November 21, 1931.

The Telegraph, Review of Uncle Vanya, November 22, 1931.

The Telegraph, Review of Cherry Acres, September 3, 1932.

The Telegraph, Editorial: “The Choice of Repertory Plays, September 10, 1932

The Telegraph, Letters to the Editor (1932, Evening edition, September 12, 1932.

The Telegraph, “Repertory Theatre – Defence of Cherry Acres, Professor Stable Replies” , September 14, 1932.

The Telegraph, Evening edition, September 15, 1932.

The Telegraph, The Romantic Young Lady An Undoubted Success, October 29, 1932.

The Telegraph, “Repertory Theatre Presents ‘No Incense Burning’”, 6 May, 1938.

The Telegraph, Review of Men Without Wives, Evening edition, May 26, 1939.

The Telegraph, Review of Men Without Wives, May 26, 1939.

The Telegraph, Review of Foolish Yesterday, May 8, 1942.

The Telegraph, Review of Quiet Night, March 20, 1942.

The Telegraph, “Theatre Aid Plea”, 1948, no date, UQFL65 Box 3, G4, G.L.Dann Scrapbook.

The Telegraph ,“La Boite is on the up and up”, October 23, 1971.

342

The Truth, “Bumper Houses”, July 11, 1931.

The Truth, “Repertory Play Fails to Shock Brisbane”, July 19, 1931.

Tickell, D. 1978) “A beastly piece of work” in The Telegraph, March 8.

Tickell, D. (1978) “Four-letter father flops” in The Telegraph, 26 July.

Tickell, D.(1979) “Irish Stew Great Recipe” in The Telegraph, February 9.

Tickell, D. (1979) “Visions – La Boite Notches A Splendid Hat-Trick” in The Telegraph, April 29.

Tickell, D. (1979) “It was a very good year” in The Telegraph, November (date unknown).

University of Queensland Gazette No 30, December 1954.

Waller, R. (1994) “Review of Low” The Courier Mail, May 7, 1994, in ANZTR May 1994, Australian Theatre Studies Centre, Kensington, NSW. p 63, 1994.

Waller, R. (1996) “Actors battle to show point” in The Courier Mail, p.13, May 17, 1996.

Waller, R. (1996) “Milk & Honey is very unfunny” in The Courier Mail, July 1, 1996 p. 21.

Waraker, D.L. (1939) in The Telegraph, August 25.

Waraker, D.L.(1939) “Review of John Gabriel Borkman in The Telegraph, August 25.

Waraker, D.L. (1941) Yes, My Darling Daughter in The Telegraph, April 4.

Wanaker, D. (1947) Review of Black Limelight, no date, UQFL65 Box 3, G4, G.L.Dann Scrapbook.

Wheatley, D. (1980) Review of Traitors, in The Express, September 3.

Westwood, M. “Precarious life on theatrical highwire” The Australian, March 1994 [no date on clipping], Sue Rider Private Collection.

Yallamas, L. (1995) “Theatre Fans Remember great Pioneer” in The Courier Mail, November 14, p.17.

Yallamas, L. (2001) “Brisbane theatre fights for survival - DO or DIE” in The Courier Mail, October 20, p.24.

Young, L. (1985) “A Slick, Funny Show” in The Courier Mail, February 14, p.32.

Young, L. (1985) “Jimmy Dean Play Hilarious” in The Courier Mail, March 22, p.16.

WEBSITES http://www.playhouse.org.au/Wilton.html#anchor425014, cited November 4, 2004. http://www.canberrarep.org.au/main.html, cited 4 November 2004. http://members.lycos.co.uk/rowenawallace/backgrou.htm cited August 8, 2003. http://www.airchive.com cited August 8, 2003. http://www.utas.edu.au/library/info/subj/newspapers.html#alpha cited September 16, 2004. http://www.nida.unsw.edu.au/about/default.html cited November 10, 2004. http://www.darwintheatrecompany.com.au/1973.htm cited November 10, 2004. http://www.darwintheatrecompany.com.au/1973.htm cited November 10, 2004. http://www.narpaca.asn.au/ cited July 23, 2005 http://www.playlab.org.au/ cited November 3, 2005 http://www.currency.com.au/ cited November 3, 2005 http://www.playhouse.org.au/ cited November 4, 2004 www.geocities.com/Broadway/Balcony/4914/ cited November 4, 2004

343 http://www.canberrarep.org.au/ cited November 4,2004 http://www.naa.gov.au/About_Us/Hasluck_GBolton.doc, cited September 14, 2005 http://www.qut.edu.au/services/aboutqut/ciprecinct.jsp cited December 29, 2005 http://www.roundhousetheatre.com.au cited December 29, 2005. http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/arts_project_millenium.asp cited December 29, 2005 http://www.qut.edu.au/services/aboutqut/ciprecinct.jsp cited December 29, 2005 http://www.laboite.com.au/pdf/2003%20Annual%20Report.pdf cited December 29, 2005. http://www.ciprecinct.com.au/spaces/centre.jsp cited December 29, 2005. http://www.laboite.com.au/pdf/2003%20Annual%20Report.pdf cited December 29, 2005.

344 APPENDIX 1

Founders (1925) Miss Barbara Sisley and Professor Jeremiah Administrators and General Managers Joseph Stable Lloyd Nickson 1973 – 1974 Terence Phillips 1975-1976 Theatre Directors (Honorary) Robert Kemp 1977 Barbara Sisley (Senior Producer) 1925-1945 Gail Podberscek 1979 – 1981 Babette Stephens 1960 – 1968 Rob Robertson 1981-1982 Jennifer Blocksidge 1969 – 1975 Jenny Thompson 1982 Ron Layne 1984 – 1985 Artistic Directors (Professional) Jim Vilé (GM and AD) 1986 – 1988 Rick Billinghurst 1976 – 1979 Jill Standfield 1989 Malcolm Blaylock 1979 – 1982 Patrick Mitchell (GM and AD) 1990 Andrew Ross 1982 – 1983 David Bell (GM and AD) 1991-1992 Mike Bridges & Mary Hickson: Deborah Murphy 1993-1996 Bridges 1984 – 1985 Donna McDonald 1996-1998 Hickson 1984 Craig Whitehead 1998 + Jim Vilé 1986 – 1989 Patrick Mitchell 1990 Youth Theatre Directors David Bell 1991 – 1992 Robert Kingham 1981 Sue Rider 1993 – 2000 Mark Radvan 1982 Sean Mee 2001 + Ludmila and Michael Doneman 1987 – 1988 Tony Auckland 1989 – 1990 Presidents/Chairs of Council/Board Susan Richer 1992 - 1995 Professor J.J.Stable 1925 – 1945 Louise Hollingsworth 1996-2000 Tom Stephens 1946 Alex Foster 1947 – 1950 Life Members Cecil Carson 1951 –1953 Professor J.J.Stable Gwen MacMinn 1954 – 1956 George Landen Dann Babette Stephens 1957 –1959 F.O.Nixon Cecil Carson 1960 Irene Silvester The Very Rev.W.P.Baddeley, Dean of William Pearce Brisbane 1961 – 1963 Ronald Pidcock Alderman Lex.Ord 1964 –1966 Babette Stephens Bruce Blocksidge 1967 – 1972 Lesley Ricketts Blair Wilson 1973 – 1975 Eileen Beatson Jennifer Blocksidge 1976 - 1978 Muriel Watson Owen Sturgess 1979 –1980 Rikki Burke Jennifer Blocksidge 1981 Blair Wilson Mac Hamilton 1982 Bruce Blocksidge Charles Grahame 1983 - 1984 Jennifer Blocksidge Helen Routh 1985 Gloria Birdwood Smith Ian Leigh-Cooper 1986 – 1989 Merle Dinning Philip Pike 1990 – 1993 June Stevenson Peter Lawson 1994 –1996 Gwen MacMinn Athol Young 1997 + Mrs Lex Ord

345 APPENDIX 2 (a)

BARBARA SISLEY 1885-1945 A Short Biography

Barbara Sisley UQFL65 G.L.Dann Collection, Caroline Chisolm program, 1946

Born in Surrey in 1885, Barbara Sisley and her family arrived in Melbourne, Australia in 1896 where her father, trained as a teacher of speech in England, taught elocution (Cook, 1992: 12) probably influencing Sisley in her later preference for the English style of speech training. After completing her formal education at Manuel College, Hawthorne, Victoria, she succeeded in her ambition to become an actress, playing a wide variety of roles for actor/manager George Rignold and for the Brough Comedy Company (Brochure for The Barbara Sisley Memorial Educational Lectureship 1947, UQFL109, Box 125). It was during a performance tour that Sisley found herself in Brisbane in 1916, stranded when the touring company she was with unexpectedly disbanded (Cook in Parsons, 1995: 531). Settling in Brisbane, she was soon employed teaching speech and drama for the Young Women’s Christian Association. These young women gained rich experiences through Sisley’s direction of a number of Shakespearean plays including Othello at the Exhibition Hall in 1918 and The Taming of the Shrew in 1919 (Cook, 1992: 20-21; The Courier Mail, November 19, 1945).

Before long she established her own private studio in the city. Given her background as a professional actor and a professionally trained speech teacher in the English style, it is not surprising that she opened her studio for ‘Speech Training and Dramatic Art’ rather than the very popular but more limited ‘Elocution’ (Cook, 1992: 12). Although she was not the only speech teacher in Brisbane, Cook claims that Sisley was Brisbane’s “first professionally trained speech and drama teacher” (Cook in Parsons, 1995: 531). Before she arrived, Agnes Rahilly had been the most prominent teacher, established in Brisbane since about 1907 (Fotheringham in Parsons, 1995: 102). Arriving about the

346 same time as Sisley, and perhaps with the same company, another professional actor, Harry Borrodale, set up a private speech studio in 1917 (Cook in Parsons, 1995: 93). Both Sisley and Borradale are credited with making a “great impact” on the cultural life of Brisbane (Cook, 1992: 11).

By 1919, Trinity College of Music examinations in elocution were available in Queensland and Sisley’s students Ruby Massey and Rhoda Felgate claimed two firsts: Massey was Brisbane’s first to gain an Associate Diploma of Elocution and Felgate the first to gain a Fellowship in Elocution (ibid.: 19). When the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) began its elocution examinations in 1927, Sisley’s students continued to distinguish themselves, with Una Vowles becoming the first Queenslander to be awarded the Licentiate Diploma in 1930 (ibid.: 24-25). Massey, Felgate and Vowles became eminent speech and drama teachers in Brisbane as did many of her students including Jean Trundle, Nell Douglas Graham, Kathleen Hirst, Daphne Roemermann, Dorothy Wheller, Hilda Hastie and Clare Clarke (Cook, 1992:21; Speech and Drama Teachers’ Association of Queensland Inc.1996: 1). Undoubtedly, two of her most successful students were Rhoda Felgate and Jean Trundle, both of whom were to follow Sisley’s example in founding theatre companies in Brisbane - Twelfth Night and Brisbane Arts Theatre respectively. Sisley taught not only from her private studio in the city but in a number of prestigious girls’ schools including St. Margaret’s at Clayfield, Somerville House at South Brisbane and Stuartholme Convent at Bardon.

During the First World War she formed the Barbara Sisley Players to give her speech and drama students real opportunities to perform in plays for an audience. A particularly ambitious project was her production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Brisbane Exhibition grounds for the Brisbane Centenary Celebration in 1924 (Cook, 1992: 20). Sisley was also the prime mover behind the formation of the Brisbane Shakespeare Society in the early 1920s. Enthusiastically supported by Professors Stable and Michie and Dr. F.W.Robinson from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Queensland, the Society also included eminent businessmen, lawyers, clergy and members of the medical profession (ibid.: 17), many of whom were later involved in an organisational capacity with BRTS. The Shakespeare Society gave yet another opportunity for Sisley’s senior students to perform, including her former student Leo Guyatt who took the lead role in Hamlet with John McCallum as Horatio, directed by Sisley, in 1936. Guyatt became a renowned Brisbane actor and McCallum went on to establish a successful international career in theatre and film.

In 1923 Sisley returned to England and Europe to further her professional studies, most notably with the renowned teacher of the dramatic arts, Elsie Fogarty of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London (Barbara Sisley Memorial Notes, UQFL109 Box 125, File 1). This further training might have been the impetus she needed to spur her on to the challenge of creating a repertory theatre in her adopted town. In 1925 she formed the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society with Professor Stable and took a leading role as Senior Producer (directing fifty-seven productions), actor, Councillor, and mentor to Queensland playwright George Landen Dann and director of his plays, for the next twenty- one years until her untimely death in 1945.

347

As well as her enormous commitment to BRTS, she was also a patron of the Dramatic Society of the University of Queensland, a founder of the Art of Speech Association, and a member of the Dickens Fellowship and the Lyceum Club Authors’ and Artists’ Association. She was also a member of the advisory panel for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

On Sunday 18 November, 1945 at the age of sixty Sisley died in the Brisbane General Hospital a day after being hit by a taxi in Adelaide Street, outside her studio (The Courier Mail, November 19, 1945). In her honour, the Speech and Drama Teachers’ Association of Queensland Inc. presented the first Barbara Sisley Awards in 1947 in the form of scholarships ( and later books) to students gaining the highest marks in advanced AMEB and Trinity College examinations (Speech and Drama Teachers’ Association of Queensland Inc.1996: 1). This award continues to be presented annually to outstanding students.

After her death, BRT initiated two actions and in connection with both of them George Landen Dann took a leading role. A decision was made that the first play for 1946 be the Barbara Sisley Memorial Play and that it be Dann’s Caroline Chisholm, to be directed by Clare Clarke. Dann’s dedication to her – taken from his hand-written notes intended for the Caroline Chisholm program – gives a sense not only of her contribution to the artistic life of Brisbane but of her personal qualities as well: From the time she arrived in Brisbane … Barbara Sisley worked almost unceasingly for the cultural advancement of this city. With genuine love, enthusiasm and practical assistance she supported all phases of the arts – music, painting and writing – and her work in her studio, the various schools and Eisteddfodau is too well known to call for any further commendation.

Great as was her interest in all these branches, yet more especially was she interested in the Drama. She founded and pioneered the Brisbane Repertory Theatre and throughout the twenty-one years of its growth very actively assisted in its management and welfare … She became throughout Australia, as has been aptly stated of her, “a legend in her own lifetime”.

Her kindness and generosity, her understanding, her firmness and enthusiasm, her graciousness … these are some of the personal qualities we remember her by. Her appreciation of the finer things in life, her determination of purpose to maintain them for the benefit of others, her achievements … these are the legacy she left to inspire us in continuing the work she began. “And thus she lived among us, friend and leader, Trusted – revered – beloved. Like one of Shakespeare’s ladies – gay and gracious, In dignity she moved, Held high the torch of Art to light war’s drabness, And weakling fears revoked.” It is fitting that this play “Caroline Chisholm”, should be produced as a memorial to her. In its published form it is dedicated to her and on its first presentation in 1939 under the title of “A Second Moses” it was Barbara Sisley who produced it.

As a tribute from audience, producer, players, stage crew and author the revival of this play – the first of the Repertory Theatre’s productions since her death – is re-dedicated … to her memory. (UQFL109 Box 125, File 1).

348 The second action was to set up the Barbara Sisley Memorial Appeal with the aim of raising £1,600 for an annual Lectureship in her honour. The story of the failure of that Appeal is most interestingly told by Tom Stephens1 in the following letter written to Council president Jennifer Blocksidge in February 1977: I knew and was well acquainted with the late Barbara Sisley. She was one of the Founders of the BRT, and worked tirelessly and enthusiastically in its interests from its foundation to the time of her death. She was the Senior Producer for the theatre’s major productions and one of the moving spirits in all its activities.

I well remember that after her death a public meeting was called in Brisbane to consider the establishment of a permanent memorial to perpetuate her memory and to commemorate her dedication to the cultural life of Brisbane, to the performing arts, and to the BRT. I attended that meeting. I have now no written record of minutes or other wise to refer to, not even a record of the date, but to the best of my recollection the outcome was a resolution to the effect that a public appeal should be launched for funds to provide a suitable memorial, and the suggestions as to the form it should take included: (1) the building of a Theatre to be called the Barbara Sisley Memorial Theatre, and (2) the provisions of overseas scholarships for promising performers and (3) the establishment of an annual Lectureship on some aspects of the Drama or the Performing Arts. The appeal resulted in the collection of about £400. I am not aware of the survival of any list of subscribers. There was a substantial number of subscribers, mainly individuals subscribing small amounts, and the fund was augmented from the proceeds of social functions organised for the purpose. I think it is correct to say that the BRT was the largest single subscriber.

… It fell to the BRT to assume control of the fund as de facto Trustee and to administer it in whatever way seemed best calculated to carry out the spirit and intention of the project, that is to perpetuate the memory of Barbara Sisley and to continue her work of giving practical support and encouragement to the performing arts. The Theatre launched an annual Lectureship on the Drama and associated subjects. The lectures were well attended at first but attendance soon dropped off when it became impossible to attract notable figures to deliver the lectures on the annual income that was available from the fund. The lectures were later merged in the staging of a prestige production once a year specifically dedicated to the memory of Barbara Sisley and accompanied by some public account of her life and acknowledgment of her work, but interest was not long maintained among new generations of theatre-goers who knew her not.

I stress that I speak from memory only and it would be illuminating to check my recollections with the recollections of others, and against any written records that may be brought to light. I feel, however, very confident that the over-riding objective was the provision of some form of permanent memorial to perpetuate the memory of Barbara Sisley, and of the work done by her for the Theatre and for the Arts generally in Brisbane, as far as possible to further support and encourage the continuance of that work. J.B.Stephens (UQFL109, Box 125, File 1)

In fact my research has uncovered a wealth of material relating to the saga of the Memorial Fund (UQFL109,Box 125, File 1) and I can vouch for the accuracy of Tom Stephens’ memory. The idea of building a theatre was quickly dropped when a detailed estimate of such a project came up with the figure of £30,000.00. And overseas scholarships were obviously out of the question, too. Jennifer Blocksidge had requested the information from Tom Stephens because BRT wanted to finalise its responsibilities concerning the Barbara Sisley Memorial Fund. In 1977 the Theatre still held in trust the amount of $880.00 for the Fund but few members remembered Sisley or even knew who she was.

1 Tom Stephens was BRT President in 1946. For many years he was a Council member, Honorary Treasurer and Honorary Secretary. He was married to Babette Stephens.

349 Jennifer Blocksidge stated in a letter to the Queensland Justice Department: “It would therefore seem highly desirable that some effort is made to facilitate the matter before all memory of Barbara Sisley is lost, in order that faith be kept with the original donors” (ibid.). The money was duly released and soon after members, associates of Sisley, and leading figures of the Brisbane Arts community received the following invitation: The President and Council of THE BRISBANE REPERTORY THEATRE Invites ……………………………………. To La Boite For the unveiling of a Memorial Clock to perpetuate the memory of BARBARA SISLEY Foundation member and driving force of this Theatre by the Hon. W.E.Knox MLA Deputy Premier and Treasurer of Queensland at 7.30pm on Saturday, 26th March, to be followed by a Special Performance of ‘IN BEAUTY IT IS FINISHED’ in the presence of the playwright, George L.Dann, and directed by Rick Billinghurst.

RSVP etc. Dress: Lounge Suit

The Memorial Clock was mounted on the interior Theatre wall, passed by every audience member as they entered the performance space. The inscription on the plaque reads:

This clock is in memory of BARBARA SISLEY (1885-1945) Teacher and Patron of the Arts Co-founder and artistic inspiration to the BRISBANE REPERTORY THEATRE (1925) “To know her was to love her To name her was to praise her.”

Unveiled Saturday 26th March 1977 by Hon. W.E.Knox M.L.A. Deputy Premier and Treasurer of Queensland.

Sadly, on La Boite’s move to the Roundhouse Theatre in 2003, the Barbara Sisley clock, unable to be safely detached from the clay brick wall, had to remain in the now de-commissioned Hale Street theatre building.

350 APPENDIX 2 (b)

BABETTE STEPHENS 1910 - 2001 A Short Biography

Babette Stephens, circa 1989 La Boite Archives

Phyllis Babette Fergusson was born on 26 April, 1910 in Knightsbridge, London into an upper-middle class family (McKee, 2004: 2). Both her parents were singers but the marriage was apparently short- lived and her mother remarried when Babette was still a small child. As her step-father, Philip James Robin, had been badly gassed during World War One, a warmer climate was recommended, so the family, which now included a half-brother, emigrated to Townsville, Australia in 1925, sponsored by Robin’s brother Bryan, Sub-Dean of the Townsville Cathedral (Stephens Interview, March 22, 1991: ll.58-64).

The fifteen year old Babette (she discarded ‘Phyllis’ early in her life) left behind her beloved grandmother and grandfather Browne who literally brought her up and introduced her to the cultural life of London (McKee, 2004: 4). From about the age of ten, she was enrolled in the Coen School of Dancing in London which combined general schooling with deportment, dance, elocution and acting and imbued in her notions of professionalism and the need for stage training that stayed with her all her life. Her grandparents were well connected with the upper echelons of society and it is no doubt this early influence which gave Babette her lifetime love of royalty and ceremony.

In London, her step-father had worked for one of the top manager/producers of the time and knew a lot about theatre (Stephens Interview, March 22, 1991: ll.44). Once installed in his new position with the New Zealand Insurance Company in Townsville he involved himself and Babette (who had secured a job with the Main Roads Department) in theatre by forming an amateur group called the St James’

351 Players. She gives credit to her step-father for the invaluable training he gave her – she called it an apprenticeship in theatre where you learned on the job “which I swear, even to this day, is the best” (McKee, 2004: 24).

In 1928 she joined the Townsville Repertory Theatre and it was through that association that she experienced a life changing event that galvanised her desire to be an actor. Brisbane Repertory Theatre brought to Townsville’s Theatre Royal their 1929 production of Dear Brutus, directed by Barbara Sisley and featuring Rhoda Felgate (Stephens Interview, March 22, 1991: ll.151-161). She knew she wanted to be involved with this dynamic theatre group, so when the opportunity came to live and work in Brisbane (via her uncle who was now the Warden of St John’s College at the University of Queensland) she did not hesitate.

A chance meeting with Cecil Carson, a BRTS member, on a Brisbane tram in 1930 encouraged her to attend a casting for Rutherford and Sons by Githa Sowerby, to be directed by Rhoda Felgate. Despite Carson’s warning that no newcomer ever got a part – she would have to prove herself through the Club play readings and one act plays, and hope to be noticed – she turned up uninvited (Stephens Interview, March 22, 1991: ll.168-170). Her story of how she secured her first part speaks volumes about this character whose personality was to dominate BRT activities in years to come: I didn’t know anybody - except to say hello, you know and, dear, dear, I made history that night because they didn’t want any newcomer to go away saying “I didn’t get a chance”. So I was asked to read a particular role which was the housekeeper in a Scottish household and I said “No, thank you, I don’t think that’s me!” I don’t think anyone had ever said “no” in the history of time! And because of this they offered – I think just to slap me down – they offered me the lead to read. Which I got! And that was my first show with Repertory! (Stephens Interview, March 22, 199: ll.171-177)

In fact it was a supporting role that she secured, but as far as the press was concerned, she was the leading lady. The Daily Mail reported that “The acting honours go unreservedly to Miss Babette Ferguson [sic] who gives a polished and realistic interpretation of the role of Janet, daughter of Rutherford” (September 27, 1930). And Stead’s Review stated “Hail to a real actress at last among the cohorts of engaging and accomplished amateur players!” (November 1, 1930). A role in Vance Palmer’s Christine was followed in 1931 by the lead role of Gloria in Shaw’s You Never Can Tell directed by Rhoda Felgate. Playing opposite her was Tom Stephens, a young solicitor from a prominent Brisbane family, who had been involved as an acting member of BRTS for several years. Reportedly disliking each other from the outset, they nevertheless fell in love, married in 1935, had two children, Wendy and Christopher, and enjoyed a long married life until his death at the age of 97 in 1997. Of her performance in You Never Can Tell, The Telegraph reviewer wrote: Babette Fergusson as Gloria began with an unobtrusiveness which was fitting, but which gave little promise of the superb quality she was to exhibit later. This was prophetic of the subtlety with which she managed the gradations between the emotional icicle and the warm-blooded woman to whom love came in spite of herself. She had the face for that early incarnation of poise and hauteur. She had, no less, the face for surrender when her defences were broken down. And she has a voice positively alluring in its modulation and control. She gave easily the finest interpretation of Shaw in the whole company – which is saying much. (The Telegraph, September 12, 1931)

352

After this, her career expanded and took her away from BRTS until the end of 1934 when she appeared in the comedy Charley’s Aunt directed by Barbara Sisley. During this time she worked as theatre critic for The Courier Mail, social reporter for The Telegraph, The Sunday Mail and Teleradio, in public relations for the ABC, and was much sought after for ABC Drama broadcasts. Having been part of the group that established Twelfth Night Theatre in 1936, Babette Stephens became, for a time, more involved as an actor with this new theatre than with BRTS. However, as was by this time BRTS Honorary Treasurer, she continued her involvement as Social Committee convenor, a role in which she excelled. It was her brain-child to inaugurate an annual Arts Ball which became, for many years, a great money spinner for the Theatre.

She was in only three more BRTS plays until her professional stage debut in 1939 - soon after the birth of her first child Wendy - with Will Mahoney and Evie Hayes’ Production Company in Lillies of the Field. Sisley enticed her back for a lead role in Shaw’s Heartbreak House in 1943 but it proved a failure at the box office, perhaps too heavy a play for wartime Brisbane. Soon after, she temporarily retired from all theatre work as her second child Christopher was born in 1945.

During the remainder of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, much of the focus of her working life was BRT, as actor, director, President and finally Theatre Director. By the 1960s she was a well- known personality in Brisbane and was invited to join Reg Grundy’s I’ve Got a Secret with Brisbane’s Channel 9. It wasn’t long before she was Photo: Pierce Photographic Studio, in McKee, 2004: 212 known nationally for her acerbic wit and regal presence, earning her the nick-name “The Queen Mum of Television” (McKee, 2004: 281). Throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ’80s she continued a career in television, appearing on panel shows Play Your Hunch and Funny You Should Ask, Beauty and the Beast, Bailey and the Birds and played character roles in Carson’s Law, Matlock Police, Homicide, Consider Your Verdict and the Brisbane made Until Tomorrow. She took roles in a small number of films as well: Let the Balloon Go in 1976, The Irishman in 1978, and despite undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, agreed to a role in The Settlement in 1982. She continued with ABC radio drama and even talk-back radio for 4BH. Her one and only role in the ‘new’ La Boite theatre was in the 1973 production of The Anniversary directed by Jennifer Blocksidge. Despite this being her first stage appearance in ten years, Stephens’ popularity as a star of radio and television guaranteed a box-office

353 success – her role as the domineering matriarch became “another of the great parts for which Babette is fondly remembered by her fans” (McKee, 2004: 308).

Invited to be a member of the inaugural Board for the proposed Queensland Theatre Company, she had a hand in appointing Alan Edwards as the first artistic director. Stephens went on to perform with QTC and was appointed an Associate Artist during Edwards’ time. Memorable roles included Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1975 and Hetta ten Dorp in Deathtrap in 1979. Under Aubrey Mellor’s artistic directorship, in 1990 she played at the age of 80 a minor role in A Month in the Country and Rebecca Nurse in The Crucible the following year. In fact, she did six plays in a row at this time. It was Stephens’ last QTC production The School for Scandal that unnerved her more than usual as she succumbed to memory problems that had plagued her for some time. She was persuaded that the time had indeed come to retire.

In 1972 Stephens was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) and was also awarded Membership of the Order of Australia (AM), both awards for her services to Queensland theatre. Although officially retired, she accepted Bryan Nason’s invitation to read the role of Queen Margaret in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Parts 2 and 3 for the Robert Arthur Memorial performances in New Farm Park in 2000 (Ignite 5, 2001: 4). She died on 28 February 2001.The Courier Mail’s coverage of her funeral began: “A sustained round of applause echoed in St John’s Cathedral, Brisbane, yesterday as mourners paid their last respects to Babette Stephens, one of the most significant figures in the history of Queensland theatre” (March 10, 2001). Her son Christopher described her as a woman ahead of her time in her pursuit of a career outside the home in an era when society frowned on women working (ibid.).

Sean Mee, artistic director of La Boite, spoke at her Memorial Service on the stage of La Boite Theatre, a fitting place for this woman whose drive and energy made its creation possible: To me, beyond her imperious demeanour, beyond the fierce reputation and withering glare, she was an actor. The evidence is here. For this is an actor’s theatre. It was built by an actor for actors to act in. You can feel it. We all know it. (March 19, 2001)

354 APPENDIX 2 (c)

JENNIFER BLOCKSIDGE 1932 – 1995 A Short Biography

Jennifer Blocksidge La Boite Archives

Born in Karachi, India2 in 1932, Jennifer Blocksidge experienced her first stage role as a child at school in Kashmir (The Old La Boite 1967-71: 1972). Towards the end of World War Two the family returned to England where she attended Queen Anne’s School at Caversham. Encouraged by the Head Mistress, she developed a strong interest in theatre and both acted in and directed school plays. Such was her talent in these areas that she went on to tertiary study, qualifying as a Drama teacher from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Soon after, and in a spirit of adventure, she applied for and won a position in Armidale, Australia at the New England Girls School (NEGS) (ibid.). She loved her job at NEGS and stayed there until 1956. The Headmistress, no doubt impressed by her training, elegant demeanour and strong personality, gave her free rein “and she had a ‘ball’ producing such plays as Pygmalion and The Rivals and getting into early censorship controversy because she allowed the girls to say ‘damn’ in a play” (ibid.). During her time at NEGS she visited Brisbane where she met her husband-to-be Bruce Blocksidge, delegated to entertain her during her city stay.

They both went to London – Bruce to study and Jennifer to work in the Make-Up Department at the B.B.C., T.V (ibid.). They married in England, returned to Brisbane in 1959, and proceeded to produce a family of one boy and two girls. As Bruce recalls, he was involved with BRT before Jennifer; he was

2 In 1947 Pakistan was declared a separate state from India and Karachi was designated the capital of Pakistan.

355 called upon for his real estate skills in 1959 (Bruce Blocksidge Interview, October 31, 2002: 192-194). Jennifer did not join until 1962 and in September of that year performed her first role in Peter Ustinov’s Romanoff and Juliet directed by Babette Stephens. The following year she had the lead role in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest directed by Gloria Birdwood-Smith. In those early days her best known acting credit was in 1970 for the lead role in Hal Porter’s Eden House directed by Gary O’Neil (Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 90). Her first directing venture was the Workshop Major production for 1965, Letter to a General, designed by Blair Wilson and produced in All Saints Hall. She graduated to mainhouse productions in 1967, directing David Turner’s Semi-Detached, the last production to go into Albert Hall.

Jennifer Blocksidge’s significance to La Boite Theatre is enormous. As honorary artistic director of La Boite between 1968 and 1975 she increasingly programmed contemporary and often risky Australian and overseas plays earning the Theatre the reputation as “the place to go to see the red meat of theatre” (Katharine Brisbane as quoted by Blocksidge, UQFL 1973 AGM, March 3, 1974). She and her husband took the leadership roles in the building of La Boite in Hale Street, Brisbane, Australia’s first purpose built theatre-in-the-round. It was her vision for La Boite Theatre to eventually become a professional company that saw the appointment in 1976 of Rick Billinghurst, La Boite’s first professional artistic director. It was also her drive that helped establish the Early Childhood Drama Project, the Theatre’s first professional wing and Queensland’s first theatre in education program for this age group.

Blocksidge continued to act in many La Boite plays but directing was her passion; between 1967 and 1982 she directed fourteen mainhouse productions for La Boite Theatre. For the Queensland Theatre Company she performed in I Sent A Letter to My Love directed by Kevin Palmer in 1981, 84 Charing Cross Road directed by Mary Hickson in 1983, The Family Room directed by Alan Edwards in 1985, Lost Weekend directed by John Bell in 1989, Gilgamesh directed by Bryan Nason in 1991, Shadow and Splendour directed by Jim Sharman in 1992, A Cheery Soul directed by Neil Armfield in 1992, and Hotel Sorrento directed by Aubrey Mellor and David Berthold in 1992 (QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection). She won critical acclaim in 1991 for her portrayal of Melanie Klein in Nicholas Wright’s Mrs Klein directed by Sue Rider (Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 90).

Jennifer Blocksidge (centre) as Melanie Klein in QTC’s Mrs Klein, 1991. QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection

356

For TN! she performed the lead role in Mother Courage directed by Bryan Nason in 1981, Gertrude in Hamlet directed by Bryan Nason in 1981, Skitz & Frenzy directed by Nason in 1981, Romeo and Juliet directed by Nason in 1982, Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine directed by Rod Wissler in 1983, Edward Bond’s Summer directed by Robert Arthur in 1985, Skirmishes directed by Arthur in 1985, Sharkbite Cabaret directed by Arthur in 1985, Tartuffe directed by Rick Billinghurst in 1987, Phaedra directed by Billinghurst in 1990. She directed Barry Dickins’ The Death of Minnie in 1983 featuring Victoria Arthur for TN!, John Bradley’s Rosy Apples Need Shining in 1990 for TN! (QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection)

Blocksidge also served on the Australia Council’s Community Arts Board between 1981 and 1985 and the Queensland Theatre Company’s Board for several years in the early 1990s (Anthony in Parsons, 1995: 90). She was a renowned teacher of voice, establishing the voice training program for actors at Kelvin Grove College (later the Academy of the Arts, QUT) and teaching it part-time for fifteen years.

A tall and imposing woman, Jennifer Blocksidge carried herself with such an air of confidence that she could have a daunting effect on those who encountered her. She herself put it down to “the British Raj background and the terribly proper finishing school” but claimed that “a lot of it is bluff” (Strong, in The Courier Mail, April 3, 1991, p.22). She died of cancer on November 11, 1995 at the age of sixty- three. In a Courier Mail article headlined “Theatre Fans Remember Great Pioneer”, arts reporter Lisa Yallamas wrote of this “theatrical giant” that “the eternal quest of this passionate idealist to ‘walk right on this earth’ inspired others to achieve their best” (November 14, 1995, p.17). She was remembered by many in the industry, wrote Yallamas, as “a nurturing mentor, cherished second mother, good mate, valued teacher and respected colleague…a gifted performer with a reputation for touching audiences” (ibid.).

357 APPENDIX (d)

SUE RIDER A Short Biography

Sue Rider circa 1993 La Boite Archives

Sue Rider was born in Birmingham, only twenty miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, and her parents took her to theatre from an early age. At school, a very knowledgeable and disciplined English teacher called Kate Flint introduced her to the delights of Shakespeare and became something of a role model for her: She knew all of Shakespeare’s plays. We were expected, by the time we left school, to have read every one of Shakespeare’s plays! She set extraordinarily high expectations but she wasn’t pushy. You didn’t feel terrified by her. She made you feel you could do it. She directed a Shakespeare play each year and auditioned every girl in the school because she felt that some girls with talent might not have the courage to come forward. She was an amazing woman: she was never sick, she was kind of perfect in a way! And the preparation we went through for those Shakespearean productions was extraordinary. And so that also set for me a level, a way of doing things. (Rider Interview, June 8, 2003: ll.50-58) At the Midlands Arts Centre for Young People she worked in youth theatre with a very young Mike Leigh before leaving Birmingham for York University where she completed an Honours degree in English Literature and became actively involved in student theatre. It was at this point in her life that she decided “that yes, I could make a career in the theatre perhaps” (ibid.: l.72) and went off to Manchester to do a Graduate Diploma in Drama with Professor Hugh Hunt, where she met Jim Vilé whom she later married. Together they went to Leeds where he undertook a Master of Theatre Arts and she was employed as an Information Office for Yorkshire Television. By night, she worked in theatre, cast as Medea in Vilé’s Master’s production of Medea and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for a group of actors from Yorkshire Television (ibid.: ll.93-95).

358

On completion of his Masters, Vilé was offered a position as Research Fellow in Arts and Drama and Rider as English lecturer at a University College in the north of Nigeria. Soon, Rider had introduced a Drama course and found the experience seminal: Moving to such a different cultural environment where theatre – the word ‘wassa’, which can be translated as ‘play’ - is the same word they use for music, drama, dance, there is no distinguishing between words, that meant a great deal to me. It really shifted the way I looked at theatre. I began to see the theatre as having a vital, essential place within the lives of people as opposed to being something you went into - a building - to experience then came out again. And it was the first time really that that had impinged on me. I loved theatre but I had seen it locked away in a box I suppose and after the Nairobi experience I saw that theatre was important for everyone. And that’s really informed the way I did theatre since – that everyone has a right to having access to theatre. Yes, as I say, that has really informed the way I do theatre and the reasons I do theatre. (ibid.: ll.104-115)

After Nigeria, the couple and newly born son Tiest moved to Adelaide where Vilé had accepted a position as the founding Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Adelaide and Rider had to adjust to being a housewife and mother. It wasn’t long however, before she was invited to write theatre reviews for The Adelaide Advertiser and Theatre Australia, a new publication (ibid.: ll.134-136). She actively participated as an actor in the Theatre Guild Ensemble, a company that Vilé started at the university, and worked for four years lecturing in Drama and English at the South Australian College of Advanced Education. The Ensemble gave Rider her first introduction to working closely with a writer on developing a new script. Much later, the development of new scripts became a major feature of her work as artistic director at La Boite.

In 1980, a group of six artists including Rider formed The Acting Company of South Australia. This company captured a theatre for schools niche market and with a grant for their first production set about creating text-based work for school audiences, steering away from the devised, issues-based work of most theatre in education companies of the day. The company succeeded and by 1984 was fully funded, supported by the Education Department, paying equity rates and touring throughout South Australia (ibid.: ll.204-206). Rider attributes this time as crucial in the development of her skills “as a director of a company and also as a director of an ensemble of people” (ibid.: ll. 212-213). It also shaped her ideas about theatre for schools, directing influencing the kinds of programs she later developed for her La Boite Schools Company. Eventually, policy changes led to funding cuts and The Acting Company folded.

However, in the final year of the company’s life, Rider worked with Oodgeroo Noonuccal (then known as Kath Walker), developing two shows based on her poetry. This work led to Rider being asked to co- direct with indigenous artist Eva Johnson her new work Jindarella for the aboriginal women’s festival in 1985, the first aboriginal arts festival held in South Australia. Of this experience, which was the forerunner of her ground-breaking work with indigenous actors at La Boite, she commented: It was very eye-opening for me as it was a very large cast of indigenous women, only two of whom had really ever seen theatre before. Eva was co-directing and again she and I worked on the script beforehand and she lived just around the corner from me so it was really handy and we both worked on it. But there was no tradition of indigenous theatre at all and so she was tearing her hair out at one stage because she thought it would never happen. Just trying to get

359 people to come. We wanted to do workshops first leading up to the rehearsal period to give people some idea what it would be like but even trying to get people to the workshops was very hard. But it did go on in the end and it was in The Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Festival and it was very, very exciting. In the end, it was really hard work but really, really rewarding. (ibid.: ll.256-266)

In 1986, Rider was asked to direct Top Girls for the amateur Adelaide Theatre Guild for the Adelaide Fringe Festival. When the rights went to a professional company, she was left with thirteen women and no play. Her solution was to create a performance about historically significant South Australian women. Ring the Bell Softly, There’s Crepe on the Door won best overall Fringe production and was, as it transpired, “a sort of try-out version” (ibid.: 344) for her later highly successful The Matilda Women that she wrote and directed for La Boite.

In the same year, with the family now expanded to two children (Anika was born in 1979), Vilé was appointed artistic director of La Boite Theatre in Brisbane. Rider and the children joined him after six months. Although she had encouraged him to take the job as he “really needed to get out of academia”, she admitted that “I came up here reluctantly because Brisbane had such a bad press… Joh Bjelke- Peterson was in power then” (ibid.). The job had its attractions however: …we had heard of La Boite and it did have a reputation as doing ground-breaking work which was really why I was quite keen for Jim to take the job, even though it was a massive cut in income. But that had never really been a concern. You know we had never been wealth- hunters or anything. The work we did was more important to us so it seemed like a great opportunity. (ibid.: ll.278-289) Soon, Rider was directing War! Women (that she had adapted from Euripides’ Trojan Women) for Vilé’s Peace Festival at La Boite and finding that the arts community in Brisbane had a lot to offer: …the energy here, the excitement about theatre – there was a kind of naivety but there was a real willingness to take on new ideas, there was an openness. I just loved it – it was very different from Adelaide. I mean we had a wonderful time in Adelaide, particularly while Don Dunstan was Premier, but Adelaide can be very conservative too in quite a different way. A little superior in a way, in its attitude to newcomers. And indeed to new ideas. But there wasn’t that here. It was quite different, people embraced new ideas … it was refreshing and wonderful to be here. (ibid.: ll.295-307)

In 1988 she directed a professional production of Matilda Women for the bicentennial (which won her a Matilda Award), and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, both at La Boite, then a reprise of the successful Matilda Women in 1989. However, in the years between her arrival in Brisbane and her appointment as La Boite’s artistic director in 1992, Rider worked as a freelance actor, writer and director with RQTC, QPAT, Kite Children’s Theatre and QUT (QPAT Museum, Heritage Collection). Acting credits with RQTC included productions of Who Cares? (1986), Hard Times, Away and Emerald City (1987), Les Liaisons Dangereuses and A Spring Song (1988), Dinkum Assorted and Major Barbara (1989) (ibid.). Her direction of Mrs Klein for QTC in 1991 with a stellar cast of Jennifer Blocksidge, Jennifer Flowers and Sally McKenzie earned her another Matilda Award. For QPAT she directed The Soldier’s Tale in 1989; created and directed Dancing on the Walls of Paris (for

360 which she won her third Matilda Award); and You Came to My Country and You Didn’t Turn Black with Kathryn Fisher in 1990.

Sue Rider in QTC’s Away, 1987 QPAC Museum, Heritage Collection

By August 1992, Sue Rider had been appointed the new Artistic Director of La Boite and by September, Deborah Murphy had been appointed its Administrator. Because of other commitments, both started in a part-time capacity before officially taking up their duties in January, 1993. Rider had the distinction of taking La Boite into its first year of funded professional operations and became the longest serving professional artistic director in La Boite’s history continuing in the role for eight years.

361 APPENDIX 2(e)

PROFESSOR JEREMIAH JOSEPH STABLE 1983 - 1953 A Short Biography

Professor J.J.Stable, 1953 S135 J.J.Stable Collection, Fryer Library

Born in Gawler in South Australia in 1883, Stable moved with his family to Geneva in Switzerland when he was only four years old. His education at the Geneva College and the University of Bonn prepared him well for his next stage of education at Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1902, where he graduated with an Honours degree and later a Master of Arts degree. After his studies he made a seamless move into academia taking a position in 1905 as Lecturer in English Language and Literature at the Commercial University in Cologne in Germany. When a teaching position was advertised at the University of Queensland it was not all that surprising that he would apply. After all, he was Australian by birth but there was another factor that no doubt had a large bearing on his desire to return here – he had married an Australian girl, Irene Bingham Sheridan whose family had strong ties in Queensland3.

In 1912 Stable was appointed Lecturer in Modern Languages (English, French and German) at the very new University of Queensland, inaugurated only in 1909. He quickly established two-year Pass courses and an Honours course in the three languages. And he lost no time in shaking up Queensland secondary education: In 1910 the University of Queensland had taken over the Public Examinations, and in 1912, of the 79 Senior and 436 Junior candidates, 75 percent failed in English. Mr Stable had imposed a standard. (S135 J.J.Stable Collection: Queensland University Gazette, June 1953)

With the outbreak of World War One, Stable’s services were required by the Federal Government Defence Department and he was appointed Queensland’s Chief Censor with the rank of Captain. This role, which became controversial when he censored key parts of Queensland Premier,T. J. Ryan’s anti-

3 Her grandfather was Richard Bingham Sheridan, an early settler of Maryborough, Postmaster-General of Queensland and one of the founders of the Queensland Club (S135 J.J.Stable)

362 conscription speech4, earned him both vilification and praise. Ryan called him “a rather dangerous individual for the future democracy of Queensland” (Gregory, 1987: 147) but the University Gazette paid this tribute to him on his retirement: The [Chief Censor] duties were onerous, at time difficult, and frequently public passion ran high. Captain Stable, however, performed faithfully his difficult duties with typical tact and unfailing courtesy and, when a more normal atmosphere returned, it was seen that his reputation was enhanced. (Queensland University Gazette, June 1953 in S135 J.J.Stable)

Of more direct relevance to his BRTS involvement was his nurturing of Australian literature, a passion for which probably began at the inaugural meeting of the Queensland Authors’ and Artists’ Association in 1922 where he was very impressed with a member’s “impassioned appeal for an Australian literature free from the shackles of the older countries” (ibid.). He was promptly elected its first President and remained in that role until 1931. In the early 1920s he consequently incorporated Australian literature into Queensland University studies, the first university in Australia to do so (ibid.). His enthusiasm for Australian literature provoked an interest in compiling the first anthology of Queensland verse which he published in 1924 under the title A Book of Queensland Verse. He went on to compile three more anthologies: The Bond of Poetry: a book of verse for Australian schools (1924); The High Road of Australian Verse: an anthology for Australian schools (1929); and The Second Bond of Poetry: a book of verse for Australian schools (1938) (University of Queensland Library catalogue; Gregory, 1987:147).

His love of theatre was evident from his first year at the University for in that year, he co-founded (with a Mr Mayo) the University Dramatic Society – Dramsoc – and was its President from 1912. He either directed or was involved in a number of productions including Sheridan’s St Patrick’s Day in 1912, Twelfth Night in 1916, Pinero’s Schoolmistress in 1920, Gilbert’s Rozencrantz and Guilderstern in 1921, and The Great Broxopp in 1929 (Gregory, 1987: 148; S135 J.J.Stable).

In 1925, his academic background in literature and his love of theatre made him an ideal co-founder with Barbara Sisley, of Brisbane’s first repertory theatre, the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society. Other important community roles included President of the English and Modern Languages Association of Queensland for twenty-five years; Vice-President of the Brisbane Shakespeare Society; writer of the Queensland Art of Speech syllabus; foundation member of the Historical Society of Queensland; and President of the Trustees of the Queensland Museum 1946-1948 (Gregory, 1987: 148).

With the outbreak of World War Two he was once again called into service and was appointed Chief Communications Censor for Queensland (ibid.: 148), a role that accounted for his prolonged absence from BRTS during the war years. Although he tendered his resignation to at least one Council Meeting

4 A full account of the drama surrounding Stable’s censoring of anti-conscription material is recorded by Raymond Evans in Radical Brisbane: an unruly history by Evans and Carole Ferrier (2004), pages 161 to 166.

363 (UQFL109, Box 3, Minute Book: Minutes of December 12, 1940) and often regretting his unavoidable absences, the Council was determined not to let him go as his loss would be “very serious to the Society” (ibid.).

Professor Stable’s academic achievements included his appointment in 1922 as the McCaughey Professor of English and Modern Languages and in 1932 the Darnell Professor of English. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1932 until 1939, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and President of the Board of Faculties, a position equivalent to a modern Vice-Chancellor (1987: 148). Surprisingly, it seems that Professor Stable never did receive a doctorate in the usual way despite his hopes in the 1920s for a D.Litt. from the University of Melbourne based on his work for publication on a textual criticism of Romeo and Juliet and a new edition of Julius Caesar for the Australasian Shakespeare series. Gregory (1987: 147) cites a change of rule at Melbourne University as the reason for his inability to submit his work for the D.Litt. In 1950 he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa “for his long and meritorious service to the university” (1987: 148-149 & S135 J.J.Stable). On the conferral of this degree, the Vice-Chancellor, in his remarks, stated that: Professor Stable is now the Senior professor of the whole of the academic staff and has served in almost every University capacity. His associations, public and otherwise, have been manifold, and he is a gentleman, who is held in high repute in Queensland, and has been a valuable member of the University staff. (S135 J.J.Stable Senate Meeting Minutes, 1950)

Then, on the occasion of his retirement, the University of Queensland Senate unanimously agreed that the title of Emeritus Professor be conferred on Professor Stable. He retired on 31st December, 1952 and died at the age of seventy on December 24, 1953, having enjoyed not even one full year of retirement. In 1954 the J.J.Stable Memorial Fund was established to honour him in an appropriate way. So it was that the J.J.Stable Memorial Tree Theatre (an outdoor theatre set amidst a grove of trees in the University grounds) was opened by the famous English actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, accompanied by her husband Sir Lewis Casson, and a plaque affixed to a tree on October 24, 19545.

The last word in this short biography is about his teaching, a short statement that reveals much about the man himself: As a lecturer, Stable was quiet and most effective. His thoroughness, consideration and unfailing courtesy endeared him to his students. The voice, never raised, covered the ground and he had the supreme quality, so far as students are concerned, of the University teacher – his lectures were easy to take down. With his Honours students Stable was at his best. They will long remember the placid tutorials in his room at George Street with the points punctuated by the striking of frequent matches to light the accustomed pipe. His familiarity with three literatures enabled him to make crystal clear many of the more difficult aspects of English literature. To the scholar’s knowledge Stable added the personal qualities of patience, tact, and charm, and his Honours students took with them the University esteem and affection for their teacher. (University of Queensland Gazette, June 1953 in S135 J.J.Stable)

5 The J.J.Stable Memorial Tree Theatre was used until about 1964 when work on Union College and a car park led to some concern about the preservation of the memorial. Professor J.C.Mahoney rescued the plaque and kept it in his possession hoping that the Memorial would be re-located. When this did not happen, it was passed it to the Fryer Library in 1977 where it is currently held.

364 APPENDIX 3

Extract from Repertory Ramblings, George Landen Dann’s speech to Brisbane Repertory Theatre members, 1956 (G.L.Dann Collection, Box 1, UQFL65).

Harking back a little – the year 1931 is famous in the annals of Repertory. Maybe infamous is the correct word. In that year the Repertory landed into the middle of its first – and only – public shindy [sic] - and I was the cause. It isn’t really my place to speak of it – and you’ll have to pardon me for doing so – but no rambling through repertory history can be done without mention of it. In 1931 the Theatre ran a play competition – the one and only so far it has ever conducted. The bait was enticing – a prize of the unheard of sum in those days for Australian Plays of fifty guineas. And that is when I was introduced into repertory in an active capacity. I won the competition very much to my surprise with a rather stark drama called “In Beauty It Is Finished” – about a half-caste and a girl of shady character. (It is surprising how young writers start off on subjects they know so very little about or have very little basis of experience. Young poets invariably sing of love and death – young playwrights choose profound and controversial themes.) I was in the audience in His Majesty’s Theatre at a Repertory production of Eden Philpotts’ “Yellow Sands” when the announcement of the competition was made. I was so stunned that to this day I still don’t know how “Yellow Sands” ends.

It was soon after the play went onto production the rumpus started. A letter to the press by an anonymous writer demanded in righteous dignity why the play shouldn’t be banned. Professor Stable in a press interview the following day stated there was no reason why it should. After that things simmered down for a while until a sensational weekly came out with flaring bill-boards and two pages of condemnation of the play, together with pleas to protect the public from pollution. (Incidentally, it always intrigues me that newspapers that adopt the sensational in their set-up at the same time put up such a moralising, self-righteous face to the world. You see something like this on the front page, “Don’t Print The Story of My Trial” she sobs, and then in the next line – “Full Amazing Story – Page 10”. I expect it’s all a matter of duty to readers comes first.

And in regard to this particular paper, the result was rather sensational. It appeared that a reporter had gone to Miss Sisley, the producer of the play, and requested a copy for reviewing on the pretext of giving the show added publicity. He was more than liberal in that respect. He pieced quotations from the dialogue of Act One with bits from Acts Two and Three and vice-versa, and certainly succeeded in giving the play – well an entirely different atmosphere. And then the fun really happened. Letters to the press – for and against – sermons in churches of the same nature – headlines in the daily press almost daily. Miss Sisley, members of the cast and myself used to sneak into the back seats of the churches and hear ourselves being condemned or condoned. I remember one nice clergyman preaching that we were on the side of the Angels – which considerably straightened our haloes and gave us courage to face the blast. You can picture the situation. Here was the Repertory Society always cautious not to offend its members by putting on such plays as Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” or Ibsen’s “Ghosts”

365 suddenly plunged into this unexpected tornado. For the sake of appeasing agitating archbishops and threatening-to-resign members, Professor Stable suggested the play should receive a little censurous [sic] editing. Three of us went through it together – Miss Sisley, Professor Stable and myself. Actually all we deleted were three short lines – that was all – and the play went on at His Majesty’s almost entirely as it was written. On the first night Dulcie Scott inadvertently included one of the censored lines – and as no one left the theatre, that line went in every other night.

So really the censor pencil deleted only two lines – yet the same paper that started all the hullabaloo – on commenting on the play at the end of its season stated that the great number of persons who sit in the front rows at any show which has been discussed in the newspapers as objectionable did not hear the full text as it had been well gutted and hosed before it went to the public. So much for the power of the press! Needless to say, the play attracted not only parsons but large audiences of their flocks. Whatever faults the play had – it did put Repertory more prominently on the map of Brisbane. The editorial of the Saturday “Telegraph” said: ‘No event has stirred the public interest in the theatre for years as did this production of “In Beauty It Is Finished”’ – and after Archbishop Sharp had sent his blessing and approval in writing, the Council of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre sat back and breathed more freely – and ordered more receipt books to cope with the augmented membership that resulted. But the Repertory has never since been game enough to run another play competition. It did in the following year invite authors to submit plays with a view to production – and it chose a very mild rose watered affair called “Cherry Acres” which, because of its utter simplicity and naiveness, aroused quite a deal of criticism and abuse among members. So, you see, there’s no pleasing the public whichever way you go.

366

367 APPENDIX 4

BRISBANE REPERTORY THEATRE PRODUCTIONS 1925-2003

I gratefully acknowledge Jennifer Radbourne for the original list of productions 1925-1978 (Radbourne, Appendix XIII, 1978: 411) which appear within this appendix. I also gratefully acknowledge Sue Cullen for her list of productions 1972 -1982 contained in her Appendices B, C, & D (Cullen, 1982: 114-135) and Rod Lumer for a compilation of productions 1925 to 1963 that also included lists of technical crews and actors (not included in this appendix) and theatre buildings that housed BRTS and BRT productions, which do appear in this appendix.

Theatre Codes: Theatre Royal (TR) Cremorne Theatre (C) Princess Theatre (P) Bohemia Theatre (B) His Majestry’s Theatre (HM) Albert Hall (AH) All Saint’s Hall (ASH) Toowoomba Town Hall (TTH) Stanthorpe Repertory Theatre (SR) Mercury Theatre, Wynnum (MTW) The TAA Theatre (TAA) Rialto Theatre (R)

YEAR PLAY PLAYWRIGHT DIRECTOR

1925 The Dover Road (TR) A.A.Milne Barbara Sisley Alice Sit-by-the-Fire (TR) J.M.Barrie Lewis Townsend Four Short Plays (TR) Followers Harold Brighouse Dr.J.V.Duhig Barbara's Wedding J.M.Barrie Rhoda Felgate Everybody's Husband Gilbert Cannan Barbara Sisley 30 Minutes in a Street Beatrice Mayor Unknown

1926 A Bill of Divorcement (TR) Clemence Dane Barbara Sisley Candida (TR) George Bernard Shaw Unknown A Happy Family (TR) Vance Palmer Rhoda Felgate

1927 Dr Knock (TR) Jules Romains Barbara Sisley Mary Stuart (TR) John Drinkwater Rhoda Felgate Arms and the Man (TR) George Bernard Shaw Dr.J.V. Duhig Old English (TR) John Galsworthy Nell Douglas Graham

1928 The Admirable Crichton (TR) J.M.Barrie Nell Douglas Graham Jane Clegg (B) St John Ervine Barbara Sisley A Doll's House (HM) Henrik Ibsen Barbara Sisley & Rhoda Felgate Four One Act Irish Plays (C) Cathleen Ni Houlihan W.B.Yeats Rhoda Felgate The Rising of the Moon Lady Gregory Barbara Sisley Riders to the Sea J.M.Synge Barbara Sisley Spreading the News Lady Gregory Rhoda Felgate

1929 Dear Brutus (C) J.M.Barrie Barbara Sisley & Rhoda Felgate Dear Brutus: First Tour by Repertory to Townsville Theatre Royal and Toowoomba Town Hall Mid Channel (C) Sir Arthur Wing Pinero Barbara Sisley Captain Brassbound's Conversion (C) George Bernard Shaw Barbara Sisley The Touch of Silk (B) Betty M.Davies (Roland) Rhoda Felgate

1930 Outward Bound (C) Sutton Vane Barbara Sisley At Mrs Beam's (C) C.K.Munro Jum Pendleton Rutherford & Son (C ) Githa Sowerby Rhoda Felgate Christine (C) Vance Palmer . . George Eaton

1931 Yellow Sands (HM) Eden &Adelaide Philpotts Jum Pendleton In Beauty It Is Finished (HM) George Landen Dann Barbara Sisley You Never Can Tell (HM) George Bernard Shaw Rhoda Felgate Uncle Vanya (C) Anton Chekov George Eaton One Act Plays presented in the Society’s Rooms: The Door Robert Louis Stevenson Mrs F..W. Robinson How He Lied to Her Husband George Bernard Shaw Mrs Robert Scott The Stoker Harold Brighouse Barbara Sisley The Lovely Miracle Philip Johnson Barbara Sisley Madam Will Wait Doris Waraker Barbara Sisley Readings arranged by Barbara Sisley:

368 Michael Miles Malleson The Man of Destiny George Bernard Shaw

1932 The Laughing Lady (C) Alfred Sutro Royston Marcus Many Waters (C) Monckton Hoffe Rhoda Felgate Cherry Acres (C) Dorothea Tobin George Eaton Two Plays (C) Comedy & Tragedy W.S.Gilbert Barbara Sisley The Romantic Young Lady Gregorio Martinez Sierra Barbara Sisley

1933 The Roof (C) John Galsworthy Barbara Sisley The Rose Without a Thorn (C) Clifford Bax Rhoda Felgate Fashions for Men Ferenc Molnar Jum Pendleton Mrs Moonlight (C) Benn W.Levy Royston Marcus Nine Till Six (C) Aimee & Philip Stuart Barbara Sisley

1934 Two Plays (TR) Wife to a Famous Man G.M.Sierra Rhoda Felgate Dona Clarines S.&J.Alvarez Quintero Rhoda Felgate An Enemy of the People (P) Henrik Ibsen Royston Marcus The Return of the Prodigal (P) St.John Hankin Jum Pendleton Children in Uniform (P) Christa Winsloe Barbara Sisley See Naples and Die (P) Elmer Rice Dulcie Scott One Act Plays presented in the Society’s Rooms: The Days of Roses George Landen Dann Jum Pendleton Weep and You Weep Alone Alexia Drake Jum Pendleton The Ruling Passion Dr.J.V.Duhig Jum Pendleton

1935 Will Shakespeare (P) Clemence Dane Rhoda Felgate She Passed Through Lorraine (P) Lionel Hale Dulcie Scott Don Abel Wrote a Tragedy (P) S.& J.Alvarez Quintero Jum Pendleton Sheppey (P) W. Somerset Maugham Barbara Sisley The Late Christopher Bean (P) (TTH) Emlyn Williams Barbara Sisley Dangerous Corner (P) (Toowoomba Rep) J.B.Priestley John Lane

1936 Grief Goes Over (P) Merton Hodge Dulcie Scott The Dover Road (P) A.A.Milne Dulcie Scott Four One Act Plays (P) They Refused to be Resurrected N.K.Smith Kathleen Radford Symphony in Illusion James Wallace Bell Clare Clarke King's Son, Churl's Son Jane Cran Clare Clarke Birds of Passage Hining Lefranc Kathleen Radford Youth at the Helm (P) Hubert Griffith Rhoda Felgate She Stoops to Conquer (P) Oliver Goldsmith Jum Pendleton Lady Precious Stream (P) S.I.Hsiung Barbara Sisley The Roundabout (P) J.B.Priestley Rhoda M Felgate Hamlet (P) William Shakespeare Barbara Sisley The Touch of Silk (P) Betty M. Davies (Roland) Dulcie Scott Lover's Leap (P) Philip Johnson Jum Pendleton

1937 London Wall (P) John Van Druten Barbara Sisley The Man with a Load of Mischief (P) Ashley Dukes Barbara Sisley The Witch (P) Hans Wiers-Janssen Barbara Sisley Short Story (P) Robert Morley Barbara Sisley Macbeth (P) William Shakespeare Barbara Sisley What Every Woman Knows (P) J.M.Barrie Barbara Sisley The Crime At Blossoms (P) Mordaunt Sharp Barbara Sisley Duet in Floodlight (P) J.B.Priestley Barbara Sisley

1938 Jacob's Ladder (P) Norman MacOwan Barbara Sisley No Incense Rising (P) George Landen Dann Barbara Sisley Pride and Prejudice (P) Helen Jerome Barbara Sisley Storm in a Teacup (P) James Bridie Clare Clarke The Tempest (P) William Shakespeare Barbara Sisley Busman's Holiday (P) Dorothy L Sayers Marjorie Mant Two plays (P) Mirror to Elizabeth T.B.Morris Barbara Sisley In Theatre Street H.R.Lenormand Barbara Sisley Call it a Day (P) Dodie Smith Barbara Sisley

1939 Death Takes a Holiday (P) Alberto Casella Barbara Sisley The Housemaster (P) Ian Hay Kathleen Hirst Men Without Wives (P) Henrietta Drake-Brockman Barbara Sisley Whiteoaks (P) Mazo De La Roche Clare Clarke Viceroy Sarah (P) Norman Ginsbury Barbara Sisley

369 John Gabriel Borkman (P) Henrik Ibsen Barbara Sisley A Second Moses (P) George Landen Dann Barbara Sisley You Can't Take It With You (P) Moss Hart & G.S.Kaufman Daphne Roemermann

1940 Time and The Conways (P) J. B. Priestley Barbara Sisley The Millionairess (P) George Bernard Shaw Clare Clarke The Flashing Stream (P) Charles Morgan Barbara Sisley The Woman and the Walnut Tree (P) Sydney Box Daphne Roemermann George and Margaret (P) Gerald Savory Kathleen Hirst Worse Things Happen at Sea (P) Keith Winter Clare Clarke 1066 And All That (P) Reginald Arkell Barbara Sisley

1941 Yes! My Darling Daughter (P) Mark Reed Barbara Sisley Our Town (P) Thornton Wilder Clare Clarke Pygmalion (P) George Bernard Shaw Barbara Sisley Love From A Stranger (P) Frank Vosper Daphne Roemermann When We Are Married (P) J. B. Priestley Clare Clarke Craig's Wife (P) George Kelly Daphne Roemermann Aren't We All (P) Frederick Lonsdale Kathleen Hirst

1942 Quiet Night (AH) Dorothy Blewett Barbara Sisley Foolish Yesterday (AH) Sumner Locke Elliott Daphne Roemermann Three Cornered Moon (AH) Gertrude Tonkology Barbara Sisley Hedda Gabler (AH) Henrik Ibsen Barbara Sisley They Fly By Twilight (AH) Paul Dornhorst Maibry Wragge Candida (AH) George Bernard Shaw Daphne Roemermann

1943 Ladies in Retirement (AH) E. Percy & R. Denham Barbara Sisley Laburnum Grove (AH) J. B. Priestley Daphne Roemermann Full House (AH) Ivor Novello Alex Foster Wind and the Rain (AH) Merton Hodge Maibry Wragge Rebecca (AH) Daphne Du Maurier Barbara Sisley Heartbreak House (AH) George Bernard Shaw Barbara Sisley

1944 Night of January 16th (AH) Ayn Rand Barbara Sisley The Mask and The Face (AH) C.B.Fernald Alex Foster The Little Foxes (AH) Lillian Hellman Daphne Roemermann They Came to a City (AH) J. B. Priestley Barbara Sisley The Day is Gone (AH) W. Chetham-Strode Clare Clarke Flat To Let (AH) Arthur Macrae Alex Foster

1945 Tomorrow The World (AH) R. Gow & A. d'Usseau Barbara Sisley Cradle Song (AH) G.& M.Martinez Sierra Clare Clarke The Druid's Rest (AH) Emlyn Williams Barbara Sisley Lightening Strikes Twice (AH) Rex Reinits Daphne Roemermann The Unattainable (AH) W. Somerset Maugham Alex Foster Sons of the Morning (AH) Catherine Duncan *Alex Foster (*Alex Foster took over as director after the original director, Barbara Sisley, died in November 1945)

1946 Caroline Chisholm (AH) George Landen Dann Clare Clarke The Astonished Ostrich (AH) Archie Menzies Daphne Roemermann The Golden Fleece (AH) J. B. Priestley Alex Foster Payment Deferred (AH) Jeffrey Dell Kathleen Hirst He Was Born Gay Emlyn Williams Babette Stephens Kind Lady (AH) Edward Chodorow Daphne Roemermann

1947 Fountains Beyond (AH) George Landen Dann Clare Clarke Black Limelight (AH) Gordon Sherry Alex Foster The House of Regrets (AH) Peter Ustinov Daphne Roemermann The Importance of Being Earnest (AH) Oscar Wilde Alex Foster Four One Act Plays (AH) Behind the Lace Curtains Esther McCracken Merle Dinning They Refuse To Be Resurrected N.K.Smith Beryl Peake The Foolishness of God Freda Collins Edna Fenner Over-Ruled George Bernard Shaw Marion Henry The Petrified Forest (AH) Robert Emmet Sherwood Dion Wheeler The Play's The Thing (AH) Ferenc Molnar Daphne Roemermann

1948 Flare Path (AH) Terrence Rattigan Clare Clarke The Wind of Heaven (AH) Emlyn Williams Daphne Roemermann Rope (AH) Patrick Hamilton Dion Wheeler The Play's The Thing (AH) Ferenc Molnar Daphne Roemermann Sarah Simple (AH) A.A. Milne Alex Foster One Act Play Season (AH) The Play Within Reg Watson Reg Watson

370 Mr Hacket's Alibi H.V.Purcell Gloria Birdwood- Smith The Man Who Wouldn't Go To Heaven F.Sladen Smith Edna Fenner On Borrowed Time (AH) Paul Osborn Daphne Roemermann When We Are Married (AH) J.B.Priestley Alex Foster

1949 See How They Run (AH) (SR) (MTW) Philip King Alex Foster The Imaginary Invalid (AH) Molière Daphne Roemermann A Man About the House (AH) John Perry Alex Foster Much Ado About Nothing (AH) William Shakespeare Daphne Roemermann One Act Play Season (ASH) How He Lied To Her Husband George Bernard Shaw Roy MacKenzie The Frozen Heart unknown Maureen Brown- Beresford Weatherwise Noel Coward Shirley Crommelin Eden End (AH) J. B. Priestley Dion Wheeler Young Mrs Barrington (AH) W. Chetham Strode Alex Foster

1950 Peace In Our Time (AH) Noel Coward Alex Foster The Father (AH) August Strindberg Clare Clarke The Chiltern Hundreds (AH) William Douglas Home Alan Denby The Winter's Tale (AH) William Shakespeare Daphne Roemermann Rain On The Just (AH) Peter Watling Mervyn Eadie Miranda (AH) Peter Blackmore Daphne Roemermann Present Laughter (AH) Noel Coward Alex Foster

1951 The Paragon (AH) Roland & Michael Pertwee Alex Foster Before The Party (AH) Rodney Ackland Morton Smith The Guinea Pig (AH) W. Chetham Strode Gloria Birdwood- Smith Berkeley Square (AH) John L.Balderstone Babette Stephens Miss Mabel (AH) R.C.Sherriff Alex Foster The Sacred Flame (AH) W. Somerset Maugham Igor Wollner

1952 Young Wives Tales (AH) Ronald Jeans Gloria Birdwood- Smith The Late Edwina Black (AH) W. Dinner & W. Morum Franklyn Evans Cockpit (AH) Bridget Roland Babette Stephens Clutterbuck (AH) Benn W Levy Dulcie Scott Lady From The Sea (AH) Henrik Ibsen Morton Smith Traveller’s Joy (AH) Arthur MacRae Alex Foster Nine Till Six (AH) Aimee & Philip Stuart Shirley Bushelle

1953 Lace on her Petticoat (AH) Aimee Stuart Gloria Birdwood- Smith The Vigil (AH) Ladislas Fodor Babette Stephens Master of Arts (AH) William Douglas Home Reg Watson Message for Margaret (AH) James Parish Alex Foster A Woman's Place (AH) Wendy Grimwade Terry Paltridge Summer Day's Dream (AH) J. B. Priestley Babette Stephens Beauty and the Beast (AH) Nicholas Stuart Gray Gloria Birdwood- Smith

1954 On Monday Next (AH) Philip King John Barker Dark Summer (AH) Wynyard Browne Gloria Birdwood-Smith Jupiter Laughs (AH) A. J. Cronin Terry Paltridge Madam Tic-Tac (AH) F.J. Carey & P. Weathers Alan Denby All My Sons (AH) Arthur Miller Irene Alexander Love in Albania (AH) Eric Linklater Gloria Birdwood-Smith

1955 Jonah and the Whale (AH) James Bridie Daphne Roemermann Bell Book and Candle (AH) John van Druten Terry Paltridge The Love of Four Colonels (AH) Peter Ustinov Babette Stephens For Better For Worse (AH) Arthur Watkyn Gloria Birdwood-Smith Richard of Bordeaux (AH) Gordon Daviot Raymond Menmuir Jane (AH) S. N. Behrman GloriaBirdwood-Smith

1956 Harvey (AH) Mary Chase Babette Stephens Carrington VC (AH) Dorothy & Campbell Christie Babette Stephens The Hollow (AH) Agatha Christie Gloria Birdwood-Smith After My Fashion (AH) Diana Morgan Gloria Birdwood-Smith Marching Song (AH) John Whiting Babette Stephens The Sleeping Prince (AH) Terence Rattigan Babette Stephens

371

1957 Relative Values (AH) Noel Coward Gloria Birdwood-Smith Waiting for Gillian (AH) Ronald Millar Gloria Birdwood-Smith The Crucible (AH) Arthur Miller Babette Stephens The King of Hearts (AH) Jean Kerr & Eleanor Brooke Babette Stephens Colombe (AH) Jean Anouilh Gloria Birdwood-Smith Meet a Body (AH) F. Launder & S.Gilliat Gloria Birdwood-Smith

1958 Quadrille (AH) Noel Coward Babette Stephens Double Image (AH) R. Macdougall & T. Allen Babette Stephens Escapade (AH) Roger Macdougall Gloria Birdwood-Smith The Diary of Anne Frank (AH) F. Goodrich & A. Hackett Babette Stephens Both Ends Meet (AH) Arthur MacRae Babette Stephens

1959 The Whole Truth (AH) Phillip Mackie Gloria Birdwood-Smith The Merchant of Venice (AH) William Shakespeare Babette Stephens Trial and Error (AH) Kenneth Horne Babette Stephens The Great Sebastians (AH) H.Lindsay & R.Crouse Gloria Birdwood-Smith Watch on the Rhine (AH) Lillian Hellman Gloria. Birdwood-Smith

1960 Nude With Violin (AH) Noel Coward Babette Stephens Gigi (AH) Colette & Anita Loos Babette Stephens The Touch of Fear (AH) D.& C. Christie Gloria Birdwood-Smith Twelfth Night (AH) William Shakespeare Babette Stephens Affairs of State (AH) Louis Verneuil Gloria Birdwood-Smith Silver Wedding (AH) Michael Clayton Hutton Gloria Birdwood-Smith

1961 Anastasia (AH) Marcelle Maurette Babette Stephens Twelfth Night (R) William Shakespeare Babette Stephens Intent to Murder (AH) Leslie Sands Gloria Birdwood-Smith The Women (AH) Clare Boothe Luce Babette Stephens One More River (AH) Beverley Cross Gloria Birdwood-Smith See How They Run (AH) Philip King Gloria Birdwood-Smith

1962 Ladies in Retirement (AH) E. Percy & R. Denham Lionel Spencer Henry V (AH) (TTH) William Shakespeare Babette Stephens The One Day of the Year (AH) Alan Seymour Babette Stephens Dinner at Eight (AH) George S Kaufman & E. Ferber Babette Stephens Romanoff & Juliet (AH) Peter Ustinov Babette Stephens Dear Delinquent (AH) Jack Popplewell Audrey J Taylor

1963 The Unexpected Guest (AH) Agatha Christie Gloria Birdwood-Smith Mrs Gibbon’s Boys (AH) W. Glickman & J. Stein Gloria Birdwood-Smith The Importance of Being Earnest (AH) Oscar Wilde Babette Stephens Inherit The Wind (AH) J. Lawrence & R. E Lee Babette Stephens The Geese Are Getting Fat (AH) Arthur Watkyn Gloria Birdwood-Smith

1964 The Sound of Murder (AH) William Fairchild Gloria Birdwood-Smith Billy Liar (AH) Keith Waterhouse Babette Stephens Richard of Bordeaux (AH) Gordon Davieot Babette Stephens South Sea Bubble (AH) Noel Coward Audrey Taylor A Dead Secret (AH) Rodney Ackland John Bailey

1965 Send Me No Flowers (AH) Norman Barasch John Bailey Calamity Jane (TAA) Charles K.Freeman Gloria Birdwood-Smit Breaking Point (TAA) William Fairchild Babette Stephens Settled Out Of Court (TAA) William Saroyan Babette Stephens Mrs Willie (TAA) Alan Melville John Bailey The Women (R) Clare Boothe Luce Babette Stephens

1966 The Bad Seed (AH) Maxwell Anderson Babette Stephens The Irregular Verb To Love (AH) Hugh & Marg. Williams Lesley Ricketts Waiting in the Wings (AH) Noel Coward Babette Stephens They Came to a City (AH) J.B.Priestley Tina Flor

372 Kind Lady (AH) Edward Chodorov Rikki Burke Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (AH) Trudi West Jennifer Blocksidge

1967 At La Boite (the converted cottage) for its first season: 25/6/67 Look Back in Anger John Osborne Babette Stephens 27/7/67 The Man Mel Dinelli Rikki Burke 31/8/67 The Creeper Pauline Macauley Babette Stephens 19/10/67 The Poker Session Hugh Leonard William Pepper 30/11/67 Green Julia Paul Ableman Babette Stephens

1967 Albert Hall Season 16/3/67 Look Back in Anger John Osborne Babette Stephens 25/5/67 Goodnight Mrs Puffin Arthur Lovegrove Rikki Burke 20/7/67 Long Day’s Journey into Night Eugene O’Neill Ron Verburgt 14/9/67 The Children’s Hour Lillian Hellman Lesley Ricketts 9/11/67 Semi-Detached David Turner Jennifer Blocksidge.

1968 At La Boite (the converted cottage) for its second season: EXPERIMENT: Vigil Emlyn Williams Ron Verburgt The Dumb Waiter Harold Pinter Ron Verburgt Road of Silence Doug Anders Ron Verburgt Five Finger Exercise Peter Shaffer Bill Pepper Barefoot in the Park Neil Simon Jennifer Blocksidge Brief Suspicion Patricia Gordon Rikki Burke Woman in a Dressing Gown Ted Willis Neil Mudge The Long and the Short and the Tall Willis Hall Ian Thomson Seduced, Abandoned and Bewildered: 3 Modern Morality Plays Transcending David Cregan Bill Pepper La Musica Marguerite Duras Jennifer Blocksidge Getting and Spending David Campton Rikki Burke Dinny and the Witches William Gibson Ron Ray

1969 The Promise Abksu Arbuzov Bill Pepper Double Image R. MacDougall & T.Allan Lesley Ricketts Billy Liar K. Waterhouse & W.Hall Babette Stephens The Homecoming Harold Pinter Wilf Buckler (courtesy of the ABC) Mrs Mouse Are You Within? Frank Marcus Lindsay Otto Come Blow Your Horn Neil Simon Rikki Burke Our Town (Workshop Major) Thornton Wilder Jane Atkins The Owl and the Pussycat Bill Manhoff Wilf Buckler Tango Slawomir Mrozek Jennifer Blocksidge (Translated by Nicholas Bethell and adapted by Tom Stoppard.)

1970 A Scent of Flowers James Saunders Gary O’Neill Lovers, Winners, Losers Brian Friel Jane Atkins The Queen and the Rebels Ugo Betti Neil Mudge Eden House Hal Porter Gary O’Neil The Burglar Brigid Brophy Lesley Ricketts Johnny So Long Vivienne C. Welburn Jim Martin The Beaux Stratagem George Farquhar Bill Pepper One-Act Plays Double Bill: The American Dream Edward Albee Gary O’Neill Orange Souffle Saul Bellow Gary O’Neill One-Act Plays Double Bill: No Exit Jean Paul Sartre Ian Mandle Private Ear Peter Shaffer Ian Mandle

1971 While Bennie Waited Joan Priest Robert Arthur Birdbath Leonard Melfi Gary O’Neil The Birthday Party Harold Pinter Jane Atkins The Killing of Sister George Frank Marcus Graeme Johnston Halloran’s Little Boat Thomas Keneally Gary O’Neil Under the Yum Yum Tree Laurence Roman Jim Martin The Physicists Friedrich Durrenmatt Ron Verburgt (Final play in La Boite cottage) Rooted Alexander Buzo Gary O’Neil (Performed in a tent)

373

YEAR PLAY PLAYWRIGHT DIRECTOR

1972 As the new theatre was not opened until June, these three short plays, which opened the 1972 season, were performed in theCourtyard of the Great American Disaster in Caxton Street, Petrie Terrace. Towards A More Beautiful George Street Lloyd Noble Gary O’Neil Orison Fernando Arrabal Gary O’Neil Self Accusation Peter Handke Gary O’Neil

The following seasons from June 1972 to August 2003 were performed in La Boite Theatre, Hale Street, Milton. 1972 A Refined Look at Existence Rodney Milgate Jennifer Blocksidge The Price Arthur Miller Jane Atkins Biggles Michael Boddy & Co. Gary O’Neil The Chapel Perilous (Workshop Major ) Dorothy Hewett Jane Atkins The Houses by the Green David Cregan Lesley Ricketts The Matchmaker Thornton Wilder Graeme Johnston Workshop - Early Week Sing to Me Through Open Windows Arthur Kopit Peter Clarke A Separate Peace Tom Stoppard Mark Doherty The Trojan Women adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre Graeme Johnston Dreams and Butterflies (Sunday Club) Bille Brown & Peter Clarke Bille Brown & Peter Clarke

1973 Indians Arthur Kopit Peter Clarke The Sweatproof Boy Alma De Groen Gary O’Neil Three Months Gone David Howarth Jane Atkins It’s a Two-Foot-Six- Inches-Above-the-Ground- World Kevin Laffan Rikki Burke Horses Finola Moorhead Lesley Ricketts Rest and Recreation Mike Giles Gary O’Neil The Anniversary Bill McIllwraith Jennifer Blocksidge Hay Fever Noel Coward Graeme Johnston Workshop - Early Week One Act Plays Hard Sell Maureen Freer Jan Tilt Counterpoint Graeme Johnston Graeme Johnston The Paul Cycle Lloyd Noble Bill Weir Sadi and Neco Max Richards Peter Copeman Periphery Jan Turner-Jones Richard Fotheringham Harmony Graeme Johnston Graeme Johnston Middle Stagers The Rising Generation Ann Jellicoe Joanna Fuller Hands Across the Sea Noel Coward Eileen Beatson Queer Street Maurine Fox Let’s Act On It Kaye Stevenson Butterflies and That group devised Lloyd Nickson Alice Through the Looking Glass group devised Lloyd Nickson Pilot scheme for ECDP (Early Childhood Drama Project)

1974 Daphne in Cottage D Stephen Levi Gary O’Neil The Mating of Ulrich Dooley Ralph Peterson Rikki Burke Captain Midnight VC Jack Hibberd Lindsay Smith (APG –Australia Council grant) This Story of Yours John Hopkins Jennifer Blocksidge The Trouble with Gillian Jill Shearer Rikki Burke Fetch Me a Figleaf Ray Kolle & David McCallum Graeme Johnston Stretch of the Imagination Jack Hibberd Bruce Knappett The Coming of Stork David Williamson Gary O’Neil The Collection Harold Pinter Bronwyn Doherty Silence Harold Pinter Bronwyn Doherty Home and Beauty Somerset Maughan Douglas Hedge Workshop - Early Week One Act Plays Arthur Lesley Ricketts Lady Aon Peter Head The Children Graeme Johnston One of Nature’s Gentleman Jack Hibberd Sue Parkes Roar of Silence Peter Fogg Servant of Two Masters Goldoni Bronwen Doherty The Last of the Faithful Peter Western & Eric Beach Peter Western Middle Stagers The Thwarting of Baron Bollingrew Lloyd Nickson

1975 Utopia Edmonds & Grigg Graeme Johnson Sport of My Mad Mother Ann Jellicoe Ron Finney

374 The Women Clare Booth Luce Rikki Burke (50th Birthday Celebration play) Saved Edward Bond Nick Enright (Australia Council grant) A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream William Shakespeare Graeme Johnson. No Man’s Land Jennifer Compton Jennifer Blocksidge Loot Joe Orton Shirley Lambert. Vampire (Experimental Workshop) Snoo Wilson David Bell Workshop One Act Plays: The Body Builder Mike Welles Franco Cavarro Goodday Emmanuel Peluso Eileen Beatson Chamber Music Arthur Kopit Fred Wessely The Maids Jean Genet David Bell Death Watch Jean Genet Graeme Johnston The Proposal Anton Chekhov Joy Trull Gum and Goo Howard Brenton Shirley Lawson The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden Federico Garcia Lorca Helen Sandercoe Can’t You Hear Me Talking To You? Nora Dugan Shirley Lawson The Onion Elizabeth Murphy Lorna Bol The Apartment Russell Beadle Graeme Whiting Why Prosecute Stickers? Russell Guy Graham Sheil Middle Stagers If It’s Not On The Menu Just Ask For It Jo Denver Jo Denver ECDP - The Early Childhood Drama Project began during ’75. A Show Called C group devised Phil Armit

1976 Macbeth a rock opera Judy Stevens & Clarrie Evans Graeme Johnston Bedfellows Barry Oakley David Bell The House of Bernarda Alba Federico Garcia Lorca Brent McGregor The Floating World John Romeril Rick Billinghurst Marat/Sade Peter Weiss Fred Wessely The Innocents William Archibald David Bell What’s Made Magdelane? Peter Weston Rick Billinghurst, Happy Birthday, Wanda Jane Kurt Vonnegut Bronwen Doherty Lysistrata Aristophanes Ron Finney How Could You Believe Me When I Said I’d Be Your Valet When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life? John Bell Graeme Johnston Middle Stagers: Dark of the Moon Richardson & Berney Jo Denver Money Talks Jo Denver & Middle Stagers Jo Denver Music Hall Jo Denver & Middle Stagers Jo Denver Come and Explore Treasure Island from the novel by R.L.Stevenson Jo Denver Ritual for Dolls George McEwan-Green Maureen Mullins A Sequence of Events George McEwan-Green Judy Foster Mill Hill John Mortimer Graham Shiel ECDP Mulga Bill’s Bicycle from A.B.Paterson’s poem Rick Billinghurst Early Week Miss Julie August Strindberg Barry Brebner Passports Please Joan Priest Eileen Beatson Act Without Words Samuel Beckett Su Parker My Foot, My Tutor Peter Handke Rod Wissler Female Transport (early week) Steve Gooch Shirley Lambert

1977 The Sea Edward Bond David Bell Bullshot Crummond Ron House Rod Wissler In Beauty It Is Finished George Landen Dann Rick Billinghurst Treadmill Lorna Bol Jennifer Blocksidge The Kite Jill Shearer Fred Wessely The Boat Jill Shearer Fred Wessely Nocturne Jill Shearer Fred Wessely Grease Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey Graeme Johnston Seneca’s Oedipus adapted by Ted Hughes Rick Billinghurst The Gift Michael Cove Eileen Beatson Romeo and Juliet William Shakeapeare Jennifer Blocksidge The Unseen Hand Sam Shepard Sue Parker Jack the Ripper Ron Pember & D.De Marne Jo Denver Inner Voices Louis Nowra David Bell Everest Hotel Snoo Wilson Sean Mee Happy Birthday East Timor La Boite Team Richard Fotheringham & John O’Toole Man of Steel Simon Denver & Ian Dorricott Jo Denver & Jan MacLean

375 ECDP

1978 Small Change Peter Gill Rick Billinghurst The Beast Snoo Wilson David Bell She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith Graeme Johnston Young Mo Steve J. Spears Rick Billinghurst School for Clowns F.K.Waechter Sean Mee City Sugar Stephen Poliakoff Jennifer Blocksidge The Good Person of Szechwan Bertolt Brecht Fred Wessely The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea Steve Sewell Jeremy Ridgman Bremen Coffee F.W.Fassbinder (Late night theatre)David Watson Voyage to the New Land ECDP Tales from the Vienna Woods Odon Von Horath Rod Wissler Christian Brothers (NIMROD) Ron Blair Richard Wherrett King Richard Steve J.Spears Sean Mee Heartbreak House George Bernard Shaw Richard Fotheringham Mr Herod’s Christmas Pageant John O’Toole Jennifer Blocksidge Middle Stagers Brecht’s Parables Bertolt Brecht Alex Duncan Conversation Pieces Alex Duncan On Strike! Simon Denver Judy Foster Sweetie Pie (Middle Stagers) Bolton Octagon TIE Jan McLean ECDP Dig ECDP Tribe ECDP

1979 Irish Stew John Bradley Sean Mee Fallen Angels Noel Coward Eileen Beatson Visions Louise Nowra John Milson Merry Wives of Windsor William Shakespeare Graeme Johnston The Hills Family Show APG Richard Fotheringham Peer Gynt Henrik Ibsen Ron Finney They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Ray Herman David Bell Sheer Luck, Holmes! Simon Denver & Ian Dorricott Sean Mee Christian Brothers (NIMROD) Ron Blair John Bell Workshop productions: Counterpoint Graeme Johnston Eileen Beatson J.B. Archibald MacLeish Graeme Johnston Hands Across the Sea Noel Coward Eileen Beatson Three One-Act Plays directed by Joe Woodward, Bill Dunbar, Stephen Billett Middle Stagers The Serpent Jean-Claude van Itallie Sean Mee ECDP Dennis is the King, Too ECDP South East Asian Experience ECDP Mulga Bill’s Bicycle ECDP Dragons ECDP Energy Show ECDP

1980 Bingo Edward Bond John Milson Blow Fly Blow Stephen Measday Nicky Bricknell Roses in Due Season Doreen Clarke Malcolm Blaylock Angel City Sam Shepard David Bell The Man from Mukinupin Dorothy Hewett Graeme Johnston Dickinson David Allen Malcolm Blaylock Let’s Twist Again Rob George Sean Mee Traitors Stephen Sewell Malcolm Blaylock The Legend of King O’Malley Michael Boddy & Robert Ellis Malcolm Blaylock A Handful of Friends David Williamson Jennifer Blocksidge Errol Flynn’s Great Big Adventure Book for Boys Rob George Malcolm Blaylock Spoon River (Workshop Prod) Edgar Lee Masters Doug Anderson Early Week: Time’s Fool Harry Garlick Harry Garlick Sisters Robin Thurston Eileen Beatson Yahoo Aust. Drama Festival, Adelaide Sean Mee Dark of the Moon Graeme Johnston Flash Bang Robert Kingham Old King Cole Ken Campbell Robert Kingham Mask A Tears Monica Gilfedder Monica Gilfedder Interior and the New Step Nicky Bricknell ECDP

376 1981 Sheik, Rattle ‘N Roll Simon Denver & Ian Dorricott Sean Mee Yahoo group devised Sean Mee The Runaway Man Mick Barnes David Bell Colonial Experience Walter Cooper Eileen Beatson Occupations Trevor Griffiths Jeremy Ridgman Scanlan Barry Oakley Neil Armfield The Homecoming Harold Pinter Malcom Blaylock Wings Arthur Kopit David Bell The Enemy Within Graznya Monvid Malcom Blaylock No Room for Dreamers George Hutchinson Bruce Parr Mary Barnes - A Journey Through Madness David Edgar Malcom Blaylock Old King Cole Ken Campbell Robert Kingham The London Blitz Show Frank Hatherley & J. Barlow Robert Kingham ECDP Amy’s Aeroplane Adventure ECDP Robert Kingham The Train Show ECDP Robert Kingham Flash Bang Group devised Robert Knigham Middle Stagers And Now A Word From Our Sponsors Campbell McCance & R. Hagan Eileen Beatson

1982 The Queensland Game Chris Burns, Kym Lynch Sean Mee, Tony Phelan, Dave Pyle Sean Mee Back to the Cremorne Graeme Johnston Graeme Johnston Hell and Hay Richard Fotheringham Robert Kingham The Venetian Twins Nick Enright & Terence Clark Malcom Blaylock Running Late for Nothing Tony Longland, David Pyle, Charles Owen Des James Carboni (import) John Romeril, music by George Dreyfus Paul Hampton On the Wallaby Nick Enright Henry Salter This Old Man Came Rolling Home Dorothy Hewett Margaret Davis Female Parts Dario Fo & Franca Rama Christine O’Connor The Queensland Game Chris Burns, Kym Lynch Sean Mee, Tony Phelan, Dave Pyle Errol O’Neill The Sad Songs of Annie Sando Doreen Clarke Jennifer Blocksidge The Cocky of Bungaree Richard Tulloch Andrew Ross Early Week Hostages Alison Richards & F. Bendrups Alison Richards Fortune’s Wheel Harry Garlick A Bit of Humour… Bit of Pathos… Bit of Art devised by Chris Willems Chris Willems ECDP (final production) Mulga Bill’s Bicycle ECDP based on the poem Doug Anderson by Banjo Patterson Theatre Team Kaspajack Richard Tulloch Andrew Ross

1983 Circus Lumiere David Gale Trevor Smith & Hilary Westlake Vocations Alma De Groen Andrew Ross (Professional) Plastik! Volker Ludwig & D. Michel Mark Radvan (translated and co- directed by Mark Gaal) A Stretch of the Imagination Jack Hibberd Andrew Ross (Professional) As Time Goes By Noel Greig & Drew Griffiths Doug Anderson Gimme Shelter Barrie Keeffe Mark Radvan Female Parts Franca Rame & Dario Fo Alison Richards (Professional) Faces in the Street Errol O’Neill Andrew Ross First Class Women (Earl;y Week) Nick Enright Mark Gaal Slow Death in the Sunshine State Michael Doneman Mark Radvan Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams Mark Radvan Theatre for Young People Year Nine Are Animals Richard Tulloch Mark Radvan Max and Milli Volker Ludwig (adapted by Andrew Ross) Mark Radvan Jenny 4 Spike Michael Doneman Mark Radvan

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1984 Daring Romance Jacki McKimmie Mark Gaal Scott of the Antarctic (Youth Theatre Project)Howard Brenton Peter Rush Red Heart & Barbaric Practices (buy in) Peta Lily eta Lily Eccentrics Donald Hall Graeme Johnston A Night in the Arms of Raelene Clem Gorman Alison Richards The One Day of the Year Alan Seymour Keith Richards Narrow Road to the Deep North Edward Bond Jane Atkins Top Girls Caryl Churchill Mary Hickson Love and the Single Teenager Grant Fraser Colin Schumacher (Griffith Theatre Company) A Manual of Trench Warfare Clem Gorman Mike Bridges Goodnight World (a musical comedy of terrors) Gerald Frape & Barry Ferrier Mary Hickson

1985 Summertime Blues Grant Fraser Mary Hickson The Paisley Pirates of Penzance David Pyle & Sean Mee David Pyle & Sean Mee (La Bamba in association with The Bardon Community Theatre for Youth) Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean Ed Graczyk Mike Bridges Off the Top (Cabaret) A Hard God Peter Kenna Megan Henderson Logan John Bradley Rick Billinghurst Son of Romeo Chris Willems Chris Willems A Few Short Wicks in Paradise Hugh Watson/ Order by NumbersM. Cummings & Dee Martin Conway Christ, Redneck Superstar Anne Jones, Sean Mee, D.yle Sean Mee & David Pyle (La Bamba) Simon Stocks, Andrew Raymond, Angella Higginson, Lil Kelman Did You Say Love? Mary Hutchinson Marcus Hughes Last Night’s Child John Bradley Megan Henderson Theatre for Schools/Youth Theatre No Worries (primary school) David Holman Mike Bridges Puppy Love (pre-school) Bruce Knappett Toured to La Boite Under Age - A Festival of Youth Theatre Patience is a Virtue Valerie Foley Mike Doneman Talking Ourselves devised by Youth Theatre Adrienne Jones Vancouver Youth Theatre Three Plays Carole Tarlington

1986 Room to Move Hannie Rayson Marcus Hughes Popular Front Errol O’Neill Therese Collie The Kelly Dance John Romeril Jim Vilé But I’m Still Here Lorna Bol Jennifer Blocksidge A Woman Like That Jill Shearer Leo Wockner Peace Festival War: Women (based on The Trojan Women by Euripides) Sue Rider Not Exactly Paradise Liz Campbell Jim Vilé Stoppard Comedy Double • The Real Inspector Hound Tom Stoppard Martha Follent • After Magritte Tom Stoppard Marcus Hughes Youth Theatre: Pressed Flowers Fernando Arrabal Ian Leigh-Cooper The 100th Monkey devised/directed by P. Bundy, A. Jones & H. Strube Sadako devised and directed by by Adrienne Jones & Helen Strube

1987 The Three Cuckolds Leon Katz Dianne Eden & Judy Pippen, The Butterflies of Kalimantan Jennifer Claire Ian Leigh-Cooper Bali: Adat Graham Sheil Jim Vilé Entertaining Mr Sloane Joe Orton Ian Leigh-Cooper Habeas Corpus Alan Bennett Ian Leigh-Cooper As You Like It William Shakespeare Jim Vilé Youth Theatre Rain! Rain! Come Again (Schools Show) Penny Bundy Penny Bundy The Great Circle (Youth Project) Michael & Ludmilla Doneman, Michael Whelan, Steven Champion Debutantes from Outer Space Michael Doneman Michael Doneman (Youth Theatre Workshop)

1988 Happy End Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill Stephen Clark Hamlet William Shakespeare Robert Arthur Soft Targets devised by Soft Targets Co-operative of Sydney Ian Leigh-Cooper Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Ray Lawler Don Batchelor Medea Euripides Jim Vilé Crystal Clear (professional) devised by Anthony Allen, Diana Barrett,

378 Philomena McDonagh Ian Leigh-Cooper The Matilda Women (professional) Sue Rider Sue Rider The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Sue Townsend Sue Rider Sexual Perversity in Chicago (La Bamba) David Mamet Heart-Break (La Bamba) original cabaret Michael McCaffrey Theatre for Schools/Youth Theatre Wot’s In A Name/We Took Their Order... And Are Dead (Schools Show) based on poetry of C.J.Dennis; Siegfried Sassoon; Rupert Brooke; Robert Graves; A.D.Hope Ian Leigh-Cooper Grandpa Won’t Budge (Schools Show) Penny Bundy Penny Bundy Disbelief (Youth Theatre) Michael Doneman Stephen Champion

1989 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Youth Theatre)William Shakespeare Anthony Auckland Miranda (professional) Stephen Sewell David Bell (Miranda Productions in association with La Boite) The Threepenny Opera Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill David Bell Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare Jim Vilé Carmen In Camera (based on the opera Carmen) Bizet Anne Roylance The Matilda Women Sue Rider Sue Rider Equus Peter Shaffer Mark Radvan The Perfectionist David Williamson Jim Vilé Golden Girls Louise Page Sue Rider Tokyo Rose Barry Lowe Jim Vilé Pinteresque Briefs • The Collection Harold Pinter Ian Leigh-Cooper • The Lover Harold Pinter Ian Leigh-Cooper My Son the Lawyer is Drowning Doug Macleod Ian Leigh-Cooper Early Week: Fool for Love Sam Shepard James Kable Tissue Louise Page Annette Downs Roots, Shoots and Leaves Valerie Foley, C. Kennison Valerie Foley End of the Decade Supershow Jenni Kubler, Andrew Buchanan Tony Auckland Puppets on Fire (Early Week) • Firelights David Fenton • Dispensing Margaret Jonathan Dunn Theatre for Schools/Youth Theatre Treehouse (Schools Show) Penny Bundy Ian Leigh-Cooper Beattie Bow Dumps Adrian Mole U.& I. Reddit Jim Vilé Pomegranate ’89 - Women’s Arts Festival

1990 Jigsaws Jennifer Rogers Hilary Beaton The Tempest William Shakespeare Patrick Mitchell Little Shop of Horrors Howard Ashman, Alan Menken G. Lacaze & P.Dellit

Wallflowering Peta Murray Annette Downs Look Back in Anger John Osborne Patrick Mitchell Do As I Do Hilary Beaton & Valerie Foley Bouncers John Godber David Bell Mummy Loves You Betty Ann Jewel Suzanne Hawley Simon Ratcliffe In Cahoots Melissa Reeves Annette Downs The 65th Anniversary Performance – A Retrospective in Two Acts Theatre for Schools/Youth Theatre (La Byte) Not Another Environmental Show Jenni Kubler Anthony Auckland Treehouse (Schools Show) Penny Bundy Penny Bundy They Are The Very Devil, Miss Mulrooney Ian Leigh-Cooper Ian Leigh-Cooper Pomegranate ’90 - Women’s Arts Festival

1991 In Cahoots Melissa Reeves Annette Downs & Red Shed Company Music Director: Erin Murphy On the Verge Eric Overmyer David Bell Angry Housewives A.M.Collins & Chad Henry Gerowyn Lacaze & Paul Dellit A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare Jim Vilé Burn This Lanford Wilson Jennifer Flowers Road Jim Cartwright David Berthold Briefings for a Descent into Hell Jacqui Carroll Jacqui Carroll When I was a Girl, I Used to Scream & Shout Sharman Macdonald David Bell Bouncers John Godber David Bell Playing for Time (Schools Show) Siobhan Lawlass & R. Dykstra Ian Leigh-Cooper La Byte

379 Poultry in Motion 1 group devised Susan Richer Freedom’s Flame Ken Methold, Robert Ketton Anthony Auckland & Russell Bauer

1992 Mirandolina (Professional) Carlo Goldoni David Bell , The Idiot (Professional) Gerald McLarnon (from Jennifer Flowers Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Horrortorio (Professional) Tony Taylor & Alison Piper David Bell

Outside Hires Love Burns (Lyric Opera) Graeme Koehne & Louis Nowra David Bell Tony Lamont (One Woman Show) Walking on Sticks (Performing Sarah Cathcart & A. Lemon Andrea Lemon Lines) Body Slam Rock’n Roll Circus David Bell Christmas Blitzmas Rock’n Roll Circus Bumpy Angels (QUT) Sue Rider Jim Vilé Youth Theatre: Poultry in Motion 2 group devised Susan Richer

1993 From 1993, all La Boite productions were fully professional. Taboo (outside hire) Trevor Stuart Trevor Stuart Kiss of the Spider Woman (outside hire) Manuel Puig Jennifer Flowers Furious Michael Gow Sue Rider The Raindancers Karin Mainwaring Jim Vilé Vita! A Fantasy Sara Hardy Sue Rider The Matilda Women Sue Rider Sue Rider Wallflowering Peta Murray Sue Rider (Qld Arts Council in association with La Boite.Brisbane season and Qld tour) Freedom Ride Sue Rider & Michael Whelan Jim Vilé & Kathryn Fisher Youth Theatre Hereford Sisters: Reservoir of Poses Group devised Susan Richer

1994 The Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare Sue Rider

Low Daniel Keene Sean Mee Painted Woman Sue Woolfe Sue Rider Cosi Louis Nowra David Fenton

No Strings Attached Hilary Beaton Sue Rider Youth Theatre: Let the Celebrations Begin Group devised (Out of the Box) Susan Richer Schools’ Company: My Shoes Are Too Big Margi Brown Ash Wendy Denham Move Write Along Louise Gough, Madeline Hale Madelaine Hale Susan Richer An Ordinary Bloke With A Justine Flynn, Louise Gough, Justine Flynn Difference Sue Rider Shock of the New! – an experimental Theatre Festival: Louise Gough (Coordinator)

1995 Hamlet William Shakespeare Sue Rider Kafka Dances Timothy Daly Jim Vilé She of the Electrolux Sara Hardy Sue Rider Miss Bosnia Louis Nowra Sue Rider Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls Philip Dean Sean Mee Youth Theatre: Ross & Judy Hang Out In The Mall Group devised (at Spring Hill Baths)Susan Richer Hereford Sisters: Love My Arsenal Group devised (at The Zoo) Susan Risher Schools’ Company: Move Write Along Louise Gough, Madeline Hale, Madelaine Hale Susan Richer An Ordinary Bloke With A Justine Flynn, Louise Gough, Scott Alderice Difference Sue Rider Shock of the New! 95 - a festival of new-form work: Louise Gough (Coordinator)

1996 Sex Diary of an Infidel Michael Gurr Sue Rider There Goes the Neighbourhood Jennie Swain Jennifer Flowers Fortune Hilary Bell Jim Vilé Milk and Honey Greg Andreas Khristina Toto The Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare Sue Rider Supermarket Pavane Elizabeth Jolley Sue Rider

380 Long Gone Lonesome Cowgirls Philip Dean Sean Mee Schools’ Company: My Shoes Are Too Big Margi Brown Ash Wendy Denham Shock of the New! ’96 - Jean-Marc Russ (Coordinator)

1997 Mr Melancholy Matt Cameron Sue Rider Blackrock Nick Enright Jackie McKimmie Emma Celebrazione! Graham Pitts Jim Vilé Away Michael Gow Sue Rider Scar Stephen Davis & M.Lynch Sean Mee (a Stage X – QPAT’s Youth Festival event) The Shoe-Horn Sonata John Misto JimVilé Shock of the New! ’97- Fraser Corfield (Coordinator) Schools’ Company: My Shoes Are Too Big Margi Brown Ash Wendy Denham

1998 The John Wayne Principle Tony McNamara Lewis Jones Emma Celebrazione! Graham Pitts Jim Vilé The Conjurers Alana Valentine Sue Rider Speaking in Tongues Andrew Bovell Jackie McKimmie X-Stacy Margery Forde Sue Rider A Beautiful Life Michael Futcher & H.Howard Michael Futcher Newboards Festival ‘98 1999 First Asylum Philip Dean Lewis Jones X-Stacy Margery Forde Sue Rider Romeo & Juliet William Shakespeare Sue Rider (Co-production with Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts, Co-director Lafe Charlton) Georgia Jill Shearer Sue Rider Rio Saki and other falling debris Shaun Charles Sean Mee What is the Matter with Mary Jane? Wendy Harmer Mark Bromilow Newboards Festival ‘99

2000 After January Philip Dean from the novel by Nick Earls Lewis Jones The Popular Mechanicals Keith Robinson, Shakespeare Sue Rider (Powerhouse Theatre) & Tony Taylor Clark in Sarajevo Catherine Zimdahl Mark Bromilow Milo’s Wake Margery Forde & Michael Forde Jim Vilé The Secret Death of Salvador Dali Stephen Sewell Scott Maidment Sue Rider Newboards Festival 2000

2001 Svetlana in Slingbacks Valentina Levkowicz Therese Collie 48 Shades of Brown Philip Dean from the novel by Nick Earls Jean-Marc Russ Way Out West Margery Forde & Michael Forde Sean Mee

A Paper House devised by Sean Mee Sean Mee Small Mercies Daniel Keene Fraser Corfield, Secret Bridesmaid’s Business Elizabeth Coleman Lewis Jones (The Playbouse) 2002 Emma’s Nose Paul Livingston Mark Bromilow 48 Shades of Brown Philip Dean from the novel by Nick Earls Jean-Marc Russ Salt Peta Murray Michael Futcher Still Standing Margery Forde & Michael Forde Andrew Buchanan The Holden Plays: My Love Had a Black Speed Stripe Brenna Lee-Cooney, based on a novel by Henry Williams Ian Lawson, Kingswood Kids Angela Betzien Leticia Caceres,

Milo’s Wake (Tour) Margery Forde & Michael Forde Andrew Buchanan Black Chicks Talking Leah Purcell & Sean Mee S. Mee/Leah Purcell

2003 Cosi (The Playhouse) Louis Nowra Adam Cook, Half & Half Daniel Keene Sean Mee Still Standing Margery Forde & Michael Forde Andrew Buchanan The Removalists David Williamson Lewis Jones

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