TRUST NEWS Is a Publication of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Produced Exclusively for Its 10,000 Members Throughout Australia
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THE TRUST THE AUSTRALIAN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE TRUST wInner· " Mirror "Very funny, very real, excellent theatre" 2 Day FM ATHENAEUM THEATRE MELBOURNE BOOKINGS NOW OPEN 6501500 Produced by Melbourne Theatre Company, Greg Hocking and Tim Woods, Kinselas and Gary Penny TRUST NEWS is a publication of The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust produced exclusively for its 10,000 members throughout Australia. • THE AUSTRALIAN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE TRUST (incorporated in the A.C.T.) 137 Regent St, Chippendale NSW 2008 Telephone (02) 698 1688 Also offices in Melbourne (03) 690 8384 Brisbane (07) 221 9528 Adelaide (08) 362 9576 Perth (09) 321 4953 CAMERON TRUST • TRIPLE-PLAY Patron MACKINTOSH Her Majesty The Oueen the man who Australian Content's 4 39 three shows on tour President owns Oliver Sir Ian Potter Chairman TOP SILK THERE'S NO Andrew Briger, A.M. David Williamson's BUSINESS LIKE. Deputy Chairman what our producers Frank M. Hooke battle with drugs, 40 6 are up to Chief Executive corruption and critics Adam Salzer, O.A.M. Directors CULTURE EMERALD CITY His Hon. Mr. Justice C.J. legoe, VULTURES world premiere of Dr T. Manford, Mr David A. Mortimer, supporting The Arts the movie of the play Mr Brian R. larking, lady Potter, A.O. 8 42 by David Williamson Trust Initiatives Dr Rodney F.M. Seaborn, O.B.E., DEAF-DEFYING LADY POTTERLY'S Mr leonard G. Teale, THEATRE CHATTER Mr lloyd D.S. Waddy, R.F.D., O.C., new blood for the win, win, win!! Mr Timothy C. Yates 9 44 with the Lady's luck Finance Director & Theatre Of The Deaf Corporate Secretary DINING OUT William F. Cottam BOOK NOW • 28 pages of the recommended best shows around restaurants for The Board also acknowledges 10 46 show-goers the generous support of Australia The Australian Government through the Old's dynamite NEWS AND VIEWS Perforfl1ing Arts and literature Board of the TN! and TN2 big changes at Australia Council, the Federal Government's SA's State Opera the Trust including a Arts Funding and Advisory Body, and the 38 47 new address! Department of Foreign Affairs. breathes new life State Governments: New South Wales (through the Ministry for the Arts). Western Australia (through the W.A. Department for the Arts). The following Corporations and Founda tions: BP Australia TRUST MANAGEMENT Commonwealth Bank of Australia Finance Director William F. Cottam Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation Chief Executive Adam Salzer, O.A.II. Holden's Motor Company Australian Content Director Wendy Blacklock Ian Potter Foundation Public Relations Manager lIargaret Mackenzie-Forbes Oantas Airways Ltd Generailianager Audience Development Donald C. Beresford Royal Antidiluvian Order Of Buffaloes lIanagel Aus!. Business Support fOI the Arts Lesley Allen The Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Music lIanagement Warwick D. Ross Carol -Lee Aquiline Foundation Theatre Of The Deaf Altistic Director Theatre Of The Deaf Administrator Rosalind Richards Sidney Myer Foundation Halflil Manager Richard Ricci Showlravel Tours Props &Electrics Manager Wayne Kellett Smorgon Family Charitable Foundation Costume Hire Manager lIichael James Thomas Nationwide Special Projects lIanager Lisbeth Bllyh Unilever Australia ltd Accountant Ramshah Shariff Kentley Printing Membership Semtary Caroillartin Triumph-Adler Assistant to Chief Executive Anna IIlynek Grace Removals (a division of Brambles) NSW lIanager Gaille Jang lIelbourne lIanager Charmaine Hart • Brisbane lIanager Robert Kingham © 1989 Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Perth Manager Penny Sutherland Published on behalf of the Trust by Adelaide lIanager David Johnston Roughedge Pty Ltd 3 Cameron Mackintosh • • • here's a production in Like Napoleon, Mackintosh some conspicuous showbiz New York called Forbid has entertained dreams of suc personalities. den Broadway which sends cess since boyhood. One of them was Andrew Tup all the hit shows. Its "When I was eight, my par Lloyd Webber who invited him creators have seen fit to depict ents dragged me to see Salad to produce Cats (which is now hotshot producer Cameron Days and I remember a lot of playing in Adelaide). The hits Mackintosh as a Napoleon of cissy people singing and danc continued to tumble out after Broadway who supervises the ing, but three weeks later I that time. Song And Dance fol foyer merchandising while went again. I waited after lowed, then Les Mis, Phantom singing "These are a few of my wards to talk to the composer Of The Opera, Sondheim's I Favourite Things". Julian Slade who was playing Follies and now Miss Saigon. II Perhaps there's an edge of the piano in the pit. Instead of In another Napoleonic ges bitterness in this caricature of treating me like a kid, he took ture, Mackintosh is now the 41-year-old British multi me on stage and showed me launching into film with a millionaire who brought the how the magic saucer was held screen production of Les world Cats and Les Miserables, by wires, and I thought: 'I'd Miserables which will start but it would be difficult to like to try this when I grow shooting in January 1991. describe the scope of his vision up'." "I don't really want to make and the success of his projects On leaving school, he found movies but this one I couldn't as anything less than a job as a stage hand, then bear to let go," Mackintosh Napoleonic. worked as deputy stage man said. In Australia alone, Cats has ager on Hello Dolly. He joined "It won't be a big star movie attracted 1.2 million theatrego forces with others to stage The - stars take away from the ers and taken $43 million. Reluctant Debutante and story - but there are some Worldwide, it has been seen by become publicity manager for wonderfully talented people a phenomenal quarter of a bil Hair in 1968. who are not your mega-stars lion people. Mackintosh claims that he but who are right for the part." When tickets for L e s has done just about everything He's not giving away any Miserables and Mackintosh's in the theatre. His duty as secrets at the moment, but says forthcoming production assistant stage manager on the that some Australians will be Phantom Of The Opera went on London production of Oliver! screen tested for the movie. sale in Melbourne last year, required him to appear on Meanwhile on the stage, Les $588,000 worth were snatched stage. "It taught me that the Miserables has played with up in just one day. It was an performance changes every enormous success in Sydney extraordinary reaction. night with the chemistry of the and is going to Melbourne's But while advance ticket audience. It also taught me Princess Theatre later in the sales of $30,000 on a first day about the strains and stresses year. The Princess is undergo would have many other performers go through." ing a $10 million restoration entrepreneurs ordering the Oliver! is one of his favourite program before Les Mis and Dom Perignon, Cameron musicals and he now owns it. later Phantom Of The Opera Mackintosh is refreshingly free Somewhere in the world, there move in. from such displays of self-con is always a company playing The Princess is arguably one gratulation. No minders sur Oliver! and paying royalties to of Australia's most historic the round him, nor trappings of C. Mackintosh. atres. The theatre was estab wealth or power, and in the The turning point in lished in 1854 during the height warm Australian climate, he Mackintosh's career came of the Gold Rush and rebuilt 30 usually wears baggy pants, a when he persuaded the British years later, into what is fairly plain white T shirt and white Arts Council to back My Fair much its present form. In the leather shoes. He's not even Lady. The Council previously words of Victorian premier averse to flying economy class. had a poor record for support John Cain, it is "a living link It's in showbusiness that he ing musicals, so this achieve with Melbourne's earliest days looks the Real Mackintosh. ment raised the eyebrows of and an important part of the 4 the man who owns 'Oliver' city's culture for more than a century". It literally oozes with Victorian extravagance. There is a splendid facade of allegori cal figures and three huge imperial crowns dominating an angel blowing a trumpet. The theatre was the first auditori um in the world to have a slid ing roof for the benefit of patrons' comfort on warm nights. The Princess is an auspi ciously appropriate venue to house Phantom Of The Opera. The musical, by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is based on the novel by Gaston Leroux about a mur derous phantom that haunts the Paris Opera Huse. The Princess is reputed to have its own glamourous but harmless ghost: Frederici, an unfortunate actor who died after falling through a trapdoor during a performance of Faust. People working in The Princess frequently report hearing Frederici's footsteps creaking along the passageways. The Phantom Of The Opera is the most expensive stage pro duction ever to be launched in Australia. Only last November the Daily Telegraph was report ing that The Phantom could never be produced in this costs five million pounds blackmarket tickets sell at country. While Cats and L e s nobody gets anything until that $1,000 a pair. Miserables required outlays of five million is paid up; then the It would be difficult to deny $3 million each (hefty invest surplus less running costs is that General Napoleon ments by anyone's terms) divided 60/40.60 percent goes Cameron has his finger right Phantom requires $8 million. to the investors, and 40 percent on the pulse of theatregoers in Amazingly, Mackintosh has goes to the producer - me." markets both here and abroad, come up with the money.