Is Australian theatre in crisis?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today's episode was made possible by our friends over at NBN. Ready?
And good morning. This is the Daily Oz. This is the Daily Oz. This is the Daily Oz. Oh. Now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Tuesday the 7th of July. I'm Emma Gillespie. I'm Billie Fitzsimons. Billie, welcome back. Thank you. I took a short little two-week break. We missed you. Oh, thank you. Throwing you right back in the deep end. We have new cameras. Which is very exciting. Yes, very exciting. Last week, another popular music festival announced it's going on hiatus, Harvest Rock, a popular Adelaide festival. And we've talked a lot about the struggling live music scene post-COVID on this podcast. But we are not going to talk about that today. We are going to talk about Australia's live theatre industry. Because while we've been watching music festivals suffer, another creative sector has been facing its own similar challenges with multiple big budget shows axing performances in recent weeks.
We will explain what's going on and the UK government model that could offer a way out for Australia's struggling stages in today's Deep Dive.
And before we get into the struggles that the musical theatre industry is facing, I think we first should acknowledge that we're both big theatre fans. We do love ourselves a good musical. Yeah. Well, you're more of a theatre fan and I think I'm more of a musical fan. Literally, I know we just mentioned that I've been away and on the plane back when I'm choosing what movie to watch, I just go straight to the musical section. I love nothing more than a musical.
I never think of musicals on a plane, I've got to be honest.
All I want to do is just get up and dance.
It's so fun.
What recent events highlight the challenges facing Australia's live theatre industry?
Yeah, we do love a good show. And I think that gives us credibility here to talk about this today, Billie.
Okay, so let's talk about the issues happening. I, when I was overseas, saw that there were a few shows that were cancelled in Australia. Yeah.
Yes, and this is how we became aware of this bigger issue, that there were some back-to-back cancellations literally within days of each other. And that centred around two major musicals, Beetlejuice and Waitress, that both collapsed in about a week, like I said. Beetlejuice was playing in Brisbane. That's a musical based on the 1988 Tim Burton film. written music and lyrics by Australian performer Eddie Perfect. It opened in Brisbane on the 7th of June and it actually wrapped up on the 5th of July, a month early. and it won't be doing a national tour as planned. So Beetlejuice was going to go to Perth, Adelaide, and Sydney. All of those seasons have been cancelled. Then days later, producers confirmed Waitress, which has been playing in Melbourne, wouldn't open in Sydney at all and would instead close in Melbourne on the 19th of July after its 7th of May opening.
Just quickly, that is a Broadway musical that's come to Australia written by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, who you may be familiar with.
I couldn't believe when that one was cancelled because I saw so much promotion in the lead up to that. And it also had two really big names in theatre leading that musical. Rob Mills. And Natalie Bassingsway.
Yeah. So I was the same. I saw so much on socials. I was really excited for Waitress to come to Sydney.
I know. I was excited to see it because I heard Rob Mills talking about it so much in different media appearances saying that He has been wanting to do this musical for so long and to hear it be cancelled... It's really sad.
Yeah, so sad. And these two are not alone. This is not an isolated incident. Back in January in Sydney, Back to the Future, the musical closed early. It, again, had a national tour planned but never made it past the opening city. And just a few days ago, Nine actually reported, so after the Beetlejuice and Waitress stories made headlines around the country, we then heard that Anastasia, the musical, which is currently playing at the Sydney Lyric, has also been quietly cancelling performances. So it's not cancelled, but the schedule has been scaled down.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:54
2
What recent events highlight the challenges facing Australia's live theatre industry?
1:54–7:49
3
What specific shows have faced cancellations in Australia recently?
7:49–21:35
4
What factors are contributing to the decline in ticket sales for theatre productions?
21:35–22:45