Money Waiting To Be Used But The Music Has Stopped At The Stc
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday January 28, 2004
Cameron Mackintosh is not short of a bob. The producer of Les Mis, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon has an estate in Scotland, a farm in Somerset, three other homes, a vineyard in Province, and owns seven West End theatres.
The man is worth ##400 million so it was thoughtful but hardly a drain on his resources to donate $500,000 to the Sydney Theatre Company in 1995.
The money was earmarked for the development of musicals but after a flurry of activity the foundation's collaboration with STC has come to an end.
The fund, known as the Sydney Theatre Company Musical Development Fund, allocated up to $100,000 a year for the development of new musical theatre.
``The whole idea," Sir Cameron said in 1995, ``is to help provide a platform for the Australian musical theatre."
The platform is not looking too sturdy at the moment, as no money has been allocated to an STC production from the fund since 1998. As the annual funding was capped at $100,000, and funding took place only over the years 1996 to 1998, the full grant of $500,000 was not used.
Mackintosh's representative in Australia, John Robertson, said the money was held in the foundation in London and that the STC Musical Development Fund was ``in limbo land".
``Originally, the foundation focused around Wayne Harrison's presence [as STC artistic director] but Robyn [Nevin] has a different program. That doesn't mean they'll never do another musical."
True, but none is scheduled by the STC this year after the run of the current one, The Republic of Myopia.
The STC's general manager, Rob Brookman, said yesterday there was ``a specific life" to the Mackintosh money.
The last production it helped fund was Lush, the Julie Anthony musical in 1998, and before that, Wunnerful Liberace, in the same year, and Miracle City, the Nick Enright and Max Lambert musical, in 1996.
Brookman said the Mackintosh Foundation relied on royalties from productions around the world, and that ``the shows Cameron's got running . . . are significantly less than 10 years ago. There is not that kind of money in the foundation."
Nevertheless, the foundation, established in London in 1988, is still giving generously for arts initiatives in the US and Britain. In the 1990s it gave $2 million to the National Theatre in Britain, to be spent over 19 years. The foundation also supports a chair of contemporary theatre at Oxford University and the development of new musicals in the US.
More funds will flow to the foundation after the December opening in the West End of the musical Mary Poppins.
So the problem does not seem to be coming from the Mackintosh end but the production philosophy at the STC.
When Harrison was still artistic head of the STC, the company entered into co-productions with Mackintosh (Rent) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (Sunset Boulevard). Nevin became artistic director of the STC in March 1999, and in August that year Sunset Boulevard, to be directed by Harrison, was cancelled because of lack of funds from other producers throughout Australia, according to Tim McFarlane, managing director of Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group.
But if musicals are now thin on the ground in Australia, in the West End more will join Mary Poppins this year, among them The Producers, The Woman in White, by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Billy Elliot, the musical.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald
