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 AM.COM: Where did the initial idea for
the exhibition come from?
SP: There was no one moment, but it occurred to me over a period of
time, that we hadn’t ever seen an exhibition focusing on Australian
musicals. So, out of some general research to see what was out there, I
realised there was a great story to tell, and interesting themes too that
connected with major musicals. And so I approached the Performing Arts
Collection with the idea of exploring that and they liked the idea.
MM: Yes, and it came at the right time too. We’d been thinking about
doing an exhibition on musicals. We hadn’t decided on doing Australian
musicals, but we hadn’t done a musicals related exhibition before, so it was
great timing for us.
AM.COM: So that’s how the collaboration occurred between the two of
you?
SP:. Yes.
MM: Yes, Simon had worked with us previously on another exhibition –
'Star Spangled Manner' which looked at the influence of America on
early Australian TV, and so we already had a working relationship with him.
So he came back to us and we were interested in this project.
AM.COM: So there’s no other exhibition that you know of focusing on
Australian music theatre?
MM: No.
SP: And we quickly faced some interesting challenges. The biggest
problem being “What’s the scope?” because we soon realised there were
hundreds of Australian musicals, and the only way to handle that was to
bring it right down to talking about Australian stories only. That was a
decision we made very quickly, wasn’t it?
MM: Yes, it was a key decision. We went to a conference in Perth, a
performing arts special interest group [of Museums Australia]. One of the
speakers there was John Thomson, who has done so much research on Australian
musicals, and we went primarily to hear him speak. That day was our
awakening to hundreds of Australian musicals. We met John and he was really
terrific and became a good colleague and friend for this journey, and he
really made us realise that we needed parameters around our exhibition or we
just weren’t going to be able to manage it. So we decided that what we
wanted to do was to look at how Australian culture is reflected in musicals,
or musical theatre. So that was the primary crux of our research from then
on and really narrowed down our search very much.
AM.COM: And what stages did you go through in the research /
collection phase?
MM: Well, we did that initial talk to John, and we also spoke to
Frank Van Straten very early on because he’s such an expert on the topic.
From that, combined with the work that Simon had already done of scoping and
getting a feel for what’s out there, we got an idea of what some of the key
musicals were, so that we had some trails to follow. Then we really started
to look at the Performing Arts Collection here [at the Arts Centre,
Melbourne] obviously, as that was the basis of the exhibition and where I am
familiar.
AM.COM: Was there much in the collection already on Australian music
theatre?
MM: There was, but not in a compact way. We couldn’t go to a box that
was the 'Australian Musicals box.'
AM.COM: Well, at least this exhibition has allowed you to do that,
and categorise things.
MM: Yes, it’s still not physically together. It wouldn’t be stored
like that anyway here. We started with posters, and programmes, and
photographs. and got names of shows that we wanted to pursue and we just got
relevant material out. And then we took it to the next layer which was to
look at company collections and personality collections. So we looked at the
JC Williamsons’ collection to see what they’d done – which was not much in
Australian musicals - then various other theatre archives, Melbourne Theatre
Company, etc. And then individual people’s collections like Frank Thring
Senior, Gladys Moncrieff, Betty Pounder… Anyone represented in the
Performing Arts Collection that we thought might have had a connection with
Australian musicals, we went through their material. We physically trawled
through, brought things out and made notes. And then we had to broaden our
search, realising we weren’t going to have enough material just from our own
collection, that we’d need to look wider.
 So then we started going to outside institutions like the State Library of
Victoria, the National Library in Canberra which was a great source, the
State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, etc., At those places we went
through material on theatre companies such as Nimrod and the APG, etc. We
used those institutions for research but we also approached some for loans
of physical objects. I did that part, and that was a real challenge as most
of those institutions need notification 6 - 12 months in advance, and there
are costs involved. So early on we had to choose objects that were best
suited to what we wanted to show and to choose them quite quickly., and then
follow all the formal processes for the loans. I knew, for example, that we
were going to focus on 'Collits’ Inn', so I chose loan material
relating to that. And when we got offered the Tintookie puppets by the
Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, I knew that was a terrific find.
SP: And of course there were personal connections like John Sumner,
Peter Pinne, Reg Livermore, the guys behind 'Lola Montez', etc. that
contributed to the research and collection. The libraries also had some
fantastic correspondence – quite apart from objects we were interested in
diaries, letters, anything from the actual making of an Australian musical.
That’s why it was called 'Making a Song and Dance.' How do Australian
musicals evolve? So we were looking for really good correspondence. The
National Library was fantastic for Manning Clarke’s papers, which documented
the process for 'History of Australia, the Musical' and how that
evolved – and same as 'The Sentimental Bloke'-
MM: Yes, we went through Albert Arlen and Nancy Brown’s papers, and
read them. To me that was one of the most emotional collections that we
looked at because we got this sense of how hard they tried and the struggle
over 11 years and the to-ing and fro-ing about ‘Is it on?’ or ‘Is it not?’
and ‘Are they going to pick it up?’ etc.
AM.COM: And it doesn’t look like things have changed much have they?
MM: No, that was what was very interesting in speaking to
contemporary writers, which is the other thing that we did. We spoke to
people like Paul Keelan and Gary Young who wrote 'Sideshow Alley'.
Their story was remarkably like the story of the creators of ‘The
Sentimental Bloke’. We also spoke to Anthony Crowley, John Romeril, Dean
Bryant and Matthew Frank, and got an idea of what is happening now.
AM.COM: So covering the scope of the past, and the present and
potentially the future as well?
SP: We did think it was important to include the current perspective,
that it wasn’t just an archival exhibition but it looked at ‘now’ as well.
And I think the timing was right because there was a lot of things happening
related to Australian music theatre at the time.
MM: And that helped us get further coverage for the exhibition
because it was connected to other things happening.
AM.COM: Were there very similar stories between the writers that you
met through creating this exhibition?
 MM: Yes, absolutely.
AM.COM: And what were some of the recurring themes?
MM: The reluctance of producers to put money into Australian
musicals, that there is a constant struggle to convince people of the
quality of our local work. The writing is being done, the talent is there -
but are they getting onto the stage, and getting financial support?
AM.COM: And one of the most interesting aspects of this exhibition
was to show that this is not a new phenomenon, that the stumbling blocks
have been there all along.
MM: Absolutely.
AM.COM: Do you think there is a change happening, or do you think the
current scene is simply a mirror of what has always occurred?
SP: I don’t think the signs are that good. I mean, it’s gutsy that
people like Simon Gallagher have backed a show like ‘Eureka’, but
they’re still few and far between – and then Playbox is the flipside that
show it is still bloody hard to get interest nationally to tour a show. So I
think it is a tough time, and I think Anthony Crowley made a great comment
in the Sunday Soapbox Forum when he said that it is just so lonely for
writers, they don’t feel they have a community supportive atmosphere to work
in.
AM.COM: And with such few opportunities it can breed competition.
SP: I think the Pratt Prize shows how competitive it must be out
there. To have all those entries but then to have only one outcome makes it
tough. But it is a good sign that there is that much material out there.
There are good signs, but we have to be realistic and it doesn’t look like
commercial guys are going to put money into original work in the short term.
It’s going to come from other places; the middle sized companies are going
to have to take the risk.
AM.COM: And in your research did you find that the development
process for new musical theatre has always been as unsupported as it is now?
MM: Yes, I think that one of the key themes that came out was the
lack of regional try-outs and work-shopping opportunities for Australian
musicals. We just don’t have what they have in the UK and the US.
AM.COM: The expectation that it must come out of the pen directly
ready for performance and ready to fund?
MM: Yes, and then the risk of failure is so much higher because when
you open, it may not be ready.
AM.COM: Yes, interesting how in the US, the 'Music Man' as one
example took 8 years in development with over 30 different re-writes before
it was accepted as ‘completed’.
SP: And then the audiences of course compare that finished proven
product with local product without considering that development. That’s
something else we discovered too, that there has always been the comparison,
this long shadow over local stuff from what’s happening overseas. There’s
always been the 'My Fair Lady’s' to take the attention.
MM: And there still is the cultural cringe.
AM.COM: Yes, I know you focused on Australian stories in the
exhibition, but were you surprised by the amount of material that was not
based on Australian stories but written by Australians?
MM: Yes, absolutely. I think we represented about 50 shows in our
exhibition, but we probably looked at or did research into about a hundred,
and based on the John Thomson list that leaves about 600+ musicals that were
not on Australian stories that we didn’t touch.
AM.COM: So you would argue that the ratio is much higher for
non-Australian related stories in what’s being written?
MM: It certainly seems that way. We didn’t look into all of them but
it appears that way.
SP: The other thing which we haven’t mentioned is how we told the
story and gathered the information.
AM.COM: You split your findings into different thematic categories
didn’t you?
SP: Yes, I think the other big decision was whether to do the
exhibition chronologically, or thematically. And we decided to go
thematically which was possibly a bit harder.
MM: Yes it would have been easier to start at 1920 and just keep
going on a time line. But we wanted to make it more interesting.
SP: It took months, literally months for us to refine and change our
themes, and bring it down to about ten areas that were the best way to cover
that span of time. And also to set up contrasts, colours, and create
different zones where you could talk about the earliest shows and the most
recent and they actually connected several times in some cases.
MM: A good example is that we had material from ‘Eureka’,
sitting next to ‘Lola Montez’. So we had things that were written
fifty years apart but they were connected thematically.
AM.COM: And what were some of the categories that you split the
exhibition into?
SP: Well, ‘Gumnuts and Gold’ was the biggest one, and that was really
connecting all those shows that talk about landscape and the bush myth. Then
we had ‘Wild Colonials’, which was the convicts and bushrangers
predominantly. Then there was 'Thanks for the Melody' –
MM: That looked at shows that used existing music.
SP: Juke-box style musicals.
MM: And it was interesting, there were obviously shows that fitted
into more than one category and we had to make a decision as to where they
best fitted. 'Boy From Oz' for example, went into one of our other
themes, 'Show and Tell,' which looked at show business themes, but could
also have been part of 'Thanks for the Melody' as well.
 SP: And then we had 'Reality Check' which was the more contemporary
musicals that dealt with issues such as sexuality, etc. and then Reg
Livermore got his own section with 'Our Reg.'
MM: And he linked into one of our other big categories which was
'Larrikin Streak.'
AM.COM: And Reg’s section was devoted to his efforts to change the
landscape of Australian music theatre?
MM: Yes, we really wanted to make people aware of the work that he’d
done in that field prior to 'Betty Block Buster.' We had 'Ned
Kelly' as the focus, but that also sat in the 'Wild Colonials' section.
We also wanted to bring attention to his other smaller efforts such as 'Lasseter',
the shows that are tucked away in history. And because we had a great
contact with him and he’d lent us some of his precious archive material, we
had access to materials that we would not have otherwise had to make his
section very full.
SP: And I think his story epitomizes the struggle, almost better than
anyone. Not many of his musicals have done very well.
AM.COM: And yet he has a household name.
SP: Exactly. And the amount of people who came to the exhibition and
said: “We didn’t even know he did musicals”, and we were pleased to hear
that because it showed that we’d brought out another dimension to his
career.
AM.COM: And how was the exhibition on the whole received by the
public?
MM: Really well. We got a lot of great comments in the visitor’s
book, and for me one of the things I was most pleased about was that we
achieved what we essentially wanted to do, which was to just let people know
this hidden story. People didn’t, I mean I didn’t even really know, before
we started, that Australian musicals had been done to the extent they had,
with such varied themes and creativity, and spanning the hundred year time
period that we chose. We opened people’s eyes to it and that to me was
fabulous, and people came back time and time again.
SP: And that includes industry people, who’d said, “We never knew
there was this heritage”.
AM.COM: Do you think there is a future for the exhibition; can it go
to other places?
MM: It hasn’t been planned to, and it has been disassembled. We would
both have loved to see it travel –
AM.COM: Is it out of the question?
MM: I guess it’s just one of those things that it hasn’t been planned
for; it hasn’t been budgeted for so it is very unlikely.
AM.COM: Even though it is quite portable in many respects,
MM: Yes, but to travel an exhibition is a huge undertaking. You
almost need a separate team of staff to do that, and we don’t have that
available at the moment.
SP: But in terms of research, I hope
that this is just the start of a whole range of investigations into
musicals. This isn’t the last word – the first word, yes, but we’ve just
defined what’s been achieved and what’s happened, It’s up to others to zero
in on certain themes or different directions. So who knows, in the next
couple of years there may be a whole heap of smaller exhibitions with
similar focuses.
AM.COM: Do you think it’d be valuable to have a permanent space
devoted to exhibition material from Australian music theatre?
MM: I think it would be great to have it in the context of an overall
performing arts museum. There are issues involved in permanent displays in
the sense of conservation etc., but it would be good for people to know
always that this is worthy history to remember.
A challenge in any performing arts history is that the performing arts are
ephemeral. What remains is often not much, particularly with musicals that
didn’t do well. Our collection here is massive which proves that things do
get kept, but it’s still always a challenge to find information about
performing arts history. Just to date things sometimes is an absolute
detective hunt, compared to the visual arts, which is very well documented,
well studied, and there are many books to refer to.
AM.COM: And what do you believe is the future for domestic music
theatre in this country?
MM: I think people are going to continue to write, I don’t think
there’s any doubt about that. There’s some reason why we want to express our
own stories through music and song and dance. I think that’s innate. I’m
sure that will continue, and I hope there will be more money invested so
that the shows get up – but I do think it will continue to be a struggle.
SP: And I think the big question perhaps for the short term, in
telling Australian stories, is whether the musical is the best way to tell
them? I think that might often be the problem; the story just might have
been better as a play. So composers should think really hard whether
musicals are the best way to explore their topic.
MM: And the other thing which may be the case in the future, it’s
certainly the case now, is that we’re not getting the large scale musicals
written. We’re getting the smaller scale musicals, which is obviously mostly
an economic reason. And also, though 'Eureka' is an example against
this, current musicals tend to be a little more universal rather than the
dinky-di Aussie type, and I think perhaps that might be a way of engaging a
wider audience. Like 'Boy From Oz,' a very Australian story, but
essentially about a person and their relationships and their career, rather
than whether he was Australian or not.
SP: And 'Joe Starts Again' too - it could be set anywhere.
AM.COM: Well, thank you very much for your time today, and
congratulations on an excellent cultural achievement.
Refer to the
IMAGE
GALLERY for promotional images related to the
'Making a Song and Dance' exhibition. |