November Visit

Hi KimI think the division into 'straight' and 'musical companies' in Sydney and Melbourne has a lot to do with logistics. Many of the straight companies have managed either through their own efforts or with the assistance fo a local council, to acquire a permanent 'home' for their productions, in venues ranging from converted church halls to an old bakery - even a disused incinerator!! Most of these theatres are of small capacity and offer fairly limited stage facilities, which precludes the companies from using them for big musicals. With access to the completely under their own control, they can schedule a much more comrpehensive program. I originally worked with the Viaduct Theatre here in Melbourne, which staged ten or twelve productions a year in its two hundred seat theatre - a punishing schedule for a non-professional establishment!! (It is not altogether surprising that the Viaduct is now defunct!)It is an unfortunate fact of life that large scale productions need to sell large numbers of tickets to cover costs, as budgets even for non-professional productions can in exceed $100,000. All of this means the companies must use larger theatres. It would not be feasible for the big musical companies to control such theatres - they could only fill a theatre with their own product for a limited number of weeks per year, leaving them with a costly venue to maintain for the rest of the year, which means that they use facilties owned by other bodies.An increasing number of such venues has appeared in suburban Melbourne over the past decade, with more councils planning community theatres. Unfortunately, while these buildings are a great improvement over the makeshift halls and school gymnasiums used in the past, they are expensive to operate and maintain, and the owners of the buildings are often not prepared to subsidise the operation, with the result that ticket prices continue to rise, and audiences continue to decrease - not a good combination!!I seem to have run at some length here, but the combination of rising costs and declining audiences for large scale productions is in my opinion a very real threat to the continuing existence of not only the non-professional musical theatre, but the commercial theatre as well.Incidentally, I think you are right about CLOC being the first non-professional company to stage 'Les Mis'. Their production was followed by a rash of others, and then the rights were withdrawn again - before it disappeared, however, from my point of view at least, the Guild judges sat through it enough times to become rather more familiar with the piece than I found strictly necessary!.CheersDavid> In Sydney and Melbourne companies tend to be exclusively straight> drama or musical societies, rather than mixed groups, which nearly> all of our are. I found that SO strange when I first moved over.> I would say that the groups are much more prolific here than> over East. The big musical societies ( Miranda and Willoughby in Sydney,> CLOC and Whitehorse in Melbourne for example ) only do two shows a> year, whereas Playlovers, Roleystone or Wanneroo for example do two> musicals plus three or more plays.> Stage Whispers publishes an annual guide which gives the number> of shows each company do. WA companies do more shows per annum on> average, by far.> Incidently I believe the first ameteur production of Les Mis> was a Melbourne group ( Cloc ??? ) followed by Willoughby in Sydney.> Sorry to be picky but I would hate anyone to get their knickers in> a knot about it.> Stage Whispers has a pretty comprehensive What's On List - and> can be obtained in most places in Australia. Highly recommended reading> for theatrical travellers.> Kim>