Theatre Heritage Australia - On Stage Magazine

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The online magazine of Theatre Heritage Australia

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The online magazine of Theatre Heritage Australia

Latest articles

Gilbert & Sullivan: Book Review

Diana Burleigh

BOOK REVIEW: Gilbert and Sullivan: The players and the plays by Kurt Gänzl, State University of New York Press, Albany, 2021 Gilbert and Sullivan by Kurt GänzlKurt gÄnzl is the go to man for anything to do with musical theatre. He has…

Sylvia Fisher: Greatest Australian singer since Melba

Roger Neill

ROGER NEILL explores the life and legacy of an Australian-born operatic prima donna, Sylvia Fisher, who enjoyed a successful career at Covent Garden from the 1940s, later becoming a favourite of Benjamin Britten. Yet despite these…

Behind the Plaque: The Arrow Theatre, Middle Park

Cheryl Threadgold

with Diana Phoenix The building in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Middle Park that once housed the Arrow Theatre still stands, and as CHERYL THREADGOLD and DIANA PHOENIX discover, it was a site of rich cultural activity for over sixty…

Memories of Tait Theatre

Peter Stephenson Jones

PETER STEPHENSON JONES pays tribute to theatre director and actor William Robert Bates, who ran a private drama school affiliated with the Tait Theatre in Leicester Street, Carlton. During the 1970s the William Bates Academy was the…

Sweet Nell

Elisabeth Kumm

Australian actress Nellie Stewart (1858–1931) created hundreds of roles during her sixty-seven year stage career, performing in comic operas, pantomimes, burlesques and plays. As ELISABETH KUMM discovers, one of her most admired…

National Theatre: Fact is often stranger than fiction

Robert Taylor

ROBERT TAYLOR, director of the National Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne, for nineteen years, takes a look at the history of The Australian National Theatre Movement founded by Gertrude Johnson in 1935. Gertrude Johnson, c.1955. National…

Flame of Desire

Peter Pinne

Once again we dip into past issues of On Stage to revive old articles and present them to a new audience. With Frank Van Straten’s recent book Hanky Panky in mind, we republish PETER PINNE’s look at Jack O’Hagan’s musical Flame of Desire…

Mademoiselle Scasi: From West End prima donna to Queensland guttersnipe

Kurt Gänzl

Continuing his exploration of lost nineteenth century Victorian singers, KURT GÄNZL takes a look at the career of Annetta Scasi, the daughter of an West End furnitue merchant, who changing her name from Isaacs to the more Italianate Scasi,…

Walter Kirby: Australia’s forgotten Caruso (Part 2)

Frank Van Straten

Part 2 of FRANK VAN STRATEN’s biography of little-known New Zealand-born Australian tenor continues with Walter Kirby’s departure for London in 1903. ‘The darling of tip-top society’ Walter Kirby, 1898. Photo by Lafayette, Melbourne. One…

Betty Pounder: The centenary of a remarkable life (Part 3)

Kevin Coxhead

Ladies’ chorus in Act 1 of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 1963. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne. Part 3 of KEVIN COXHEAD’s tribute to the legendary Betty Pounder focusses on the years 1961…

Little Wunder: The story of the Palace Theatre, Sydney (Part 4)

Elisabeth Kumm

During 1901–1902, George Adams’ Pitt Street theatre continued to florish as ELISABETH KUMM discovers in Part 4 of the Palace Theatre story, notably with a return to vaudeville with the highly successful World’s Entertainers. Read Part 1»…

The Memoirs of J. Alan Kenyon or Behind the Velvet Curtain (Part 8)

J.A. Kenyon; edited by Judy Leech

In Part 8 of J. ALAN KENYON’s memoirs, he recalls (among other things) working on the 1940 epic film Forty Thousand Horsemen, the story of Australian Light Horsemen, directed by Charles Chauvel. We'll Give It a Go, Mate! The teahouse of…

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 8)

Madge Elliott

Following their successful ‘come-back’ tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1932–33, Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard returned to London via America (where they spent time seeing the sights of Hollywood and New York.) Madge and Cyril soon…

NOTABLE PRODUCTIONS ^NEW

September 04, 2021

Let’s Face It! for Australia

Author: Robert Morrison

Cole Porter’s 1941 musical Let’s Face It! had the distinction of being the only new musical to be staged in Australia by J.C. Williamson’s during the war years of 1940–45. Although JCW continued to stage new American and British plays, plus locally-produced musical revues and pantomimes, its… Read more

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FEATURE ARTICLES

Madge Elliot

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 1)

To coincide with Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott’s Australian theatrical tour for J.C. Williamson’s in 1934-36 (having based themselves in London since 1925), Madge Elliott collaborated on a series…

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 3)

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 4)

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 5)

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 6)

Thus Far: The story of my life (Part 7)

C.H. Workman

C.H. Workman in Australia (Part 1)

Advertising card for Utopia Limited, c.1894. Author’s collection. Singer, comedian and Savoyard C.H. Workman arrived in Australia in 1914 as a member of The Girl in the Taxi company. He spent a total…

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Madge Elliot

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J. Alan Kenyon

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