
This is section documents some of the more interesting characters that have made substaintial contributions to our theatre history.
Written by J.A. Kenyon; edited by Judy Leech
Judy has had a twenty-two year career at the ABC Television Studios as a graphic designer, with occasional forays into children's book illustrations. This was followed by ten years working with the Rex Reid Dance Company on costume, set and props design. Since the late 1990s Judy has been closely involved, in a design capacity, with many of the annual musicals presented by Melbourne High and Mac.Robertson's Schools.
Written by Simon Plant
SIMON PLANT BA (Hons) and Masters (University of Melbourne) is a Melbourne writer and historian. His 35 year career in journalism includes three decades at the Herald and Weekly Times as a reporter and editor specialising in arts and entertainment. His new book, Entertaining Mr Coppin: An Australian Showman in Civil War America will be published by THA in early 2025.
Written by Mimi Colligan
Mimi writes on 19th century popular culture and biography. Part of her Ph.D thesis was published by MUP as Canvas Documentaries in 2002. Mimi is a Fellow of the RHSV, an Honorary Research Associate with the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University and a member of the Victorian Working Party of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. She has curated exhibitions including Richmond's Cremorne Gardens and recently curated a RHSV exhibition on Melbourne Theatres in transition 1840-1940 . Her book Circus and Stage, on the lives of Mr and Mrs G.B.W. Lewis, was published last year by Monash University Publishing.
Written by Peter Pinne
Peter Pinne's musical theatre career reached a peak in 1995 when his and his longtime collaborator, Don Battye's musical Prisoner – Cell Block H The Musical opened a season at the Queen's Theatre, London and became a cult hit subsequently touring the UK in '96 and '97.
Prior to that he and Battye had written many musicals produced in Australia that included Caroline, A Bunch of Ratbags, Red White & Boogie, and Sweet Fanny Adams. Their musicals for children, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Tin Soldier, The Shoemaker & The Elves, Jack & The Beanstalk, Beauty & The Beast, Rumpelstiltskin and Billabong Bill have become a staple of the children's theatre scene since they were originally produced at the Alexander Theatre, Melbourne.
Peter Pinne's other musical collaborations include; A Bit O' Petticoat with Ray Kolle, Pyjamas In Paradise with John-Michael Howson, and Mavis Bramston – Reloaded and Suddenly Single with Paul Dellit.
He has also had a high profile career in television where he worked for the Grundy Organization on such iconic shows as Neighbours, Prisoner, Sons and Daughters, The Restless Years, The Young Doctors, and Secret Valley amongst others. He has also worked in the U.S., Latin America and Indonesia producing television drama, game shows and sitcoms for Pearson Television and Fremantlemedia.
From 1999 until the end of 2007 Mr Pinne was the owner and president of Bayview Recording Company, Los Angeles, USA, a boutique label who newly recorded and reissued CDs aimed at the show music market. These included over twenty recordings from New York Town Hall's concert series Broadway By The Year.
Apart from scripting television drama, he also wrote, with Battye, the theme song for the series Sons and Daughters. Other music credits include the score for the award winning movie A City's Child. He is the author of the discography Australian Performers, Australian Performances, and currently writes for On Stage and Stage Whispers.
In late 2019 he released The Australian Musical: from the beginning, a definitive history of Australian musical theatre, co-authored with Peter Wyllie Johnston, and published by Allen & Unwin in association with the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
Written by J.A. Kenyon; edited by Judy Leech
Judy has had a twenty-two year career at the ABC Television Studios as a graphic designer, with occasional forays into children's book illustrations. This was followed by ten years working with the Rex Reid Dance Company on costume, set and props design. Since the late 1990s Judy has been closely involved, in a design capacity, with many of the annual musicals presented by Melbourne High and Mac.Robertson's Schools.
Written by Kurt Gänzl
Kurt is one of the most important chroniclers of the world’s history of music and theatre. His numerous works on the subject include The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (1994, 2001), The British Musical Theatre (1986), The Musical: a concise history (1997), Gänzl’s Book of the Musical Theatre (1988), Victorian Vocalists (2018) and biographies of such artists as Lydia Thompson (2002), Willie Gill (2002), Emily Soldene (In Search of a Singer, 2007), and Gilbert & Sullivan, the Players and the Plays (October 2021). Forthcoming works include an update of the 2007 University textbook, and a translation of the Rapsodies of Petrus Borel with his brother, poet John Gallas.
Written by Madge Elliott, with picture research by Rob Morrison
With a background in science and biophysics, Rob is equally at home in the Performing Arts having performed in over 70 stage productions since 1975, including plays, revues and musicals for a number of amateur theatre companies based in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
As a broadcaster, Rob has been heard on Melbourne community radio 96.5 Inner FM since 1992 contributing to the Local Theatre programme and as the host of the weekly light-music Kaleidoscope and Musical Theatre Melodies programmes. (A selection of Rob’s past interviews from the latter with noted theatre composers and/or lyricists, Leslie Bricusse, Frank Wildhorn and Sheldon Harnick, plus musical theatre historian and author, Miles Kreuger can be accessed on the THA website under Digital Collections – audio.)
Since early 2023 Musical Theatre Melodies has also been available as a podcast, which may be heard at https://www.innerfm.org.au/shows/musical-theatre-melodies/ and recently earned the distinction of being ranked amongst the Top 10 Australian Theatre Podcasts by Feedspot, as listed at https://podcasts.feedspot.com/australian_theatre_podcasts
Rob has also contributed information and articles to the on-line Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, Gilbert and Sullivan Discography and Edward German Discography websites.
Past articles published in the print editions of On Stage include:-
In addition Rob collaborated on the research into the background of local Music Hall singer, ‘Syria Lamonte’ (Summer 2010, p.5), as outlined in ‘The Search for Syria’ (Autumn 2010, p. 17); provided the footnotes to ‘Richard Watson: “a molasses of a bass”’ (Spring 2009, p.35 & Summer 2010, p.40.) and researched the discography for ‘Richard Watson’s Recorded Legacy’ (Spring 2011, p.18.)
Written by Desley Deacon
Desley Deacon is an Emeritus Professor of History at the Australian National University whose interest has always been in pioneering professional women, especially those who have pursued careers around the world. She has recently published Judith Anderson: Australian Star, First Lady of the American Stage (Kerr Publishing, 2019). Previous books include Elsie Clews Parsons: Inventing Modern Life (University of Chicago Press, 1997), about the early twentieth century American anthropologist, and Managing Gender: the State, the New Middle Class, and Women Workers 1830-1930 (Oxford University Press, 1987), about married women in the New South Wales workforce. She now lives in Sydney and writes reviews and articles about biography, film and theatre and is especially interested in Australians in Hollywood and on Broadway. Photo of Desley by Nicola Harrison. Read Judith Anderson: Book Review.
Written by Kurt Gänzl
Kurt is one of the most important chroniclers of the world’s history of music and theatre. His numerous works on the subject include The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (1994, 2001), The British Musical Theatre (1986), The Musical: a concise history (1997), Gänzl’s Book of the Musical Theatre (1988), Victorian Vocalists (2018) and biographies of such artists as Lydia Thompson (2002), Willie Gill (2002), Emily Soldene (In Search of a Singer, 2007), and Gilbert & Sullivan, the Players and the Plays (October 2021). Forthcoming works include an update of the 2007 University textbook, and a translation of the Rapsodies of Petrus Borel with his brother, poet John Gallas.
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