Kookaburra looks to future after rough '07

BY TROY DODDS

Kookaburra founder and CEO Peter Cousens says the cancellation of Floyd Collins was “soul destroying” and has spoken for the first time in detail about the Company scandal that engulfed the theatre industry earlier this year.

After a turbulent inaugural year, Kookaburra is now looking to the future and Cousens remains determined to ensure the company is a success, confirming the venture is financially secure until at least 2010 and has a number of major productions in the pipeline.

Kookaburra is not hiding from 2007. In fact, Cousens believes there is plenty be proud of, including the point that the company employed over 80 people, generated $1.7 million in ticket sales, facilitated Stephen Sondheim’s first visit to Australia in more than three decades and received three Helpmann Award nominations.

However, many will remember Kookaburra’s inaugural year for the drama surrounding its production of Company, in which vital scenes were cut from a performance after Christie Whelan, who was playing April, fell seriously ill. Cousens approved that her scenes be cut and the show go on, creating much outrage in the days following.

“I do have one regret and that is that we never made an announcement to the audience, but that was based on an age old thing that I never believe you should let the audience in on that their may be a problem,” Cousens said.

“From our point of view what was going on was that we wanted to keep the curtain up and serve the 500 people that were arriving at the theatre that night.”

Cousens is angry that a cast member informed composer Stephen Sondheim of the cuts just hours after the curtain went down.

“He was alerted by an email from an actor who used the word ‘butchered’ and it was very emotive and inflamed,” he said.

“Suddenly instead of procedures being followed which was basically going through the Australian administrator of this product, it went off shore which I just think is outrageous that someone off shore was going to make and did make extraordinary demands on this tiny little company.”

Cousens confirmed that once the curtain had come down, nobody from the cast contacted him about their disappointment or anger about the cuts.

“We were in Melbourne and we had a director and a musical director that were confident they could put the show into a sufficient working order,” he said.

“Both those people believed that they had created a situation where that show could have gone on for the next two or three nights in that format and they told the cast that.”

Cousens is adamant that the general public in the audience that fateful night “didn’t care” and “wouldn’t have known” about the cuts and believes the entire situation was blown out of proportion.

The email sent by the actor to Stephen Sondheim saw Kookaburra immediately on the back foot with senior theatre officials in New York, with the company facing the possibility of not being awarded rights to future shows and having to make major apologies “to the world”, according to Cousens.

However, those threats and requests were eventually watered down.

“The clarity of what actually happened came to light and they realised they were being led down a path that was emotive by a senior cast member and it had to be a senior cast member as whoever it was, Stephen obviously thought this person had credibility,” Cousens said.

Of the Floyd Collins cancellation, Cousens said: “It was soul destroying. I’ve been living with that show for three and a half years. It was a really risky piece of programming in hindsight and a bit over-expectant of what we thought we would have achieved in our first year but we weren’t expecting the sort of media vitriol about various things.”

One of Kookaburra’s major stumbling blocks after the significant issues that dogged the company in 2007 is turning around both industry opinion and the way the media report on the venture.

“It’s very hard because people have said the most terrible things and a lot of it has been misinformed or wrong, and a lot of them have been amateur opinions and because of the internet it gets out in the ether,” he said.

“In terms of the press I am hoping with the Sydney Morning Herald that when we hand out a good news story that we’ll also get front page, but will we? Of course not.”

Cousens confirmed a rumour that he called senior Herald journalist Bryce Hallett a “dickhead” after the newspaper ran a third story in four days on the Company scandal. He said it is important the media stop telling potential supporters that there’s “something rotten in the State of Denmark” and start supporting what is officially an arts charity.

Kookaburra is looking at the potential of hiring a General Manager in the near future, and will next year use an understudy in its production of Tell Me On A Sunday and there will be “internal understudies” for Little Women. It follows much discussion of the company’s decision to go without understudies in both of its 2007 productions.

Little Women and Tell Me On A Sunday will definitely go ahead as part of a 2008-2009 season that the company will launch in February, which will also include another major production.

“We’ve got cash flows organised until 2010 and the 2009-2010 season already planned, with two directors already lined up,” Cousens said.

“There’s been a lot of questions about why Kookaburra exists. I think it’s important to realise that this company is not-for-profit and has charitable status and more importantly is a company that in the musical theatre world is specifically trying to create a relationship with the public.”

At one stage rumours suggested Kookaburra was looking at the potential of a reality television show to cast one of its 2008 productions. That was never the case according to Cousens, though the company is looking at the potential of a documentary to be centred around the creation of one of its shows, similar to the one used so effectively to market Dusty in 2006.

Cousens confirmed that Kookaburra’s Up Close And Musical would return next year, potentially alongside non-Kookaburra shows, and would start paying performers for their participation. The company will also develop a “5 in 10” initiative in which they will work with five new musicals over 10 days to breathe some life into them and set them on the right direction.

Kookaburra Kids and the Nest will continue to thrive, perhaps re-enforcing the fact that Kookaburra is much more than a company that simply produces major musicals, but is working strongly as an educator and creating links with vital elements of the general public to ensure musical theatre continues to thrive.

Cousens admits there has been mistakes made and lessons learned in the company’s inaugural year, but says “without failure there is no success” and is determined to see Kookaburra emerge as a vital part of the fabric of Australia’s arts community.

While Kookaburra will not present a mainstage musical until mid-next year, Cousens is keen to enforce the message that the company is still working hard behind the scenes, workshopping new shows and formulating a plan for success in the future.

It seems now there is a realisation of the massive mountain creating a musical theatre company is, and while steps have been taken to ensure Kookaburra moves forward, a few steps back have also been implemented just to make certain that the company survives and takes things as slowly and carefully as the volatile theatre industry demands.

Kookaburra broke even on just its second production (Company), attracted 1,300 subscribers in its first year has accepted it may not be able to match it with some of the major shows in town through its decision to cancel Sideshow Alley. All in all, 2007 hasn’t been a complete loss, and now the company is determined to put what was achieved in its first year into a long and successful lifetime.

Time will tell whether the dreams of Kookaburra become reality.