EVERYTHINGS COMING UP ROSES
Sydney Theatre Company has a new Artistic Director: Jonathan Church (above right) pictured with his executive director at Chichester, Alan Finch. Photograph: Johan Persson.
Mama Rose finally reckoned that ev’rything’s coming up roses …Well we can hope so anyway.
Have been mulling over the announcement and social media twitter-frenze on August 25 that a new artistic director has been appointed to Sydney Theatre Company. It seems like reasonably good news in that Englishman Jonathan Church comes with a record and pedigree that STC probably needs right now.
Church comes to us from Chichester Festival Theatre, one of the UK’s best known and most bourgeois theatre companies. It’s one which, until he took it over in 2007, had for years been slowly sinking, staid and, worst of all, naff. It was where distinguished and/or somewhat shabby luvvies could have a jolly nice summer break on the Sussex coast while entertaining the well-to-do retirees of the region. It was in desperate need of new audiences and money in the bank – and that’s what Church managed to do.
Under his guidance Chichester has been generating interest and bums on seats – and not only at its £22 million renovated home base. Its 2014 production of Gypsy! starring Imelda Staunton transferred to the West End and is still packing out the Savoy Theatre. Others (around 50 of Church’s 100 productions) have also gone to the West End and Broadway and to BAM in New York.
Church did the same refresh-and-revive job at his previous companies: Salisbury Playhouse and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, so it’s a crucial appointment for Sydney which is looking at a different but arguably equally perilous future.
Right now STC is uniquely placed to fall flat on its face, artistically and financially. Unlike Melbourne Theatre Company, the State Theatre of South Australia, Belvoir, Griffin or Malthouse, STC is facing an identity crisis caused by this post-Armani, post-Cate moment. Each of the other companies has gone through transitions at the top without a hiccup because each was an entity separate from the man (okay, and one woman – Marion Potts) in the AD’s chair.
It’s not that STC is now more or less likely to stage good and often brilliant productions, it’s more that public perception has had eight years to become skewed and skewered by The Presence and it’s my feeling that there’s a sizeable chunk of audience that may now drift away in that Sydney fashion – as if STC were last year’s hot eatery/nite spot suddenly gone cold.
So, tis my belief that the board has gone for a replacement who’s unburdened by local baggage and instead brings something that Sydney loves beyond reason: Jonathan Church is new. At the same time, crucially and cleverly, he’s a safe pair of hands. He won’t frighten the 21,000+ subscriber horses. For instance, his 2014 Chichester season included not just the aforementioned classic Gypsy! but also the equally classic Guys and Dolls; a tribute to Peter Shaffer with Amadeus and Black Comedy (both first staged at Chichester) and Strindberg’s Miss Julie.
More typically canny Church programming was the revival of Hugh Whitemore’s 1977 Stevie, the tough-funny life of poet Stevie Smith given box office clout with Zoe Wanamaker in the title role. And the youth theatre wing was gifted a Christmas show by Bryony Lavery: a new version of Dodie Smith’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
The mix of old, (some) new, classics, stars and musicals seems to be Church’s recipe for success and growth and it’s worked well for him to date – and will need to work for Sydney, particularly the growth bit.
So…although the news came as a shock to Sydney thesp types who’d been expecting one of the homegrown ADs to step up, and none of whom had even heard of Jonathan Church anyway, there can be comfort in that he is a thorough man of the theatre. His pedigree goes back much much further than his first job at Nottingham Playhouse at the age of 18. His first appearance on the fabled Nottingham stage was actually in the 1966 production of Hedda Gabler: he was the bump in the front of his mother Marielaine’s costume and was not born until the following year!
In the STC’s media release about the appointment, outgoing AD Andrew Upton made a typically clear-eyed statement that was more succinct and hint-ful than motherhood in saying, “I think Jonathan Church is a terrific choice as the next Artistic Director of STC. After a period being led by an actress and a writer, I think it’s important to have a theatre director once more at the helm. I look forward to fresh perspectives on the international theatre canon and a continuation of STC’s championing of local theatre makers and stories, including on the international stage. Developing pathways for artists is one of the key aspects of being an Artistic Director of a theatre company this size and Jonathan has a great track record for enabling artists in the UK.”
We shall wait and hope and see.
