Celebrity tales, hidden areas and dusty corners - explore the secrets of Majesty’s Theatre
EXPLORE all the nooks and crannies of Her Majesty’s Theatre with one of the venue’s longest-serving employees.
HER Majesty’s Theatre may be getting a multi-million dollar makeover, but what will never change about the venue is its heart. It’s the people working inside, such as lighting technician Fred Schultz, who keep the place alive. Sophie Perri spoke to the long-serving Her Maj employee to see the venue through his eyes.
Up a daunting ladder in a dark corner of Her Majesty’s Theatre is a place no one goes except for lighting technician Fred Schultz.
That place – the ceiling – looks like someone’s lost attic; a forgotten space of exposed beams, old insulation and layers of dust.
“Well it’s 100 odd years, isn’t it,” Schultz says, peering out over the railing.
“This is the old part of the theatre. See those lines on the wall there? They would have been the old seats. You can still see the old signs on the wall like the Way Out sign.
“No one else comes here – just me. I just use it as a way to get to the stage without going through the auditorium.”
Schultz knows every nook and cranny of the 103-year-old theatre, the theatre to which he has devoted 30 of his 61 years. He came here from the Centre for Performing Arts (now AC Arts) and scored the job after seeing an ad in the paper. Apart from a few years off to raise his family, he’s been at the theatre for most of his working life.
Over that time he’s controlled the lighting for each show that’s breezed through Her Maj, changed light bulbs and fixed air conditioning vents.
He’s also met a lot of celebrities, most of whom have signed the Graffiti Gallery in the basement, where Schultz is now standing.
“I’ve met quite a few of them – John Cleese, James Earl Jones,” he says, the floorboards creaking above him.
“They come and go so fast. Spike Milligan wrote somewhere here, Maggie Smith … Whoopi Goldberg, Lauren Bacall. She (Bacall) came here a year before me but I heard stories about her. She arrived at the front put a scarf over her head and walked in, no one was allowed to look at her until she got into the dressing room and put her makeup on. Whoopi was interesting, she used to get a chef over from the Hilton hotel every night to cook a meal in her dressing room. She was really nice.
“They’re just normal people most of the time.”
There’s another well-known visitor Schultz often interacts with – the resident ghost. It’s believed the theatre is haunted by William Fischer, who fell 9 metres from the lighting rig while working on the asbestos safety curtain a few minutes before the theatre’s first curtain time on September 6, 1913.
“There’s a ghost, yes,” Fred says. “Weird things have been happening since I started. People said, ‘oh that’s just the ghost’ and I went ‘oh, we’ve got a ghost have we?’” Schultz says.
“I’ve had a few instances that I can’t explain, mainly to do with light switches. When I go through and switch all the lights off and leave the building locked up and go outside, I see the lights go back on inside. I go back and switch them off, and they go back on again. That happens maybe half a dozen times a year.”
Schultz often finds himself doing the same jobs over and over again because everything in the theatre is so old.
That’s evident when he strolls into the followspot booth, where two massive old lights sit plastered with duct tape.
“These ones are actually from the festival theatre because they got new ones. That’s another reason why the refurb of the theatre will be good – we’ll get some new equipment rather than second hand stuff all the time,” he laughs.
Schultz says he’s keen to see the theatre revamped in 2019.
“A lot of it’s needed,” he says. Dressing rooms are a bit old and dated which puts a lot of Victorian companies off. I’d just like to see the theatre more usable – anything that brings more people in.”
Schultz himself hardly goes to the theatre because he’s always working. He’s never desired to be on stage – “I was forced into it once … that was enough for me” – but instead gets his kicks from being behind the scenes.
“I’ve been in theatre since 1980/1981,” he says, now walking past the curtain backstage to get back to his office.
“My first job was in a travelling cabaret show. I’m an electrician by trade and they did a show in town, needed some lights fixed and they got to me and they said, ‘do you want to come on tour with us?’ I went ‘OK, sounds like fun’. That got me into the bug.
“I just love it. Every day is different.”
When he’s done everything he needs on his shift, he sits in his small office far behind the curtain, eating his dinner and watching the happenings on stage from an old screen above his computer.
Beneath it is another screen of the theatre’s rigging system. Does that mean he can always have his eyes on his work?
“Oh no,” he says.
“That’s just my screen saver.”
The State Government will commence a $32 million upgrade of Her Majesty’s Theatre in 2019, but the theatre is calling on the public to fundraise a further $3.2 million for the project. Donate via hermajestystheatre.org.au
MAJESTIC MEMORIES
A couple of the ambassadors of the Her Majesty’s Theatre Renewal Project share their standout memories of the theatre:
Todd McKenney
“I was working there in a play called ‘Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks’ with Nancye Hayes and after one matinee performance I opened the loading dock door to find a drunk man weeing on the back wheel of my car which was parked in the dock. I asked him to stop and he told me to p*** off. He kept going but moved his aim from the tyres to the entire driver’s side of my car. It was a little old convertible car and I’m just so glad I had the roof up.”
Greta Bradman
“My mum, Judith, used to go with her mum, dad and three siblings to Her Majesty’s Theatre when she was a child. Her dad (my papa) was an amateur classical singer and loved the music and mum remembers being the only children (there). They didn’t have a lot of money so it was testament to how much it meant to my Nana and Papa that they went along, really. When I was a child we too didn’t have a lot of expendable money to spend on shows and when we did see something it tended to be jazz given my dad was a jazz musician. However, to this day, I have an absolute obsession with the music from The Rocky Horror Show, thanks to a night back in the mid-’90s at Her Majesty’s – I think that was the first musical I ever saw. I fell in love with Her Majesty’s that night too, and the comforting, exotic mystique of a true ‘theatre’ experience. After that I went to a number of shows there such as Circus Oz, The Mikado, and Jesus Christ Superstar. More than any other Adelaide venue it gave the shows and the occasion a sense of grandeur, spectacle, and connection back to generations past.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Lauren Bacall reportedly refused to wear costume jewellery while starring in Sweet Bird of Youth in 1986. Adelaide Jewellers ended up supplying real jewels, which were worth a small fortune in those days and had to be specially insured. Bacall also demanded the use of a Rolls Royce only to turn it back at the airport because it was the wrong colour.
The famous Sir Ross and Sir Keith Kingsford-Smith were welcomed home with a party at Her Maj after their record-breaking 28 day flight from Britain to Australia in 1920. The local lads had made the first flight from England to Australia which was the longest flight in the world and the first time a plane from another country had ended its trip on Australian soil.
Count Ercole Filippini, the Italian-born baritone and grandfather of Paul Kelly, made his debut at the theatre in 1924 with his opera school, The South Australian Grand Opera Company.
During a broadcasted talent quest on May 4, 1940, 73-year-old widow Mrs Helen Martin collapsed and died in the wings after singing an emotional ballad, She who lost her son. In August the following year, a young Victorian boxer named Bren Parkinson died after being knocked out in a contest.
Barry Humphries debuted characters Edna Everage, Sandy Stone and several other characters at the theatre in 1965. Meanwhile, rising young tenor Luciano Pavarotti performed with the Sutherland-Williamson International Grand Opera Company.