It’s 1.30pm on a sunny Tuesday in April and about 30 people are filing into the Hayes Theatre in Sydney’s Potts Point. Inside, 11 casually dressed actors, including several with faces familiar to Australian stage and television audiences, are stretching, sipping water and taking their seats at tables set up in a semi-circle on the stage.

As the lights dim and the actors begin reading from a thick A4 script, two men in the second row are watching carefully. One is Michael Cassel, the Sydney producer who, with the help of most of the rest of the people in the theatre today, has just launched Hamilton in Sydney. The other is Glenn Wheatley, the veteran talent manager and entertainment industry player.