By Noel Towell
The once-humble high school musical is reaching new heights of expense, with some of Melbourne’s exclusive private academies spending more than $200,000 for a run of just six or seven shows.
Professional stage rigs, theatre hire and soaring licence fees for popular shows are pushing production budgets higher as some of the city’s upmarket private schools vie to upstage their rivals.
The cast of Sandringham College’s school production of Mary Poppins.Credit: Joe Armao
Business-savvy institutions increasingly use shows as marketing opportunities to attract new students, and parents increasingly expect quality productions, showbusiness insiders say.
But the traditional shoestring budget production is alive and well.
Sandringham College has proved with its recent sell-out production of Mary Poppins that you don’t need lavish spending to put on a hit.
Campus principal Vivienne McElwee declined to get specific about the production budget – money is always a delicate subject at government schools – but said that by selling out six nights at the college’s 302-seat auditorium at $30 for a full-price ticket, even with plenty of comps and concessions, the show will just about break even.
Emmaus College’s production of Little Women.Credit: James Terry Photography
Without the big production budgets of some nearby upmarket private schools, McElwee and teacher Laura Washington mobilise the bayside school’s community each year to ensure the show goes on.
“We are in-house, hands-on,” McElwee said.
“Our lighting and our sound technicians are alumni, they’re professionals who work for Front of House Productions, but they donate weeks of their time. We’ve got the Cheltenham Light Opera Company sewers who helped us [with costumes] this year because it’s such a big show.
“We have the parent community and of course, the college community, it’s all hands on deck.”
Backstage at Sandringham College’s production of Mary Poppins.Credit: Joe Armao.
McElwee, once a dancer before her teaching career, helped out with some of the show’s choreography.
Washington, who directed the 120-strong cast and crew, said that the steady stream of students moving into showbusiness careers from Sandringham’s strong performing arts program was an invaluable resource.
“We’re lucky that a lot of our students go on into industry, and they come back and share their skills with us. Our alumnus who’s doing hair and make-up has done a professional course and has come back to teach our kids how to do that.”
But there are some things that hard work and talent won’t cover, such as the cost of the licensing rights for Mary Poppins, worth several thousand dollars – the exact figure is undisclosed. Permissions have to be obtained from the Australian licenceholder and Disney in the US.
Licensing fees are just one factor driving up the production budgets of school musicals, with rights holders demanding upfront payments of several thousand dollars for some popular shows and royalties of up to 16 per cent of ticket sales.
But some of the city’s most exclusive private schools are willing and able to spend whatever it costs to upstage their rivals.
Not all schools are keen to offer a glimpse behind the scenes though. Performing arts powerhouse Wesley College, which stages six well-resourced musicals and four plays each year, using what it calls its “world-class production facilities”, declined to participate in this article.
Meanwhile, Jason Bovaird’s stage lighting company has been working with school shows for 17 years, starting out working with cardboard sets, which were prone to falling over mid-performance.
But now he says full professional stage rigs, mega-decks, and giant LED screens are not uncommon, with lighting budgets alone running to $35,000 and the price of professional sound engineering and set designs pushing production costs for shows by some of the wealthiest schools past $200,000.
“The development of these shows from back then to now is amazing,” Bovaird said.
“Now, I call them mini-Broadway productions. It’s about selling the school’s image. It’s a big marketing tool now.
“With a lot of our shows, there’ll be a Wednesday matinee with primary kids from the feeder schools coming. All of a sudden, you’ve got 400 year 7s who want to be in the school production.”
Bovaird says his work with school productions is also a chance to recruit new blood into an industry left short-handed by the departure of a generation of technicians in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
He says the students will often fall in love with the backstage craft through their high school musicals and pursue careers on the technical side of theatre.
“Right now, at the show we’re doing with Camberwell Primary, I’ve got two year 6s operating spot [lights]. They would have never got that opportunity.”
And it looks like more and more schools are getting stage-struck, with demand for Bovaird’s services only growing.
“I’m coming off the back of 18 school productions in the past three weeks,” he says. “The phone’s continually ringing, nonstop.”
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