‘The only major arts centre not to have one’: New QPAC CEO flags major change

New QPAC chief Rachel Healy is loving discovering the Brisbane arts scene and has plenty of ideas about new programming.

Rachel Healy at QPAC. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

She was, of course, a theatre kid, and like theatre kids everywhere can pinpoint the moment she fell hopelessly in love with the performing arts – for the record, seeing the musical Annie as a nine year old and longing to join those plucky orphans on stage – and for Rachel Healy it has proved to be a lifelong affair.

Healy, 56, is the new Queensland Performing Arts Centre chief executive (CE) taking over in December last year from John Kotzas, who had an impressive 30-year innings at QPAC, 15 of them as its CE.

She moved from Sydney with her partner, film and stage composer Alan John, 65, and daughter Miriam, 16, to take up the role. Her two sons Vincent, 20, and Frank, 19, remain interstate. And just a few months in, Healy has already become acquainted with our state’s own plucky, can-do attitude.

From her office deep within the labyrinth of QPAC, she recounts her recent introduction to Queensland’s idiosyncratic weather.

“On the weekend of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred when there was flooding and power outages, the cast of Sister Act, who were on the 27th floor of their hotel building in South Brisbane, experienced a power outage and their water was cut off. At that stage we were still open for the matinee performance, so there were real questions about whether they could do it, and it would have been completely understandable if they’d said no, given what they were experiencing,” Healy recalls.

“But no, they gathered together on the 27th floor and decided as a group that they would make their way down the stairwell, using their phone torches to do so, so they could make their way to QPAC where, happily, we had both power and water and they could make the performance happen.”

New Queensland Performing Arts Centre chief executive Rachel Healy. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Healy is clearly impressed by the effort – and by her new home town, delighting in getting to know its streetscapes, and particular brand of leafy beauty.

“I don’t think the rest of Australia knows how beautiful the suburbs of Brisbane are,” she says.

“When people talk about beautiful cities, they think Sydney – and Sydney Harbour is gorgeous – but it is the suburbs of Brisbane where people actually live their lives that are breathtakingly beautiful. I am telling everybody that Brisbane has more tree coverage than any other capital city in the country, and when you live here, you really experience that,’’ she says.

“And because there’s so many trees and they are so mature, you also have such a vast number of birds, I wake up to bird song. It just brings a little injection of joy into every day.”

Healy intends to do the same for Queensland’s performing arts community. Coming into the role as QPAC celebrates its 40th birthday this year, she has big plans for the beloved South Bank landmark, and brings the sort of cultural heft needed to deliver it.

Along with Neil Armfield, Healy served as joint artistic director of the Adelaide Festival from 2015 to 2022, and was curator of ideas and special events for the 2024 Vivid Sydney Festival. From 2011 to 2015 she was executive manager culture City of Sydney, and prior to that, served four years as director of performing arts for the Sydney Opera House, and 10 years as general manager of the acclaimed Belvoir St Theatre.

Rachel Healy & Alan John at the opening night of David Williamson's play Amigos at the Opera House in 2004. Picture: Robert Rosen

But despite this impressive resume, Healy doesn’t believe she has all the answers – instead she wants to ask all the questions.

“Coming into this role, for me it’s about what do we owe the people of Queensland?” she says.

“How do we serve the entire community, whether you are six months old or 96 years old? Is there a program for infants, for young people, for parents in their 30s, for grandparents?”

Healy is particularly passionate about creating “a very serious and year-round education program”. “We are the only major arts centre not to have one, this is not a tick and flick exercise, we have to create experiences that give kids, all kids, those lightning bolt moments that the arts can ignite in them. There are so many kids in Queensland who have not been here – and we want them all here.”

Rachel Healy and John Kotzas. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

To wit, Healy is bringing back the beloved Out of the Box under 8s children’s festival – after a seven year hiatus – running for eight days in June, across all venues. She’s also positioning QPAC to boast “one of the greatest cultural boulevards in the world”.

“It’s so incredibly exciting to be here at this time in QPAC’s long run,” she says.

“We have the 40th birthday celebrations coming up, we have the opening of its fifth (1500 seat) theatre, the space is unique, the river is amazing, allowing an indoor/outdoor cultural experience, and that talent here is exceptional also.”

And while her so-far brief tenure here has already seen QPAC present touring shows like Sister Act, Six, Grease, and magicians Penn & Teller, Healy has particularly enjoyed some homegrown productions.

“I’ve been really spoiled for choice since arriving here, but my favourite experience so far was attending the opening night of Queensland Theatre’s Pride and Prejudice directed by their new artistic director, Dan Evans.

“It was just a ‘joy bomb’ of a show. Dan had a really unique capacity to take a very beloved classic with all the tropes that you expect from Jane Austen and interweave really interesting contemporary moments, reference points and language, but not in a way that was ostentatious.

It was a new adaptation, but in really subtle and original ways,’’ she says.

“I think Dan is a really interesting talent, not just for Queensland, but for the country. And I also have to shout out to Camerata, Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra.

“I know Camerata because we programmed them when I was joint artistic director of the Adelaide Festival, so I knew how brilliant they were. Certainly seeing them as frequently as I can now in Brisbane is absolutely wonderful.

“I’m making incredible new discoveries here. I attended a Monday night recital of Ensemble Q and the experience was so beautiful and special. And I thought, this is a city that really cares about symphonic music and chamber music, and is really delivering the goods.

“I love to see these extraordinary ensembles touring Asia, touring Milan and London and Los Angeles and building a global name for themselves.”

Healy is very clearly a cheerleader, someone who is more than happy to shout someone else’s triumphs from the rooftops, and someone who cheerily admits that while she didn’t live out her own, early dreams of being a performer, she is thrilled to help others find their spotlight.

Born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Healy moved to Port Lincoln at three years old – a small fishing village on its Eyre Peninsula – with her parents Tim and Lois, and younger brother Simon.

Adelaide Festival artistic directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy at the 2022 program launch. Picture: Andrew Beveridge

“Dad was with the railways and mum was a teacher librarian, and when I was nine years old they took me to see Annie at the Adelaide Festival, and, well my head just exploded.”

Watching theatre royalty like Jill Perryman as Miss Hannigan and Hayes Gordon as Daddy Warbucks was Healy’s own “theatre lightning bolt experience”.

“It was my first show, and I just really wanted to be up there with the orphans who looked like they were having so much fun. After that I was very sure that I wanted to be on stage. I did drama lessons, course after course, I was involved with a young arts company which was invited to be a part of the Adelaide festival when I was 15, so that’s a bit of a full circle moment for me later,” she smiles.

Was she a triple threat? “Oh, I wasn’t even a single threat but, look, one tries,” she laughs.

“My parents, like most parents, wanted me to have ‘something to fall back on’. Everyone says you don’t want to be an actor, only one per cent make it, you spend your life waiting for the phone to ring, so after school I went to uni.”

Healy studied arts and law. She says while it was indeed something to fall back on, “it puts a distance between you and your original plan”.

“I think I lost that performance response you have when you do it all the time. So I lost my performance mojo, and my confidence.”

What Healy found instead, however, was a job as a theatre editor of her university’s student paper, and that proved to be the turnkey into what became her brilliant career.

“My first job out of university was with a national youth arts magazine based at the Youth Arts Centre in Adelaide, and the reason I got it instead of the journalism students was that I’d had that theatre editor job.

“The person who hired me thought ‘she’s interesting’, and I guess that was my first break into the arts and the one that taught me the importance of giving someone a shot.”

A year after she was hired, the editor left, and Healy took over the role, learning the business and financial side of producing an arts magazine, meeting contacts from all over the world, and beginning her ascent into the world of world class arts administration.

Not bad for a theatre kid. And how delightful that Healy, whose nine-year-old head “exploded” watching Annie, now resides in a state where there is every chance the sun really will come out tomorrow. ■