Michael Cassel’s plan to get the theatre industry through the pandemic
Theatre powerhouse Michael Cassel has brought our favourite stage shows to life and is now focused on ensuring his industry recovers from its pandemic beating.
Sydney Weekend
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There is a lot Michael Cassel knows, and top billing is that the show will go on.
Don’t get him wrong. His industry, his performers, his work family have all taken a pandemic beating.
They’ve been stood down, they’ve been isolated, they’ve been ill. But they stood tall for their craft and, finally, things are looking up.
The powerhouse boss of the Michael Cassel Group, the company behind a glittering and long-running line-up of hit musicals, is reflecting as current production Hamilton hits the home stretch in Sydney before heading to Melbourne.
The award-winning musical has navigated an often rocky road since opening in March 2021 – the highs of standing ovations and accolades in stark contrast to the lows of lockdowns and uncertainty about whether the show could finish its run.
But speaking earlier this month Cassel is undeniably proud of how the company stuck to the script.
“Last Wednesday night was the first night we’ve had Hamilton back in the building since December 23 and to be back in the building was emotional for everybody,” he says.
“We’d had people who had been sick and everybody had New Year’s plans turned upside down but to go and take your seat and watch that show with a full house – that audience was remarkable. That’s what makes them all worthwhile.
“I said to everybody today, it’s remarkable what we get to do. At the moment it’s exhausting but the pay-off is when it works, it’s tremendous, and we get to be a part of that.
“You can’t be naive because we’re living in an environment where there is so much turbulence right now, but we have to keep creating and we have to keep moving forward, otherwise we may as well pack up and go home, and what would we all do then?
“Our job is to manage the risk as best we can, look after our people who breathe life into our shows, take care of our audience and chart a course forward and create.
“Because when this all goes away, and eventually it will, we want to be creating and producing more and more shows. That’s why we do what we do.”
Support for the theatre during Covid pandemic
It’s been a tough slog. A gruelling fight to keep shows on stage and provide performers with a creative outlet.
Covid changed everything, and Cassel should know. He was among the first Aussies to get it, caught from Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks or his wife Rita Wilson no less.
But even through the darkest times, Cassel knew theatre had to come back. For everyone’s sake.
“When everything first hit back in March of 2020 we had closed Lion King, which was our first show to be impacted because it was (due to) open in Wuhan as part of the international tour, so that was like the epicentre of the pandemic,” he recalls.
“Soon after we were closing Harry Potter (in Melbourne) and battening down the hatches trying to protect the company.
“We had some lay-offs which were tremendously sad. There was a moment where I thought ‘every professional waking moment has been spent trying to produce and build this company and contribute to the industry and in one foul swoop everything has been taken away’.
“This is our livelihood and it’s the livelihood of all of those hundreds of people that we’re responsible for, and there was a moment where I thought, ‘is it going to come back?’
“But that was for a moment. You have to be a wide-eyed optimist, and I am an optimist.
“I immediately went into the position with the team saying, ‘what we have to do is navigate a path forward’.
“And if this is what we’re dealing with, our job is to support the people who work for us, the people who are stood down on Harry Potter and Lion King, and are preparing to turn up for Hamilton.
“Number two was to make sure that we advocate and support the industry, and we spent a lot of time doing that because I felt that if the industry was to rebound and get the government support we needed, then we have to be part of those conversations.
“Now we’ve had a few stop-starts, but that motivation hasn’t changed.
“We have to push forward, otherwise the alternative is to shut down for a period of time and certainly that’s not in my nature and I don’t think that is the right thing to do given the role we play in the industry.
“Nothing can replace that live experience of sitting in a dark theatre, watching an incredibly talented company, both onstage and behind the scenes, breathe life into these incredible stories.
“That’s why I think the demand for live entertainment and theatre will always be there and will return with greater excitement when things continue to settle, and we appreciate that more because it was taken away for a period of time.”
The thrill of live theatre
He’s right. Demand is great, as culture and crowd-deprived audiences crave the experience that can never be found in the lounge room.
Cassel has Hamilton in Sydney’s Lyric Theatre until the end of February when it heads to Melbourne, the same city that’s showing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in all its two-part glory until March before it reopens as a one-parter in May.
He’s also got The Lion King International Tour in South Korea kicking off after a few delays and later, in May, the focus will be back in Sydney as Mary Poppins moves on to the Lyric stage.
The company is also touring comedian Celeste Barber nationally but it’s the original work that comes from a blank piece of paper that excites Cassel the most.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the focus of our business will always be theatre and the shift in the company will be much more of a balance between producing existing productions and creating our own,” he says.
“It’s why you work in theatre, to be involved in that creative process and start with a blank piece of paper and try and nurture these ideas.”
Cassel’s team is on the hunt for new talents and emerging voices to give audiences the next ‘big thing’.
“When everything closed, we turned our attention to what has always been an ambition of mine and the company, and that’s to create new stories and be part of that creative process,” he says.
“We rolled up our sleeves and jumped into that wholeheartedly and started commissioning authors, writers and composers to go and find the next great musical theatre and create that from the ground up and that’s really exciting.”
Heading to Broadway
They already have two shows ready to go in the US. Trading Places will have its world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in May, directed by Tony Award-winning Broadway director Kenny Leon.
“That’s hugely exciting because we get to watch this show evolve. It is something that we’ve been nurturing for most of last year, and it’s a stepping stone hopefully in what I hope will be a long life for that production,” Cassel says.
“It’s an incredible creative team and a great story.
“And the second show, which we’re also lead producing is the production of Almost Famous.
“Again we’ve got an incredible team.
“Cameron Crowe from the film has written the book for the stage musical. The cast is all together and we are going to do a workshop at the end of February. I’m flying over for that, which I’m excited about because it’s my first trip overseas since December 2019.”
All going well, the plan is that Almost Famous will open on Broadway in the second half of this year and, if successful, both new shows will come to Australia.
“That’s our intention, so we are currently in active conversations with theatre owners and making a plan,” he says.
“I wrote to all of our cast and our crew and all of our staff today to say that already 2022 has proved to be as challenging as what ’21 had been, but there are so many exciting things that we’re creating and we’re a part of.
“Provided we just continue to make the right decisions and look after one another, we will keep creating.
“That’s our job.”
Letter to a legend
So much more than a job, producing has been Cassel’s calling for 30 years and he’s only 41. The husband of Camille and father of Vaughn, 7, and Eveleigh, 11, always knew he wanted to be a producer, even as an impressionable 12 year old growing up in Kiama on the glorious NSW south coast.
He remembers the exact moment he knew. It was a message from Jesus Christ himself – Jesus Christ the Superstar, that is.
“I’d initially thought I wanted to be a performer, but it was seeing Jesus Christ Superstar and getting the program and reading it literally word for word, cover to cover. That was the first time, realising there is this role of producer,” he says.
“I thought, ‘wow, that sounds like a cool job and that’s what I want to be’. There was something innate in it because you can be creative, and it sounded like the producer was involved in every aspect, which caught my attention.
“So I was 12 and wrote to (legendary producer) Harry M. Miller.
“I wrote, ‘Dear Harry, I am in Year 6 at Minnamurra Primary School. Can you give me a job? I want to be a producer.’
“And he wrote, ‘Dear Michael, I suggest you go to high school first and pursue your studies and good luck’.
“From that moment on, by hook or by crook, I wanted to be a producer.
“And so I started writing. I love writing and still love writing to people and meeting people and learning. I know it seems crazy, but I was determined to make that happen.”
He wrote to many more people over the next few years, and when no one would give a 15 year old a job, he created his own.
“I was doing amateur theatre and youth theatre productions in Kiama and I was going into Year 9 in January of ’95 and I thought, ‘I’m just going to have to write my own shows because nobody’s going to give me a job.’
“So I announced to my parents that I was going to go produce a carols by candlelight.
“I thought there was market demand because everybody loves Christmas. What could possibly go wrong?
“So I started on that journey and it turned out rather well.
“We had a great cast which I assembled from the community. Jesse Spencer from Neighbours came and performed, we had sponsorship from the Illawarra Mercury (newspaper) and I had also convinced radio heavyweight Alan Jones to come and host the show.”
Jones was one of the many people he’d written to but he was very careful never to say his age, so he would be taken seriously.
“I’d send them the formal letter and the proposal about either sponsoring or participating and I knew never to tell anybody that I was a school kid. So part of what I enjoyed was getting these responses and then you’d have to go to a meeting and bloody hell, they were meeting with a 15 year old.
“So Alan Jones turned up and he was a bit shocked but said, ‘Michael, what do you want to be when you finish school?’ I said I wanted to be a producer and he said ‘Michael, you need to meet the best producer in this country, Harry M. Miller’. I said, ‘Well, Mr Jones, I’ve already written to Mr Miller several years ago and he told me, no, go to high school’ and Alan said, ‘Well, let me sort that out’.”
So at Jones’s introduction, the 15-year-old Cassel met Miller at his Waterloo office, and soon after began catching the train from Minnamurra to Kings Cross, spending his school holidays doing work experience with the theatre great.
“So they were my school holidays pretty much from Year 10 through Year 12, and I thought it was just the best thing. Following Year 12, Harry offered me a job full time, so that was the start of my professional career.”
Family love of theatre
Picking a favourite show would be like picking a favourite child but every one represents moments in time, tied to life events he’ll never forget. Such as the birth of his son.
“Jesus Christ Superstar will always have a special place in my heart obviously and Lion King will always be incredibly special in my life. It was the first show I got to work on in any capacity and the start of my career at Disney, which was my training ground in being a producer and learning from the very best in the world,” he says.
“Everything has an association. My son was born the day of our opening of Les Mis in Perth so he will always be tied to that. Daughter Eveleigh was obsessed with Kinky Boots so there was no greater joy than when she and Cyndi Lauper were bonding at Kinky Boots in Melbourne.
“But then, you know, Harry Potter, Hamilton … it’s hard to choose favourites. They are all markers of a moment in time.”
The Cassel kids love the theatre and knowing how much their dad loves his work helps make it easier to understand when work consumes their lives.
“I want them to know that I go to work because I love it,” Cassel says.
“Because it’s what takes you away. The weekends and holidays missed and all that travel. But what I love is that they know how much I love it and how special it is, and I want them to be a part of it.
“And they are. The kids are number one ambassadors for Hamilton, they can speak every word.
“Tomorrow we are all flying down to Melbourne as a family to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, because the deal was that we wanted Vaughn to read all the books with us before he saw the show and we just finished, so that’s very exciting.
“Every time I’m in the theatre, thinking back to that first time seeing Superstar, or my first time seeing Hamilton and just last year I saw the most incredible production, The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Sydney Theatre Company, which we are now working on for an international tour.
“It’s those moments where you’re sitting in a theatre going, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m experiencing this live’.
“That’s what we want to do, that’s what I love but I have to fall in love with a show to be passionate about it.
“When I walked out of Kinky Boots for the first time, I just wanted to be involved. If you have to produce a show, if you have to market and sell a show, you have to want to live and breathe it.
“These aren’t just commodities or a mere transaction.
“It is the creativity involved and the passion you need to have that level of investment, and that level of ownership.
“It’s hard to make great art and make great theatre, but it’s about being part of the process and hopefully getting it right.”
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