It's a chilly Monday morning in early August and Daniel Stoddart is alone in his office on the top floor of Very Popular Theatre Company's headquarters on Fern Street, Islington. Login or signup to continue reading The space heater is doing its best, and Daniel's wearing a snug jumper. He closes the door to keep the heat in, but the black brick walls in the space atop a converted warehouse are signalling that warmth is a stranger.
Our conversation is brisk, like the morning air, covering the history of his theatre business (Hunter Drama, The Very Popular Theatre Company, Oz Theatrics and Stoddart Entertainment Group) and the details of his latest production, Mary Poppins , which opens at the Civic Theatre in October. I've been briefed that Stoddart's budget for the Mary Poppins production is over a million dollars, and I finally pose the question, "Doesn't risk alarm you?". Stoddart's response is off the cuff.
"It's a fraught business," he says. "I don't know if I'm cut out for it. I don't know if I should be doing it.
I don't know if I'm the right person who should be taking these horrible risks. "Just this morning I was saying to [his wife] Hayley, 'I don't think I want to do this any more' because we just did School of Rock two weeks ago and that show lost us $70,000, which is horrible. Superstars , which we did at the Civic Theatre earlier this year, that lost us $40,000.
Billy Elliot last year lost us $40,000 to $50,000. And it's just getting so stressful. "Riding these highs and lows, you actually feel like some neurotic person who should be seeking some serious help in terms of how to manage this.
But it is so stressful. "The pressure of having to pull these things together and watching those ticket sales clock along every day. Some days you might only sell 12 tickets.
Other days ticket sales might spike. When we first put Mary Poppins on sale we were doing 250 tickets a day. But then you go into this no man's land and you're looking at a budget.
Having sold 10,000 tickets, to the average punter they're going, 'Look at the Stoddarts, they're rolling in cash, they 'll be, like, booking personal cruises to the Bahamas at the end of this show'. "But we know the background, not only is Mary Poppin s not at break-even point yet, but we're at $200,000 trying to catch up from all of these other projects. Plus we have a national tour happening next year.
"The thrill of performing and putting these shows out there and sharing these ...
giving audiences the opportunity to sit in a theatre and be told a story and be transported and forget about their own stresses in their own lives is an extraordinary privilege and one that brings the highs of emotional elation and tears of pride, but tears are often prompted by the desperation of not selling tickets - it's awful sometimes." Mary Poppins has all the signs of a winner for the Stoddart Entertainment Group. The 1964 musical comedy film produced by Walt Disney was a huge hit in its day, based on the PL Travers series of Mary Poppins books about a magical nanny.
The film starred Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke as Bert the chimney sweep. The suite of songs composed by the Sherman brothers (Richard and Robert) became etched in the minds of an entire generation - among them Chim Chim Cher-ee , A Spoonful of Sugar , A Step in Time , Let's Go Fly a Kite and Super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious . The legend of that success, combined with the fact it's celebrating its 60 th anniversary, has sparked a high level of interest.
The show's run at the Civic Theatre has just been extended by five shows, for a total of 16 shows from October 5 to 20. Stoddart's budget for the show is $1.2 million.
Marketing and advertising costs are around $250,000; costumes (200 needed for the show, which has a cast of 46), all made locally, will run about $70,000; the venue rental will be more than $200,000; the set budget (all being made locally) is $250,000. The show includes an orchestra of 13 and another 40 stagehands. Stoddart has been building his personal and business reputation for theatre in Newcastle for more than 20 years.
That's no easy task - the "tall poppy" syndrome is alive and well in Newcastle just like the rest of Australia. But he's stayed the distance, and grown and learned along the way. His business, Hunter Drama, provides classes to an average of 700 students a week in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Cessnock, Maitland and Singleton.
It also produces live theatre. The Very Popular Theatre Company became an extension, producing plays for adults, particularly the young adults who have moved beyond Hunter Drama, which is for teens and younger. Oz Theatrics has been another successful Stoddart investment, which is the production company for Junior Theatre Festival Australia, an annual gathering of students, workshops and theatre professionals focused on musical theatre.
His umbrella company, Stoddart Entertainment Group, is now moving to the fore, with a focus on operating national touring shows. Stoddart expects to announce before the end of the year a 15-venue Australian and New Zealand tour in 2025 for a long-running London West End play (including two weeks in Newcastle). And thus, it's not surprising Stoddart is investing in creating a high-end version of Mary Poppins , and even more impressive, he is doing it all with skilled Newcastle artisans and crafts people.
"The set design, it needs to do stuff," he says. "It needs to have lights built into the set in particular ways, it needs to do particular things. It needs to have trap doors that are hidden.
It needs to have actors being able to fly and look as though they are not on flying cables, things like that. The set design, it needs to do stuff. It needs to have lights built into the set in particular ways, it needs to do particular things.
It needs to have trap doors that are hidden. It needs to have actors being able to fly and look as though they are not on flying cables, things like that. "You need to project smoke coming out of areas you don't expect the smoke to come out.
There are chimney stacks that move around the stage without cords and cables that still need to have smoke coming out of the chimney stacks." Put bluntly, he says, "Essentially it is custom building each and every thing. There's no sort of blueprint.
Every item needs its own production meeting and check-in point." He ventures there is probably no place outside of the capital cities in Australia that has the resources to create this set besides Newcastle. As for the actors, it's not surprising that Stoddart (who is the producer and director of the show) would give the male and female leads to up-and-comers who have never had such major roles.
For the part of Bert, Stoddart has chosen Max Howard, a 19-year-old Newcastle performer with a strong dance background. "It's a really difficult role to cast," Stoddart says of Bert. "Every role has its challenges.
We had difficulty casting Frankie Valli when we did Jersey Boys . We had difficulty casting Billy Elliot in Billy Elliot . "The role of Bert, it's a character that's meant to showcase somebody's ability to dance really, really well, and to have that young knockabout iconic larrikinism.
Finding somebody that can tap dance circles around every other person in the room, and sing, and have that really lovable, fresh, youthful exuberance is really tricky. Max, I think this is his time to step up. "It's a little bit risky because he's never done anything of this scale before.
The role of Mary and the role of Bert, they really need to stand on stage and hold the weight of the show on their shoulders. They need to command the space, they need to have every one of the 1400 eyeballs in the theatre staring at them, not being able to take their eyes off them." Stoddart remembers his own humble beginnings - way, way back, as he honestly admits: "I was involved in StarStruck as a puppet.
I started doing that at Speers Point Primary, in a group called Puppets in Motion. We used to go around to all the little street fairs, like the Boolaroo Bonanza and the Wallsend Winter Street Fair and all those things, and I'd dress up as Wally the Wombat and march down the main street." Fast forward to his start in serious theatre.
"I remember back in the day, when I was the same age as Max, and there was a producer in this city that gave me a run," Stoddart says. "His name was Phil Collins. He saw me in a production of Grease at the Civic Theatre.
I was 21 at the time, and he saw me in the role of Danny Zuko , and Phil said, 'I want you to write and produce Newcastle's next big musical event'. "And Ultra Swing Lounge came out of that, which played for years and years in Newcastle and toured the country. "I was not that much older than Max.
And having somebody like that take a chance on me, I would not be doing what I am doing now had it not been for that person taking a chance on me at the time." The role of Mary Poppins was won by Felicity Beale, a National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) graduate from the Central Coast. "There was never any doubt it was going to be her," Stoddart says.
"Right age. Right height. Right firm gentleness that Mary needs to have.
Mary has to control the Banks family, with a sparkle in her eye. Her chemistry with Max was lovely." Despite the sleepless nights and financial worries, it's clear Stoddart is far from surrendering to the pressure of creating live theatre.
"One minute you can be going, 'This is the best feeling in the world'. But other days, it's like, 'Why on earth are we doing this," he says. "But, you would never change it .
.. the adrenaline is very addictive.
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