Peter Cousens' Kookaburra: The National Musical Theatre Company was an Australian theatre company dedicated to musical theatre. Launched in 2006, with its first production Pippin in 2007, it collapsed in late 2008.
It was founded by Australian musical theatre performer Peter Cousens in 2006 and received high profile support from many luminaries of the Australian stage, the Australian Federal government and a variety of businesses. Throughout its short career it was plagued by troubles, including low box office figures and cancelled productions, and caused international controversy when Stephen Sondheim demanded an apology and threatened to remove rights after major cuts were made to Company when an actor with no understudy could not perform. It collapsed in 2008, and officially folded in March 2009, with thousands of dollars owing to creative staff and $1.6 million in debt. Although Peter Cousens credited the company's downfall to the "global financial crisis", many people involved in the company and in the industry cited severe mismanagement.
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or theatre:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)