Brett Sheehy

In 2014 MTC toured its production of Rupert, David Williamson's satirical bio-play about the life of Rupert Murdoch, to Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Sheehy's 2014 program also included the second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre; the first stage-play by Australian film and television artists Working Dog Productions The Speechmaker; MTC's co-presentation of musical Once with Gordon Frost Organisation; and a regional tour of its education production Yellow Moon. 2014 also saw MTC's first mainstage multi-artform production, with dance ensemble Chunky Move, of Falk Richter and Anouk van Dijk's Complexity of Belonging which opened the 2014 Melbourne Festival and opens the Spring Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands in early 2015, followed by seasons at Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris.

For the opening weekend of Sheehy's final Melbourne Festival program he returned to an artist from the Sydney Festival's Came So Far For Beauty concerts, Antony Hegarty, and presented the Museum of Modern Art commission Swanlights – a musical artwork created by Antony, Chris Levine and Carl Robertshaw with 44-piece orchestra, based on the Antony and the Johnsons album of the same name. The production Swanlights had been presented one other night previously, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. For the Melbourne presentations Antony was joined by Boy George, who also appeared at the 2012 Melbourne Festival Hub. Other featured international artists that year were The Forsythe Company, Akram Khan Company, the Schaubühne of Berlin, Michel van der Aa, Thurston Moore, Billy Bragg, Lee Ranaldo, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Gob Squad, Nilaja Sun, THEESatisfaction, Hahn-Bin, Tim Fain, Duo Amal, Santiago Sierra and Gregory Crewdson.

At Melbourne Theatre Company, Sheehy's inaugural season in 2013 included MTC's first presentation of an international West End production (with Arts Centre Melbourne), the Royal National Theatre's One Man, Two Guvnors; Australia's first festival of independent theatre NEON; the first stage-play by singer, songwriter, author and actor Eddie Perfect; the MTC debut of director Simon Stone; film and stage actor David Wenham in The Crucible; the family production The Book of Everything; the Company's inaugural Women Directors Program; and the inaugural MTC CONNECT Diverse Artists Program with Multicultural Arts Victoria. This resulted in MTC's highest box office in its 60-year history, with attendances of 263,000 and 19,800 subscribers, the largest theatre subscriber base in Australia. The Age newspaper's end-of-year editorial claimed the 2013 program was jointly responsible (with National Gallery of Victoria's 2013 program) for Melbourne's cultural renaissance in that year.

In 2012 the second highest civilian honour in Australia, Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), was awarded to Sheehy. With this appointment he became one of the few Australians to have received a national honours citation for distinguished service to both artistic disciplines of the 'performing arts' and the 'visual arts'.

Sheehy's 2011 Melbourne Festival broke box office records for that festival's 27-year history and the four Melbourne Festivals directed by him featured the Australian debuts of Ivo van Hove and Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Sasha Waltz and Guests, the National Theatre Company of China, Emmanuel Jal, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and Sebastian Nübling, Calder Quartet, Fischerspooner, Pan Pan Theatre, Brain Failure, Caroline Stein, Stigmata, Hofesh Shechter Company, Beans, Peeping Tom Collective, Maxim Rysanov, James Rhodes, Isango Portobello Ensemble, Ramallah Underground, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Quartetthaus, and the sculptural works of Russian art collective AES+F. In Melbourne Sheehy also programmed his first composer-in-residence suite of works, with British composer Thomas Adès, as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra (hosting the Orchestra's Patron HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent). These and other classical music presentations were in counterpoint to Sheehy's contemporary music programs, curated with Hannah Fox and Tom Supple, mostly staged at Melbourne's historic Forum Theatre. International and national music artists performed in genres as diverse as post-rock, noise rock, psychedelic jazz-hop, R&B funk-rap, synthpop, electroclash and extreme metal, with geographic surveys from Palestinian hip-hop to Chinese indie rock, hardcore and punk to Sri Lankan heavy metal.

In February 2011 Sheehy was appointed Artistic Director and CEO of Melbourne Theatre Company, to succeed Simon Phillips.

At Melbourne Festival, the commissioning and presentation of the three premiere productions of Dirtsong (2009), Seven Songs to Leave Behind (2010) and Notes From the Hard Road And Beyond (2011) by the Indigenous music ensemble The Black Arm Band were significant events, directed by Steven Richardson. The first was a celebration of preservation of Indigenous languages with Miles Franklin Award-winner Alexis Wright; the second an international collaboration by contemporary Indigenous singers and musicians including the legendary Gurrumul Yunupingu joined by Sinéad O'Connor, John Cale, Rickie Lee Jones and Meshell Ndegeocello; and the third saw Mavis Staples, Joss Stone, Emmanuel Jal and Paul Dempsey join The Black Arm Band to celebrate protest music from the 1960s through to contemporary Indigenous songs of activism.

The 2009 Melbourne Festival saw a 55% increase in the festival's economic impact on the city of Melbourne, with his subsequent Festival programs growing that figure by another 41% to $39.5 million, resulting in an overall increase of 120% (independent figures by Roy Morgan Research and Sweeney Research). The Age newspaper claimed that in 2009 the Festival "regained much of the tensile strength it lost in recent years (with a program which) made this year's festival special and so beguiling."

In 2008 Sheehy was appointed Artistic Director and co-CEO of the annual Melbourne Festival (then the Melbourne International Arts Festival) where he directed the 2009 to 2012 Festivals. His predecessors in the position included Gian Carlo Menotti, Academy Award winner John Truscott, Sir Jonathan Mills and Robyn Archer.

The reception of the 2006 Festival was positive. Australian media claimed Sheehy had restored Adelaide Festival's status as the preeminent arts festival of Australia. The Murdoch News Limited press headlined "Festival Back As Best In Nation", and the Fairfax Media echoed these sentiments. The subsequent 2008 Festival broke box office and attendance records for Adelaide Festival's 48-year history, and was claimed to have been the world's first carbon-neutral international arts festival, achieved in concert with the South Australian Government.

One of Sheehy's first Adelaide Festival productions was the Festival's co-commission Here Lies Love by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) which premiered as a song cycle in Adelaide on 10 March 2006. A concert version was later performed at Carnegie Hall and it was then developed into a rock musical premiering at The Public Theater in New York in 2013, and opening at the Royal National Theatre in London in October 2014.

Other features of his Adelaide programs included the Australian debut of the Schaubühne of Berlin (see Festival milestones below), the pairing of Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem, the creation of the Northern Lights installation, The Persian Garden venues and clubs, the reconstitution of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, DV8 Physical Theatre's To Be Straight With You, Pat Metheny, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Indian version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (presented with Ian Scobie's Arts Projects Australia), Jonathan Dove's opera Flight, Osvaldo Golijov's opera Ainadamar (which won two Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Opera Recording) and the multi-gallery Video Venice survey featuring highlights of the 2005 Venice Biennale.

In 2005 Sheehy was named by The Australian Financial Review Magazine as one of the 20 Australians to be watched for their impact on society up to the year 2020, and in 2007 he was named by ABC's Limelight magazine as one of the five most influential arts figures in Australia, an attribution repeated in 2011 when The Australian Financial Review Magazine named him as one of Australia's five leading arts identities – with then-Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean, National Gallery of Victoria Director Tony Ellwood, actor Cate Blanchett and Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron.

The co-commissioning of both the 2004/5 production of The Black Rider (starring Marianne Faithfull and then Nigel Richards) for Sydney Festival and the 2005/6 production of Here Lies Love (with David Byrne himself performing) for Adelaide Festival, meant that these festivals staged the Australian debuts of the music-theatre works of Tom Waits, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook). Another of Sheehy's international co-commissions was the 2007/8 production of Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing. Sheehy's Adelaide Festival and Melbourne Festival programs in particular featured international contemporary operas, and the 2009 Melbourne Festival co-commissioned Rufus Wainwright's first opera production Prima Donna, but to date it has not been presented in Australia.

In 2003 Sheehy was appointed Artistic Director of the then-biennial Adelaide Festival to succeed Stephen Page following Page's 2004 Festival. Previous Adelaide Festival directors had included Sir Robert Helpmann; Anthony Steel; George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood; Barrie Kosky; Robyn Archer and Peter Sellars. Sheehy directed the 2006 and 2008 Adelaide Festivals.

Sheehy's four Sydney Festivals (2002 to 2005) included 37 world premieres, saw the festival double its box office attendances, posted four successive financial surpluses, recorded a 30% increase in attendances to free outdoor events, established satellite festival precincts at Fox Studios Australia and in Greater Sydney, developed a following in the 18 to 35 age group, was voted Sydney's Best and Most Popular Event by the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, and was twice named the Best Event in New South Wales (2003 and 2005) by NSW Tourism (since renamed Destination NSW).

In 2002 Sheehy was painted by artist Paul Newton for the Archibald Prize, with the painting subsequently being a finalist in the 2004 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the richest portrait prize in the world. Sheehy was again painted for the Archibald Prize in 2012 by artist Caroline Thew.

In 1995 Sheehy left STC to become Administrator of Sydney Festival (Sydney's international arts festival, and Australia's largest arts festival) under the leadership of Anthony Steel and in 1997 became Deputy Director to Steel's successor, Leo Schofield. Sheehy completed four Sydney Festivals as Schofield's deputy (1998 to 2001) and succeeded Schofield as Festival Director and CEO in February 2001.

Sheehy's partner, since August 1994, is chef Steven Nicholls.

In 1991 Sheehy was involved in challenging the automatic attribution of world-wide English-speaking rights in American plays to US producers, which could prevent their presentation in Australia for several years following their Broadway premieres.

Willsteed, T. & Sheehy, B. (eds.) (1989) Sydney Theatre Company 1978 to 1988, Focus Books ISBN 1 875 359 001

Sheehy's former partner, medical practitioner Dr Paul Weber, suicided in the early hours of 28 May 1989. Weber left a message on Sheehy's phone indicating he was about to take his own life. Sheehy and Richard Wherrett, who had both been working at a preview performance of Sydney Theatre Company's Romeo and Juliet at the Sydney Opera House that night, together found Weber's body. Weber's medical practice had been devoted almost exclusively to treating AIDS patients, and the consistent loss of his patients' lives drove Weber into deep depression. While Sheehy has only twice publicly alluded to the events of that night, Wherrett described them in some detail in his autobiography The Floor of Heaven.

While at STC, Sheehy is credited with helping give Sydney the now often-used moniker and nickname of 'Emerald City' by suggesting this as the title for playwright David Williamson's 1987 play about the city, which Williamson accepted, adding a line of dialogue "The Emerald City of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves." The play Emerald City was produced nationally and later toured to the West End in London.

In Sydney, Sheehy became a theatre critic for the now defunct Sydney City Express newspaper and in late 1984 joined the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) under the stewardship of Richard Wherrett. At STC he held various positions over a ten-year period including Artistic Associate, Literary Manager and Deputy General Manager, and he was dramaturg of a dozen productions.

Despite several family members' legal background, Sheehy completed only three years of his law studies and his articled clerkship at Short, Punch & Greatorix Solicitors on Queensland's Gold Coast, before abandoning law and moving to Sydney in 1983.

As a boy, Sheehy lived with a third uncle, property developer Rick O'Sullivan, and his family on several occasions when Sheehy's mother endured lengthy illnesses. O'Sullivan was co-owner of the racehorse Think Big which won the Melbourne Cup in 1974 and 1975.

Sheehy was educated at St. Joseph's Christian Brothers College, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane and then at University of Queensland where he studied arts/law. Several of his family have been involved in law and public service in Queensland. His grandfather Sir Joseph Sheehy KBE served as Senior Puisne Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court, as Administrator of the State of Queensland in 1965 and 1969, and as Deputy Governor and Acting Governor.

Brett Joseph Sheehy AO (born 23 November 1958) is an Australian artistic director, producer and curator. He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC), and is the only person to be appointed to direct three of the five international arts festivals in Australia's State capital cities being Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and Melbourne Festival.