Richard Stone recounts a series of individual stories brought to light by theatregoers’ surviving collections of programs and other memorabilia Performing on stage or sitting in the dress circle are just two variations on how people may participate in theatre. Creators such as performers, writers, directors, designers etc, tend to dominate public consciousness of the stage. However, without an audience on the other side of the footlights where would they be?
One person whose theatre-going resembled a serious career was Harry Sharp. Between 1884 and 1910 Harry went to the theatre in Sydney on at least 150 occasions. In 1884, Harry was a 22-year-old picture framer and gilder living in Leichhardt, in inner Sydney, with Ada his wife of just 12 months. Five years later Harry and a growing family moved to Denham Court, 40 kilometres south-west of Sydney, establishing a successful orchard. Harry visited the city to sell his quality fruit to selected shops and continued his patronage of Sydney’s theatres. Most importantly he kept the programs of the attractions he saw. Harry died in 1939. The programs survived, albeit through benign neglect by later generations. Re-discovered in 1992, they were used by family historian Bernarr P. Sloan in a book on his ancestors, which included the Sharp family—Convicts, Currency Folk and Chance (1993). Harry Sharp’s programs are in the National Library’s collection of Australian performing arts programs and ephemera, known as the PROMPT collection. The Sharp collection has been kept intact, providing both a document of one family’s theatregoing and a snapshot of popular theatre in Sydney over a period of nearly 20 years. Harry Sharp was not a performer, although he was apparently a very good ballroom dancer. His theatrical tastes were eclectic, ranging from Wagner’s operas to vaudeville at Rickards’ Tivoli theatre, from Shakespearean tragedies to Australian melodramas such as Breaking of the Drought, and Robbery Under Arms. The actor-manager was flourishing with companies headed by such stellar luminaries as Bland Holt, Charles Arnold, William Anderson, Wilson Barrett, George Rignold and the great English actor Henry Beerbohm Tree. As well, the period marked the emergence of J.C. Williamson as a major entrepreneur, a phenomenon which was to dominate Australian theatre for nearly 100 years.
The Sharp program collection reflects the passion of a theatregoer from the auditorium side of the footlights. The National Library receives many theatre programs from generous theatregoers, dating from all eras and covering all performing arts genres. Most programs are added individually to enrich the files in the PROMPT collection, one of the largest collections of Australian theatre programs in the country. Harry Sharp’s collection is, however, special because its provenance endows it with a unity and relevance which demanded that it be kept together. There are a small number of similar collections which reflect the crucial role of theatregoers as well as the careers of performers—the other side of the footlights. As Harry Sharp was enjoying Moorish Revels at the Tivoli or the spectacular pantomime The Geisha, a violinist named T.J. Buckland was busy performing with orchestras in Melbourne and attending concerts and recitals. His collection includes a scrapbook as well as dozens of loose, individual programs. It documents Buckland’s several careers—as performer, administrator, and audience member. His musical activities cover a wide span of 40 years from about 1880 to 1925. Buckland was heavily involved in the North Suburban Choral Union based in Essendon, an inner northern suburb of Melbourne playing in the Union’s orchestra as well as working on its committee. He undertook similar roles with the Essendon Musical Society whose list of patrons included Alfred Deakin. Buckland also kept up with the musical life of Melbourne; much of it performed on an amateur basis. He was involved with the Musical Society of Victoria and attended performances by kindred societies such as the Melbourne Liedertafel, the Metropolitan Liedertafel, the Musical Union of Australasia, the Lyric Orchestra and the Melbourne Philharmonic Society. Buckland witnessed many important figures on the Melbourne classical music scene, some of them at the beginning of important careers. For instance, there are programs in the collection featuring a ‘Mrs. Armstrong, The Charming Soprano’ which document the first public professional appearances in 1884 and 1885 of a young singer who soon moved to Europe and changed her name to Nellie Melba. These programs are rarities in their own right and enrich the Library’s significant Melba holdings. However, they ‘live’ in the Buckland collection as part of the snapshot of Melbourne’s musical culture at the turn of the 19th century as witnessed through the eyes and ears of one busy individual.
The Buckland collection also indicates the extent to which orchestras, choirs and soloists performed at a wide range of social and local community events including churches, Masonic functions, benevolent societies, sporting clubs, hospitals, launches and occasions of patriotic glory such as the Gordon Memorial Concert (1885) and For the Flag (1916). A similar pattern can be seen in another collection, one which continues the narrative of twentieth-century musical life in Australia. Frank Forrest was born in St Peters, a Sydney suburb, in 1902. He was apprenticed as a fitter and turner at the age of 15 and completed a trades course in 1921. A tenor, the teenage Frank sang as a hobby with glee clubs and at the Tempe Park Methodist Church. Encouraged by a church minister he began singing lessons in 1923 with Roland Foster, a prominent teacher at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. In 1926 he was appointed tenor soloist at the Sydney Central Methodist Mission, a position he held for 27 years. Frank Forrest was a dedicated person who succeeded in several careers. He worked for the engineering firm W.B. Eastaway for 47 years and his marriage to Merle Roberts went past its diamond anniversary. His singing career lasted over 30 years. Frank documented this remarkable achievement by keeping programs, clippings, and certificates and recording an oral history interview. The complete collection was donated to the National Library in 1988. Frank sang with suburban choirs and orchestras, at local churches, local clubs and societies, Masonic Installations, Conservatorium concerts, Returned Servicemen League clubs and ANZAC events, Smoko Nights, concerts staged with films, community concerts, and at gala public events. Much of his singing activity took place in the inner southern suburbs of Sydney around Hurlstone, Marrickville, Tempe and Earlwood. He was also a member of several singing groups, which were popular on radio in the 1930s, such as the General Motors Octette, the ABC Male Quartette, and the Radio Revellers.
Frank’s repertoire consisted of ballads and songs mainly from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, some operatic arias, as well as tenor soloist parts in choral works such as Handel’s Messiah, Stainer’s Crucifixion, Maunder’s From Olivet to Calvary, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Frank was basically an amateur singer but he was paid fees for some of his appearances. Although in high demand, he chose not to attempt a full-time professional singing career either as a soloist or in musical theatre. As Frank Forrest’s career was blooming, a young singer in Melbourne was beginning her theatrical career. Elva Blair started in a similar fashion to Frank Forrest, but she eventually took the big step into professional, full-time musical theatre. Her career from sales assistant at Myers to leading lady in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas can be traced in the collection of programs, clippings and memorabilia housed in the PROMPT collection. As well, Elva kept photographs of the productions in which she appeared. Later in her life she also recorded an oral history interview. Elva grew up in Thornbury, a northern suburb of Melbourne. She made her singing debut at the age of 17 at a Civic Ball at nearby Northcote Town Hall. Encouraged by a friend, she won an ‘untrained voice scholarship’ to study with Aimee Elvins where the Melba Method was taught. The Elvins studio was in the Allans Music building in Collins Street in the city and Elva used to dash off from Myers to singing lessons in her lunch breaks. She won a full-time scholarship to the Conservatorium where Harold Elvins nurtured her talent, and successfully entered many competitions such as the Sun Aria and South Street Competition in Ballarat. In 1938, she won a J.C. Williamson scholarship, which included training in stage techniques and dancing. She also gained stage experience by appearing in student and amateur productions with groups such as the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria. Elva joined the J.C. Williamson company and began in the chorus of operettas, but quickly graduated to minor principal roles and to understudy the major soprano roles. She had soon learned over 20 such roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire. Her big break came on a J.C. Williamson company tour to Brisbane when she went on as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance in place of the ailing star, Viola Wilson. Part of the last-minute panic for young Elva involved searching Brisbane to find a suitable pair of white satin shoes to wear, as the wardrobe department had none the right size! J.C. Williamson traditionally cast leading roles with imported singers. The progress of young Elva Blair to principal status was a very significant achievement. She toured Australia and New Zealand in all the J.C.W. Gilbert and Sullivan seasons until that company was disbanded in 1945. Her leading men included Max Oldaker, Ivan Menzies, and Richard Watson. Elva married John Foster, a RAAF airman, in 1942. With the end of the Gilbert and Sullivan company she decided that show business and family life were not an easy mix and retired from the stage. Elva and Frank and Harry and T.J.—a series of individual stories which perhaps would have remained unknown except for the survival of their collections of programs and other memorabilia. These collections in the National Library provide personal glimpses into Australian theatre history, from both sides of the footlights. RICHARD STONE is a former National Library staff member. He is currently a consultant on ephemera and performing arts resources |
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