Richard Fotheringham
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THA Events Update
During the period May to August, members and friends of THA have enjoyed a full schedule of events in both Melbourne and Sydney.
On Friday, 3 May, author Simon Plant gave an exclusive talk as part of the 2024 Australian Heritage Festival. Simon, who is writing the book Entertaining Mr Coppin (to be published by THA in 2025), presented an illustrated talk titled Mr Coppin’s Tour of Civil War America.The event was held at the historic Savage Club in central Melbourne.
Our next event, in Sydney on Sunday, 23 June, was part of our series of events, The Stage on Sunday, held in conjunction with the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation in Neutral Bay. Our guest speaker was the actress Lynn Rainbow, who delighted the crowd, including many actor friends, with stories of her career on stage and TV.
On Saturday, 29 June, the events' spotlight returned to Melbourne, when Jo Gilbert presented a captivating talk about her grandfather, the Melbourne-born songwriter and composer, Jack O’Hagan (1898–1987). The event, which was held at The Channel, at Arts Centre Melbourne, attracted a huge audience, possibly our largest, and Jo also autographed copies of her new book Along the Road to Gundagai, Biography of Jack O’Hagan and Birth of Australian Pop Culture.
We returned to Sydney for our second The Stage on Sunday event at the SB&W Foundation on 28 July, when Emeretis Professor Richard Fotheringham gave a two-part talk on the vaudeville singer Jenny Howard (1902–1996) and the actress/vocalist Joy Nichols (1925–1992). Richard is currently writing an autobiography of Joy Nichols in conjunction with the actress’s daughter, Roberta Hamond.
For our final Channel event for the quarter, on 10 August, Virginia Lovett, former Executive Director at the Melbourne Theatre Company, spoke of her experiences in the creative industies, notably her current position as the inaugural Director of Performing Arts at the University of Melbourne, which includes the running of a brand new performing arts building in Carlton.
These events programs have been a great success and we are thrilled to able to offer our supporters such an interesting and varied range of speakers who have given their time and shared their enthusiasms for the performing arts. We are also delighted with the partnerships we have developed in Melbourne and Sydney. Our association with The Channel now enters its seventh year, which is exciting; while in Sydney, Carolyn Lowry and the team at SB&W have been welcoming us for two years, and we hope this relationship will be able to flourish well into the future.