By Libby O’Donovan OAM
Since 1960, the Adelaide Festival has provided audiences with the chance to see innovative, groundbreaking and original work from across the globe.
From Opera to punk, ballet to contemporary dance, commissioned world premieres to highly sought after existing works, visual arts and the much loved Adelaide’s Writers’ Week, the Adelaide Festival stands at the helm of cultural and artistic acclamation.
The coveted role of Artistic Director has been held by many prominent arts luminaries, including Robyn Archer AO, Paul Grabowsky AO, Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy, Stephen Page AO, Barry Kosky, Anthony Steel AM, and Ruth Mackenzie CBE.
Now, for its 39th manifestation, the Adelaide Festival Artistic Director, Brett Sheehy AO, has taken the reins once again to inject his experience, wisdom and great passion for the arts into the much beloved festival.
Brett Sheehy grew up in Queensland in what he describes as a large conservative Catholic family comprising two parents and five children.
One of Sheehy’s sisters was the first to introduce him to the arts through her visual arts practice and the music she was listening to, which included The Beatles, Cream and Pink Floyd. Sheehy describes a particular moment that shaped his artistic life.
“I did have one experience that did have a big impact on me. When I was about 14, Blue Poles [painting by Jackson Pollock] had arrived in Australia and was doing a tour around Australia and was being shown at Brisbane Festival Hall,” Sheehy remembers.
“I kept the poster and it was five shillings to go and see Blue Poles. We went one afternoon and I was mesmerised by this object, which was nothing like anything else I had ever seen in my life. My dad had already made a comment, as he was quite conservative, saying “oh a child could’ve done that, I can’t believe it’s worth three million dollars” which of course piqued my curiosity as a 14-year-old boy, so my mate and I went and had a look at it. That image and what that painting did to me stuck with me for several years after that.”
Sheehy, who has always loved language and literature, went on to study English Literature and Dramatic Writing at University as well as studying law, where his Criminal Law tutor was Dame Quinten Bryce CVO AD, the former Governor General.
“She befriended my parents and all through my career she’s always kept in touch. Even when she was Governor General she sent me a note saying, ‘I’m so proud of you Brett, I remember you back in our Criminal Law Tutorials.’
Just people making an effort, you know, all my life I’ve had people making an effort, so it does instill in you how valuable it is, that the tiniest gestures can mean so much to young people and can change their lives so much.
While under the tutelage of exceptional university lecturers, Sheehy’s love for the arts took flight and by the 1990s Brett Sheehy was working at the Sydney Theatre Company.
“In 1995, Anthony Steele poached me from there to become his Administrator for two years at the Sydney Festival in the 90s.”
From here, Steele introduced Sheehy to Leo Schofield, former director of the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals, and Scofield appointed Sheehy to Deputy Director of the Sydney Festival over four Festivals.
“That was something he never needed to do”, says Sheehy, “it was the first time that there was ever a deputy director of any of the Festivals in Australia. So, he went out on a limb to champion me and he was very vocal in supporting me to succeed him, which I did in 2003.”
From here, Sheehy Directed the Sydney Festival in 2002-2005 then Adelaide Festival in 2006 and 2008, which was followed by Melbourne Festival 2009-2012 and the Melbourne Theatre Company from 2013 2022.
Sheehy states, “I was championed and mentored all the way by wonderful Chairs and people around me. To be able to watch, up close, so many extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, on the business side and the cultural side. I was guided in fostering the need for connoisseurship across all of the artforms across the Festivals, including opera, dance, classical music, theatre, visual arts and I was able to build up knowledge and experience in all artforms”.
Sheehy speaks with great fondness and passion about the role of mentorship that has guided him throughout his life.
“I had amazing mentors all through my career. People who have been so generous to me and who have championed me when they didn’t need to. One of the things I love doing, whenever I can, is mentoring because I realise how crucial it has been to my working life.
“Unfortunately, I see less and less of it happening as we all become much more competitive and ambitious, and the world seems tougher for many, for many reasons, so whenever I can do mentoring, I do, because I had amazing people who mentored me. It keeps you young, it keeps you having a fresh lens, a fresh eye on things.”
With his breadth of knowledge and experience, Sheehy is delighted to be back in Adelaide for the 2025 Adelaide Festival.
It’s great to be back, really great. It’s such a joy to do, I love doing festivals. I love working in the arts, period. I’ve been working my butt off, I suppose! I’ve been putting feelers out and the team here
has been astonishingly good.
“Honestly, there are 30 full-timers here and they’re a knock-out. They are the dream festival team. Four of them were here when I was here in 2006. It’s incredible. It’s such a family. My favourite metaphor for a group of arts workers is actually an elite arts sport. Everyone is striving for excellence, everyone is knowing their role and contributing to one victory and outcome.
“You take the best of family, and leave all the dysfunctional bits out, and take the best of an elite sports team, and leave all of the brutal ambition and competitive bits out, that’s what we have here in the team at the Adelaide Festival. I’m really proud of where we are at and really confident that the program will knock Adelaide’s socks off come March. All credit to the team here who do an incredible job.”
Adelaide has gained international recognition for being an exceptional city for hosting major multi-disciplinary events and Sheehy speaks fondly of this great location.
“Adelaide is a perfect Festival scale city, it provides the perfect landscape, the topography of the city is perfect. The venues are close to each other, and you can have the complete Festival experience within one square kilometre, which is unbelievably good.
“The other thing that has really struck me this time around, and I’ve been to every Festival since 2008, I have noticed that Adelaide is jumping. The food culture is extraordinary, the café culture, there’s now laneway culture here, it’s incredible. Having been lucky enough to direct a lot of Sydney Festivals and Melbourne Festivals, this one is unique. It’s still the preeminent Festival in Australia.
“We proudly have added a tag line to our logo which now says, ‘Australia’s International Festival’. Here, between 35 to 40 per cent of ticket sales every year to Adelaide Festival are people who are from interstate and overseas. It really is the international arts cultural hub for both Australia and our region. It’s been the great Festival of Australia for the past 60 years.”
Brett Sheehy, with his exuberant passion for the arts and dedication to mentorship, looks forward to directing the Adelaide Festival in 2025.
I want to keep finding the new, I want to be challenged, I want to be moved, I want to have emotional experiences in the theatre and new ways to have those experiences, so I’m constantly looking.
Every great artist wants to communicate something to someone. That’s what the artistic pursuit is. You have a vision, or you have something to say, but you need to have someone to say it to. The complete ecosystem is the institution to facilitate it, and then the artist and the audience communing within that, that’s what art is to me and that’s what I love so much about it.
“Nothing gives me more happiness than standing at the back of a theatre or concert hall or gallery and just watching people love and connect with the work they’re seeing. That’s everything to me”
From 28 February to 16 March 2025, Adelaide will host the 39th Adelaide Festival, with a program that includes Kaija Saariaho’s final ‘masterpiece’ opera, Innocence, Club Amour, a tribute to the enduring genius of Pina Bausch and the innovation of Boris Charmatzwhich and Australian Dance Theatre’s A Quiet Language.
Libby O’Donovan is renowned for her nuanced interpretations and extraordinary voice. She is the recipient of the 2022 Cabaret Icon Award and has received an OAM in recognition of her service as a critically acclaimed Jazz and Cabaret performer and an award-winning Musical Director.
More on Adelaide Festival’s 2025 season can be found at adelaidefestival.com.au
