Breaking up is hard to do: Exit stage left revered QPAC boss John Kotzas
In this exclusive interview, exiting QPAC boss John Kotzas reflects on a stellar career that includes magic moments like his coffee date at the home of esteemed composer Ennio Morricone in Rome.
It seems like an ordinary day at Queensland Performing Arts Centre, although something is going on in the office of chief executive John Kotzas. The boxes tell the story. He’s moving out. For good.
We meet in the boardroom next door, for scones and coffee, a few days before his lengthy tenure ends. He will walk out the door after more than 30 years at QPAC, the last 15 as head honcho.
He finishes up on Tuesday, December 10. On Wednesday, his replacement Rachel Healy, best known for her role as joint artistic director of the Adelaide Festival (with Neil Armfield), will move into the office he’s now in the process of vacating.
“So how do you feel?” I ask.
“Today I have really mixed emotions,” Kotzas says. “I’ve had a really great time here. I have spent more than half my life here. I’m going to miss it.”
On his last day, he will “shake a few hands and go home” to his wife Jano and their children, who will now be seeing a lot more of him. Home is nearby, South Brisbane, so he won’t have far to go.
“I live in South Brisbane but I tell my friends it is actually West End Heights,” he quips.
The long goodbye …
It has been a game of musical chairs in the arts in Australia recently, with a few seismic changes. Kotzas is a national and international figure, so a QPAC without him at the helm will seem strange at first. He is synonymous with the place. But he hasn’t just been running a venue, he has helped create a community, a place where Queensland comes to laugh, cry and dream. A brief escape the wearying world.
Kotzas and his team have created a place where that’s possible, battling floods and Covid along the way.
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“I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by great people,” Kotzas says. “That’s the secret of success, to surround yourself with people smarter than you. And to listen to them.”
It has been something of a long goodbye, as we have had the entire year to prepare ourselves for his departure. Kotzas says he’s grateful to the QPAC board, led by chair Professor Peter Coaldrake, for giving him time to prepare for the transition.
For us this is bigger than Biden making way for Trump, although I am in no way comparing Kotzas or Healy to either of those two.
When he announced Kotzas’s departure, Prof Coaldrake hinted that he would “look forward to celebrating John’s time leading QPAC later this year”.
That celebration was a recent dinner that was part-testimonial, part-Hollywood roast. I was lucky to be there. There was a bit of razzle dazzle including spontaneous singing in tributes from actor Leah Purcell and Queensland icon Simon Gallaher who, in the middle of his speech, leapt to a nearby piano and broke into a song… Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. And it is.
Kotzas, never a natural orator by his own admission, was at his most eloquent that night. There were a few tears, though not from him.
“I had to bite my lip to keep it together,” he tells me.
There was a lot of love in a room stacked with arts heavyweights. There was even a bevy of former arts ministers, with the current one, Jean-Paul Langbroek, there to pay tribute to Ceasar, not to bury him.
Kotzas, a very youthful 69, has no intention of retiring.
“Leo Schofield is about to turn 90 and he’s still working two days a week,” Kotzas says.
Innisfail is where it all began
Kotzas is from North Queensland, of Greek heritage. He grew up in multicultural Innisfail.
A UQ arts graduate, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2021 for services to the arts. In 2016, he was also presented with the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy) for his commitment to Italian arts, culture and the community in Australia. He also holds honorary doctorates from the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.
It was in Innisfail where Kotzas developed a love for the arts through his involvement with the Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe, which he hooked up with through one of his teachers. He credits that company’s founder, the legendary thespian Bryan Nason, as his mentor.
Along the way, Kotzas has also been a teacher, working at Brisbane State High for eight years.
He first joined QPAC as an education officer in 1989 and rose to the position of chief executive in December, 2008. He’s only the venue’s third chief, following in the footsteps of founding director Tony Gould and, later, Craig McGovern. Among his many achievements is founding children’s festival, Out of the Box.
Kotzas first went to QPAC, like the rest of us, as a punter, to see the first show ever staged there, Pirates of Penzance, in 1985. The show starred Jon English and Simon Gallaher, who went on to serve on the QPAC board.
“I broke my leg falling off a motorbike in Thailand so I came to QPAC that first time in a wheelchair,” Kotzas says. “There’s a bit of serendipity in that, because the last formal thing I attended last night was the Prospero Arts production, Pirates of Penzance. That wasn’t planned.”
This time he wasn’t in a wheelchair, thankfully.
Bringing world greats to QPAC
Kotzas credits Tony Gould, “the master”, with teaching him many tricks of the trade. Gould was the founding chief executive who gave QPAC a solid foundation, while Kotzas was the person who took it into the 21st century by putting it on the map internationally.
He successfully lured some of the world’s greatest arts companies here to perform as part of the QPAC International Series. The Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and others made that dream come true. The dream has been revived for 2025 with France’s Ballet Preljocaj on the way.
“When I first started down this track, I would say – I’m coming to London in May and would like to have an appointment with the Royal Ballet, and they would tell me they had one (appointment) in August,” he recalls. “That changed. Now they have been (here), they all want to come back.”
His dream of having Italy’s legendary composer and musical genius Ennio Morricone come to Brisbane for the series never quite happened. Morricone died in 2020. But attempting to lure him here gave Kotzas one of the highlights of his career, a meeting with the great man.
“I kept bothering the embassy in Rome for an appointment and eventually I got one,” Kotzas recalls.
“It was incredible. I went to the maestro’s apartment and we got talking. Then they told me it was time to go but the maestro said, no, he wanted me to stay. He made me coffee and we went into his studio and I was looking in this glass cabinet. I would say – maestro, what was that Academy Award for? And he’d say – oh, I don’t remember. He said he would come to Brisbane, but it never happened.”
But a morning spent with “the greatest Italian composer since Verdi” was something.
While Kotzas has Greek heritage, he’s in love with the culture of Italy – the arts and the food. He wonders if it may have something to do with the fact that the family’s ancestral home, the Greek island of Kastellorizo, was once an Italian outpost. He’s planning a trip there with his family.
But first there is Christmas followed by a European vacation, hopefully not one like Chevy Chase’s. Then it will be back to work for his wife, Jano, who owns and runs a thriving business, The Prop House, in South Brisbane. Kotzas will also catch up on some of those jobs around the house that never get done, and think about what’s next.
“We haven’t worked out what it all looks like yet,” he says.
“You’re a hard act to follow, “ I suggest. He looks surprised.
“I am?”
I nod and smile and take another bite of my scone.