Sunshine and croissants: The combo new QPAC boss Rachel Healy simply couldn’t resist
Rachel Healy, the croissant-loving new chief executive of QPAC, says her first experience of theatre as a nine-year-old was ‘like being struck by lightning’ – and that’s what she wants at QPAC.
We’re not saying the Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s new chief executive Rachel Healy took the job because she could get croissants from her favorite bakery. But it helped.
It just so happens that Lune Croissanterie’s two Brisbane outlets are both within walking distance of QPAC.
“I can’t tell you how excited I was to discover that,” Healy says as we chat in her spacious office overlooking the Brisbane sign, the river and Queen’s Wharf Brisbane.
The fact that The New York Times raved about their croissants and that they are created by Kate Reid, an aerodynamicist in Formula 1 before founding Lune in 2012, impresses Healy, who says being able to get Lune’s croissants in Brisbane is a plus.
“That was one of the main reasons I thought we could live in Brisbane,” she says, smiling. “They haven’t even opened in Sydney yet.”
I didn’t expect to be discussing croissants with her but it’s a delightful distraction from more serious subjects and, after all, it is the silly season.
From January, Healy and her partner – film and stage composer Alan John – and their 16-year-old daughter Mim will be living in an old Queenslander in Corinda. The two older children, both young men, will be staying in the south for work and education.
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Healy is from Adelaide originally, has worked and lived in Sydney, too, and was expecting to settle back in the Emerald City after some years as co-artistic director of the Adelaide Festival with Neil Armfield. But just a few months after relocating to Arncliffe in Sydney a recruiter contacted her about the job at QPAC. Long-serving chief executive John Kotzas had announced he was leaving after 30 years or so in the building.
“When I got the call, I thought there’s no way I will be moving to Queensland,” Healy says. “So, I really opened up with my opinions and what I thought about the arts today. I had no filter.”
To her surprise the recruiter came back and hooked her up to chat with QPAC chair Professor Peter Coaldrake and deputy chair Leigh Tabrettt. You could say things escalated from there.
Interviewing Kotzas in his last days in the job, he was adamant the board had found the right person to replace him.
“I’ve known John for a long time,” Healy says. “The industry is sufficiently small in Australia, so you get to know everyone. I’m not trying to fill his shoes though … that would be an exercise in futility. Now I’m running what will be Australia’s largest performing arts centre once the new theatre is online.”
She smiles for a moment and thinks of something Barry Humphries used to say about Brisbane. “He said Australia was the Brisbane of the world. I love that.”
That’s a backhanded compliment if ever there was one but, in fact, Humphries loved Brisbane and our cultural complex by the river. And so does Healy.
Potential to be the greatest cultural boulevard in the world
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“I think South Bank has the potential to be the greatest cultural boulevard in the world,” she says. “You have a South Bank in London, but they don’t have our glorious weather.”
Describing it as “our glorious weather” indicates she already regards herself as a local. Because besides croissants and being in charge of the greatest cultural complex in the country, weather was another driver of her decision to take the job.
“I can’t bear the cold,” she says. “Even the rain here is warm.”
And here we were complaining about how wet and humid it was. And the heat! Healy, however, a born-again Brisso, is loving it. Being here is a win for her – a big win for us.
Her resume is extensive and impressive. Healy has worked in senior roles in the cultural sector for more than 20 years, including as director of performing arts for Sydney Opera House, general manager of Belvoir St Theatre and executive manager culture for the City of Sydney.
With Neil Armfield, she served as joint artistic director of the Adelaide Festival from 2015 to 2022. Their tenure as Adelaide Festival’s longest-serving artistic directors was marked by unprecedented critical acclaim and growth.
She has served on more than 30 arts boards and government/industry advisory bodies including the Sydney Opera House Trust, Live Performance Australia and the Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Board. Healy served as chair of the Australian Government’s Creative Economy Taskforce in 2021-22 and is currently joint chair of Adelaide University’s Creativity and Culture Industry Advisory Board, Chair of Carclew (SA) and non-executive director of Performing Arts Connections Australia.
In 2020 she was awarded the Arts Leadership Award by Creative Partnerships Australia and in 2022 Healy was included in The Australian newspaper’s list of “top 100 identities taking the creative industries into the future”. In 2019, the University of Adelaide awarded Healy the honorary degree of doctor of the university for her “exceptional dedication and service to the Arts in Australia”.
Recently she has been working as a cultural industries contractor and consultant and is curator of ideas and special events for the 2024 Vivid Sydney Festival. But now she’s here and, as she explains, she’s no stranger to QPAC.
“I’ve been coming here all my working life,” she says. “I was there for the opening night of the Playhouse and I was here with The Judas Kiss with Bille Brown when I was GM of Belvoir Street.”
The much-loved Brown, the Boy from Biloela to us, was, in that play, the perfect Oscar Wilde. Healy says Brown, who died in 2013, was “a titan of Australian theatre”.
She has, she reckons, seen more shows than most of us will ever see and she wants QPAC to be for everyone – from sophisticated theatre-goers to newcomers.
Her theatrical journey began as a nine-year-old in Adelaide watching a production of Annie, starring Hayes Gordon and Jill Perryman.
“That was so good, it was like being struck by lightning,” she says. “I want to make sure nine-year-olds having their first experience at QPAC have the same experience I had.”
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