Opinion
Michael Cassel didn’t throw away his shot, even after Ray Martin knocked him back
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist and authorMichael Cassel, Australia’s most prolific theatrical impresario, is bringing Hamilton back to Sydney, along with a slew of other productions to follow.
Fitz: Reading up on you, Michael, I am struck by how fast you’ve moved. What’s your first memory of theatre and when did you first realise, “This is what I’m good at”?
MC: First up, I wanted to be a performer myself, and wrote to Ray Martin, who was hosting The Midday Show, saying I wanted to be his co-host. He very kindly wrote back this great letter saying, “thank you so much for your letter, Michael. We’re currently not considering a co-hosting arrangement, but, when you’re old enough, why don’t you come in for work experience?” I was nine years old!
Michael Cassel, in New York last year, was hooked on the excitement of the stage from a very early age.Credit: Ben Sklar
Fitz: Love it. And despite that knockback, what was your first production?
MC: My siblings and I put on concerts on this spare block of land next door to where I grew up in Minnamurra on the South Coast and invited the neighbours around to come and watch. But then that transition to realising “oh, I could actually do this as a career,” was seeing Harry M. Miller’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1992 when I was 12. It was electrifying, and I was hooked. From that moment, all I ever wanted to do was to be a producer, to put on shows that made people feel like I did, watching Superstar.
Fitz: And how did you crack through?
MC: I started writing to all the big producers, asking to work with them. “Dear Harry M. Miller, I’ve decided I want to be a producer”. Harry kindly wrote back suggesting, “Why don’t you finish school first?” Kevin Jacobsen said no, as did Michael Edgley. I thought, “nobody’s gonna give me a job. I’m gonna have to go and try and do my own show”. So, when I was 15, I decided to do a Carols by Candlelight for the local community in Kiama Quarry. I wrote letters to the council, to musicians and singers and potential sponsors, to the helicopter mob to fly Santa in, all without saying my age, so they’d take me seriously. I’d always schedule the meeting for after school and Mum or Dad would drive me. But once I was in the meeting, I’d take it from there!
Fitz: Was it like the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams: “Build it, and they will come”?
MC: Absolutely. And I was on a total adrenaline high in the weeks leading up to it. And I remember this extraordinary elation when thousands of people turned up, everyone loved it, and it actually worked! Then, after that euphoric high there was the post-show blues kicking in – “Oh, it’s all over” – and all I wanted to do was go and do another one immediately, to go chasing the euphoric high again. And that continues to this day. I guess it’s why I have all of these shows on the boil right now!
Fitz: You make it sound like the best thing ever.
MC: It is. You have these incredible, intense relationships with the people that you’re working with to create these shows, and then that’s amplified when you get to share it with an audience!
Fitz: I know that on your way to hitting the big time, you actually did do work experience with Harry M. Miller, and then worked with him for several years. What did you learn?
Cassel with Alan Jones and Harry M. Miller in 1997, when Cassel was on year 11 work experience.
MC: Yes, in years 11 and 12, I’d get the train up from Kiama every day of the holidays, and it went from there. The big thing, from the first day with Harry M. was focus on the detail. “Your job as a producer is to focus on every last detail. Leave nothing to chance.” And he used to let me sit in his office and listen while he was doing negotiations on the speakerphone. And he used to have these signs all around the office, saying “Good, fast, cheap”. Every decision, had to have at least two of those: good and fast, or good and cheap, or fast and cheap!
Fitz: I knew Harry M. pretty well back then myself, in that stylish terrace in East Sydney. You would have had a lot of interesting people coming through the doors.
MC: Yes, it was a cavalcade of Australia’s biggest names. Lindy Chamberlain, Deborah Hutton, Maggie Tabberer, Stuart Diver, Alan Jones and Kieren Perkins, to name a few. Harry was very big on building strong relationships with his clients, and they all knew he would fight for them and be in their corner to the end. He was fiercely loyal to them, and they returned it in kind. And he was always operating at the very top of the field, and the very best brands in turn wanted to be a part of that kind of stable of talent.
Fitz: That was very kind of Harry to look after you like that, to teach you everything.
MC: Yes, but he made me cry too. He was tough. But I’m glad he was because that made me grow up really quickly, and get my skates on and get going. He didn’t miss a trick. But in the end, Harry wasn’t doing as much theatre as he was more into managing celebrities and I really wanted to be a producer. So, I went to work for Disney, first in Australia with my mentor and friend James Thane, then in New York with Thomas Schumacher and Ron Kollen, which is where I really learnt how you could work at producing great theatre in one city, and then actually take these shows all around the world, which is our business today.
Cassel with mentor James Thane, who has praised the producer’s ability to multitask.
Fitz: And the day must have come when you and your wife Camille hocked everything, put it all on the line, and went out on your own to put on your own big production?
MC: Yes. That was Les Miserables, about 10 years ago to the day, which opened in Her Majesty’s Theatre. We had moved back from New York and in 2012, set up the company, and risked everything. And it worked!
Fitz: And you’ve gone hard ever since. Your biggest breakthrough though must have been Hamilton, which you’ve just announced is coming back to Sydney in August.
MC: Yes, Hamilton and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Those two are the crown jewels, but there’s never been a bigger musical than Hamilton. Cameron Mackintosh, whose advice you’d be foolish not to trust, sent me a text saying he’d just been to the opening night and was raving. And so I flew over to see it, and just sat there absolutely transfixed by what I was seeing. And so when I met with Jeffrey Seller, the Broadway producer, I said “This has to come to Australia and when it does, I really want to be a part of it.”
Fitz: Not knowing that COVID was just around the corner …
MC: Yes, that first delayed it, and then even when we got it going, and everyone loved it, the second round of COVID stopped it again, and we had to refund 180,000 people who had purchased their tickets. And so I was adamant from that point in time to get it back to Sydney, because there was such untapped demand the first time around.
Cassel with children Eveleigh and Vaughn, and wife Camille at the opening of Hamilton in Sydney in 2021. Cassel will never fully “switch off”, even on family holidays, Camille says. “He is always on.”Credit: Getty Images
Fitz: I know. I’ve already seen it seven times, and I can’t wait to see it for the eighth time.
MC: [Laughing.] I know, Peter. And I’ve already sent you the contract to play King George a couple of times. Think about it. You’d be great!
Fitz: Be careful what you wish for, Michael. Meantime, the other one you’ve got coming is Dear Evan Hansen. I saw that in New York eight years ago when it had just premiered, and was stunned at how good it was, particularly given the sober subject of a lad taking his life.
MC: Yes, I felt the same. I really fell in love with the story and the score and the way the whole contemporary narrative comes together.
Fitz: So when’s that opening?
MC: It opens in October with the Sydney Theatre Company. We’ve just announced the majority of our cast. We’ve got one more role to announce, and that’s Evan himself. We’re just putting the finishing touches on that. Then we’ll go into rehearsals in September, and open in Sydney in October, before going around the country from December.
Fitz: I do hope that, on principle, you invite Ray Martin to every premiere you’ve got going?
MC: [Laughing.] I’d love to have him come along. But I’ve never actually met him, and would love to. I don’t think he’s ever actually come to an opening.
Fitz: I am amazed. OK, well, can I bring him to the next premiere as my date?
MC: That would be awesome. I would really love that. And there’ll be plenty of opportunities. We’re about to have our busiest nine months ever in terms of the number of shows that we’re opening and running, particularly in Australia. First there’s Hamilton, then Dear Evan Hansen, and then Titanique, which is an off-Broadway musical parody that brings together the movie Titanic with the music of Celine Dion. It’s been wowing audiences, and I saw the show last year and just thought it was hilarious. And we’ve got MJ, [the Michael Jackson musical] opening in February. The production is just spectacular.
Sarah Snook in the production of The Picture of Dorian Gray.Credit: Marc Brenner
Fitz: And you’ve also been working with the wonderful Sarah Snook?
MC: Like everybody else, I fell in love with her watching Succession. And we just wrapped up our 14- week season featuring her in The Picture of Dorian Gray, where we literally sold out every single ticket. We’re just putting the finishing touches to try and get it to Broadway, which is my goal for the top of next year if we can get everything to align.
Fitz: You can call this a tough question if you like, but is Sarah as wonderful as she appears?
MC: Beyond. Fabulous and charming and talented. There were eight weeks of rehearsals, and her performance just kept evolving. She just kept finding more depth in the storytelling. And what she found, she gave to the audience night after night.
Fitz: Do you sometimes pinch yourself at how far you’ve come from the kid from Minnamurra, putting on concerts for the neighbours, to having offices in Sydney, Melbourne, New York, and Singapore, taking productions to the West End and Broadway, and selling out shows all over the globe?
MC: Yes, I just think I am the luckiest person. How cool is it to be able to do this!
Fitz: You’re doing it 10 times bigger than Harry M., but I must say you lack one thing that Harry M. had in spades. He was the greatest self-marketer in the world whereas, while you are well known and respected in the industry, I put it to you, you’re not the famous public figure he was.
MC: Which is great. Because, thankfully, I discovered there was a job where I could hide behind the scenes. The production itself is what obviously brings people in, and I just love playing a role in that. If I can keep doing that and keep standing in the back of the theatre and watching audiences have the best time, then I will feel like I’ve done a really good job.
Fitz: Can I put in a completely gratuitous plug for somebody I think should be a bigger star than she is?
MC: Go on.
Fitz: That young woman who played Tina in the Tina Turner musical – which was not one of your productions – I don’t know her name, but Jesus wept, she was just fantastic.
MC: Ruva Ngwenya. Yeah, she’s dynamite. And she is an absolute superstar. I first met her when she was in our production for the Carole King musical, Beautiful, back in 2017. She was in our ensemble and she just had that superstar quality where you just knew her time would come. She found it in Tina.
Fitz: Meantime, you’ve also taken on the representation role of a one-time political superstar in Julia Gillard.
MC: Oh, she’s great. She’s so busy, my job is to just try and keep up with her.
Fitz: What about, Michael – work with me on this one – wait for it … Julia the Musical?
MC: [Laughing]. I keep threatening [to commission that], but she refuses. And when we talk about it, that’s when the line goes silent.
Fitz: But she’s silent at the best of times! What’s going on? Every other former prime minister is on the tube one way or another all the time, but she just left the stage gracefully, never to be seen again?
MC: I think that’s what is so amazing about Julia. Her focus as soon as she left parliament was to keep working. She knew she had more to contribute when it came to things like female education, and she’s thrown herself into that with brutal energy and achieved tremendous results. So, trust me, the musical may be still a little way away!
Fitz: OK. Last question. If Harry M.’s thing was “good, fast, cheap”, what are the three words you have built the Michael Cassel empire on?
MC: Very good question. Let me think. OK … relationships, quality and mischief. OK? And I love the fact that in the right production they all come together.
Fitz: Thanks Michael. I shall see you either at Hamilton, or Dear Evan Hansen, and you’ll know it’s me because I will have Ray Martin on my arm!
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