After missing out on long-term federal funding, the theatre makers at Slingsby found they were spending their days applying for grants instead of actually making shows.
“It’s the most wicked and awful thing to feel trapped by something you love,” says artistic director and chief executive Andy Packer.
So after almost 20 years of touring world-class theatre, the award-winning Adelaide-based outfit decided to wind up – with one final project that, like the company itself, is utterly unique.
A Concise Compendium of Wonder is a trilogy: Childhood of the World, inspired by Hansel and Gretel; The Giant’s Garden, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant; and The Tree of Light, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl but set in 3099.
“We really feel immensely proud that we’re making something of scale that is a beautiful farewell to Australian audiences,” Packer says.
Three years in the making, the shows are part of the Adelaide Festival and can be experienced one by one or as an all-day theatre feast.
Unlike most theatre companies, Slingsby is known for shows that appeal to both children and adults, with a distinctive style that uses miniatures, shadow play and original music.
It has retained a core group of makers since its founding in 2007, including designers Wendy Todd, Ailsa Paterson and Chris Petridis, Geoff Cobham, and composer Quincy Grant.
The company is determined to go out on a high and hopes to tour its final trilogy until 2027.
Still, its closure is a cautionary tale of what happens to theatre companies when the bedrock of long-term government support is removed.
In Packer’s telling, Slingsby initially secured three-year’s funding from the South Australian government before making a single piece of theatre.
The company had modest hopes of a regional state tour and one day making it to the Sydney Opera House.
But within 12 months, its first production, The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy, had become an international hit that went on to tour the world for 15 years.
More recently, The Young King, Emil and the Detectives and The Boy Who Talked to Dogs have established the company as a world-class outfit with a repertoire that could be staged from school gymnasiums to New York City theatres.
From 2010 to 2016, the then Australia Council provided multi-year funding but with more than $100 million slashed from the agency in the 2015 federal budget, Slingsby was one of many cut off.
When it once again missed out on triennial federal funding at the end of 2024, the decision was made: Packer and his team would no longer spend their time stringing together donations and short-term grants.
“We’re making the choice to no longer do that,” he says.
“I want to make theatre, not spend time seeking resources to make that theatre.”
While lost funding dollars can be easily tallied, not so the the productions Slingsby might have brought to the stage had things been different.
It’s also impossible to measure the impact its work has had on audiences; people like Ren Williams who experienced her first Slingsby show in year 10.
“Seeing The Young King was just absolutely life changing,” she says.
“It was theatre that I never knew could exist.”
Williams graduated from drama school in 2021, is currently part of the cast of A Concise Compendium of Wonder and expecting to see teenagers in the Adelaide audience, just as she was.
With its final trio of shows, Slingsby’s hope is to leave a legacy not only for the stage but also in terms of a low-impact touring model.
Researching its carbon footprint, the company found transporting production gear by air creates most emissions, so it created a venue able to be packed into two shipping containers and carried on a B-double truck.
The purpose-built wooden theatre named The Wandering Hall of Possibility seats 110 people and makes for a life on the road with a difference.
Following its run on the lawns of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, the company will stage some 20-plus shows over three weeks in Whyalla.
“It doesn’t all have to be about austerity, particularly for our young audience who, frankly, have a sense of impending doom for the future,” says Packer.
“There are ways we can change the way we operate that still allow us to have beautiful things.”
The tale of Slingsby Theatre Company has lasted almost two decades and will end on its own terms.
“We’re doing a strange thing that almost no company as far as we can see has done before, which is try to wind up under our own steam,” Packer says.
A Concise Compendium of Wonder plays at the Adelaide Festival from February 18 until March 15.
Proudly Australian owned and operated