The Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation

25/11/2024

22/11/2024

22/11/2024

A wonderful night at the S,B&W Foundation's Christmas party with its exciting announcement of the 2024 Grants & RSPA Award. Congratulations to all the successful Grant recipients - and Rodney Seaborn Playwrights winners too.🎶🎭

02/09/2024

27/08/2024

Theatre Heritage Australia, in partnership with the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation, presents the second Sue-Anne Wallace Talk in the series The Stage on Sunday: Mark St Leon - 'Circus: A History in Australia, 1847-2024'

Dr Mark St Leon is a retired university lecturer. Born in Sydney in 1952, he is descended from Australia’s earliest family of professional entertainers, the St Leon circus family. He is the author of Circus: The Australian Story (Melbourne Books, 2011) and other books and articles that examine the history of circus in Australia, a previously unexplored chapter in the nation’s history since European settlement. Date: Sunday 15 September 2024 Time: Refreshments: 2.00pm & Talk: 2.30pm, Place: Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation; Ground Floor, 20 Young Street, Neutral Bay NSW. �Bookings: (02) 9955 5444; 0434 433 225
Doors open at 2.00pm on 15 September 2024 for The Stage on Sunday. All are welcome. Although this is a free event, contributions towards refreshments, and to cover costs, are always gratefully received and bookings are essential through the S,B&W Foundation.

25/07/2024

Newsletter Update: THEATRE HERITAGE AUSTRALIA presents 'Two Sydneysiders: Jenny Howard and Joy Nichols' - a study in contrasts- a power point presentation (in memory of Sue-Anne Wallace) by Emeritus Professor Richard Fotheringham. Professor Fotheringham has undertaken extensive research into the career of English-born vaudeville singer Jenny Howard (1902-1996) a huge star for theTivoli Circuit (‘Australia’s Vera Lynn’) during World War II, and for decades afterwards. He has also noted the career of a remarkable, but less-remembered Australian, Joy Nichols (1925-1992). A child star during WWII years(‘Australia’s Judy Garland’) Joy later achieved spectacular success on stage and radio in London for years afterwards. Both were vaudeville comedians and singers and but one was a happy extrovert while the other became a tragic figure tortured by forces she could not control. DATE Sunday, 28th July 2024, TIME: 2pm refreshments, followed by talk at 2.30pm.
PLACE Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Theatrette, 20 Young Street, Neutral Bay (Ground Floor) COST: Free event but all financial contributions to defray costs and assist the work of the Foundation in supporting the performing arts are most welcome. BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL: 99 555 444 or 0434 433 225

18/04/2024

ALL ABOARD - EVERYONE WELCOME !
The Kirribilli Writers Group's new Anthology,
Heritage Matters ($15), will be launched at the
Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation,
by Foundation President Peter Lowry AM,
as part of 2024 National Trust Heritage Festival.
Special guest will be Danny Gardner (Live Poets).
Join us as we listen to stories and poems about
‘Connections’ read by some of the writers,
with added original music by popular pianist
and composer Michael Hope.
Free event, but all contributions welcome.
Morning tea at 10.30 am

Details: April 22, 10.30am for 11.00am
20 Young Street, Neutral Bay
Bookings 99555444; 0434433225
[email protected]

10/03/2024

Thank you to all our wonderful Friends, supporters and North Sydney Council. This event is now booked out.

27/02/2024

To join this theatre party please phone Sandra Bartels on 9449 8646 and she will take your booking with credit card details over the phone. The SOHLC is a time-honoured committee dedicated to raising funds to enable youngsters from less privileged backgrounds, and those with special needs, to visit the Sydney Opera House for special educational programs and to enjoy the magic of performance.🎭

27/02/2024

We are thrilled to announce the extension of Simone Young’s tenure as our Chief Conductor to the end of 2026.

Hear from Simone as she looks back on her decades-long relationship with the Orchestra, and forward to what is to come.

Read more: sydsymph.com/3Tbn40F

26/12/2023

Warmest best wishes to all the Friends of the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation for this Christmas holiday season and for a 2024 of peace, good health and fine performances.
It has been fascinating to research local theatrical productions, 80 years ago, in wartime Sydney. You might enjoy 'turning the clock back' as you read the following extract from The Wireless Weekly Vol 37 No 1 Jan 3 1942
AT THE STAGE DOOR SYDNEY THEATRES HAD A GOOD CHRISTMAS

The week before Christmas is notoriously dull in the show business, with people more
intent on shopping than on entertainment, but this year has been an exception. The Gilbertand Sullivan season at the Royal has been the best for years, the “house full” sign is the
rule with “The Man Who Came to Dinner” at the Minerva; and the Tivoli has been packing
them in.
“Brownouts” at first had a slightly depressing effect upon the public. But theatregoers soon became accustomed to stepping out from a world of fantasy into a dark and practically
trafficless street. All round, business is better this year than for some considerable time.
★ ★ ★
It is usual at the Minerva for rehearsals to begin for the following show as soon as the
current production is launched. But, as Alec Coppel explained, “The Man Who Came to
Dinner” looks like being such a winner, with capacity houses each night and matinees
getting a solid share of support, that there is no necessity yet to look for a successor.
Should the management decide upon Mr. Coppel’s own “The Story of an Inn,” at least the sets are ready. Responsible for them is former Bendigo boy, William Constable, whose
modernistic decor for the Marie Ney productions will be remembered….
★ ★ ★
WILLIAM CONSTABLE, by the way, has taken Stephen Staughton’s role of one of the…
convicts in “The Man Who Came to Dinner”… His predecessor is now in camp.
Sets of all the Whitehall shows were the work of Constable, who for three years studied in London alternating in parts in shows that took him round the British Isles. Since boyhood, he confesses, he has been experimenting with cardboard and paste. There is a bright
future ahead for this talented, quietly spoken and unassuming young Australian, who can
also turn his hand to advertising when he likes.
★ ★ ★
It was a happy thought on the part of E. J. Tait to invite the families of all staff at the
Theatre Royal to attend the evening performance of “H.M.S. Pinafore” on Christmas Eve, and subsequently join the principals on the stage after the show. Mine hosts were “E.J.”
and general manager Harald Bowden, both more than delighted with the public response
this season to the evergreen G. and S. The season, incidentally, will end on January 31
with “lolanthe.” “H.M.S. Pinafore” will be succeeded by “The Gondoliers” and “Ruddigore.” Then in succession will come “Patience,” “Yeomen of the Guard,” “The Sorcerer” and “The Pirates of Penzance.”
The Royal’s stage will then be occupied by “Thumbs Up,” the new Edgeley and Dawe
r***e now in Melbourne. The G. and S. principals will go into “Lilac Time,” the first of the
new light opera revivals. Melbourne, ever a stronghold for J.C.W. panto, at this time of the year, has “Babes in the Wood” in the afternoons and the r***e at night.
★ ★ ★
SYDNEY’S only pantomime this year is “Mother Goose” at the Tivoli, where the same
cast appears at night in the r***e, “Full Speed Ahead.” Joe Lawman (the dame) has Lea
Sonia, Phil Lopaz, Alan Eddy, Alec Kellaway, Betty Lambert, Magda Neeld, Mavis Reed,
Gracie Emerson and a big supporting cast with him…
PANTOMIME retains its age-old appeal. When Joe Lawman, a particularly motherly
Mother Goose, took the large audience into his confidence at the Tivoli on Boxing Day
and bellowed: “Can you hear me, kids?” the response was terrific. All the old favourites of
the nursery tale were there: Magda Neeld, a stately and picturesque Fairy Queen who
had the knack of appearing just at the right moment; Gracie Emmerson, sugary sweet as
Jill; Betty Lambert, making up in voice what she lacked in inches as Mother Goose’s
adventurous son; Alec Kellaway, sufficiently mercenary as the greedy old squire; and Eric Valentine, as the policeman, doing his best to maintain order in the village of Gooseville.
Pansy the Horse most amusingly ambled through the pantomime on legs supplied by the Atlas Brothers, and was rivalled in the affections of the children only by Magnolia the
Goose (Ernest Shand). “Mother Goose” was streamlined by the addition of a number of
vaudeville acts, which were repeated on the evening’s bill in the r***e “Full Speed Ahead.”
Pride of place went to the seven Martinettis, amazing acrobats, whose turn was the
sensation of the performance. Excellent, too, were the Kwam Brothers, a Chinese-American duo, who provided something original in balancing.
For novelty, none made a greater appeal than Marjorie van Cramp and her performing pig,Freckles. The pig is one of the most difficult animals to train, but, encouraged by a bottle
of milk, Freckles opened and shut gates, jumped fences, and even fired a gun.
Val and Mavis Reed brought Monte along in a ventriloquial novelty; Jandy, the Continentalmusical clown, and Phil Lopaz were responsible for additional humor; the Aristos danced; Edna Emmett provided several dancing novelties; and Gilbert and Howe offered some-
thing new in acrobatic comedy. The Littlejohns, American jugglers, and the three Warrens,
in a novelty act, completed the afternoon’s bill. In “Full Speed Ahead,” Lea Sonia, female
impersonator, completely baffled the audience in a strip tease interlude.

25/11/2023

Brisbane playwright, MAXINE MELLOR has won the 2023 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award for her play O'Mighty Make-Believe. It was the unanimous choice of the Trustees after a blind reading of the 2023 entries.

25/08/2023

GEOFFREY CHARD AM ‘Reflections’
Join us in celebrating Geoffrey Chard’s 93rd Birthday (this month) with a walk down memory lane as Geoffrey entertains us with anecdotes from his amazing life as one of Australia’s most outstanding international baritones.Thursday – 31 August 2023
10am - 11.30 am
Seaborn Library (Ground Floor)
20 Young Street Neutral Bay
Tickets $25.00/ $10
Includes morning tea.
Bookings – 9955 5444