Quick pointer this morning to Peter Craven's latest peroration on the Evils of Postmodernity in this morning's Age. Which gives me an excuse to mention the recent announcement of Brett Sheehy's appointment, after months of feverish speculation, as the new artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company. Sheehy's appointment was certainly a surprise to most of us, but it's been warmly welcomed: his solid background as literary manager for the Sydney Theatre Company and artistic director of some of our major festivals means that he brings to the job both a proven talent for fund-raising and a wide appreciation of theatre (including, clearly, "text-based theatre": after all, Sheehy was responsible for programming Daniel Keene's Life Without Me, which Craven liked so much, as part of MIAF). And it suggests a welcome opening of the horizons for the MTC, perhaps modelling itself on the diversity that the STC has been exploring with such success over the past few years.

What Sheehy has never been accused of, until now, is radicalism. Craven expresses alarm that Sheehy's appointment might spell doom for "traditional theatre" and the "well-made play": he claims that "this appointment is remarkably consonant with a world where the recently appointed head of Belvoir Theatre in Sydney, Ralph Myers, is a designer and where the wing of the Sydney Theatre Company most articulately represented by Tom Wright is ambivalent about the viability of what gets referred to as text-based drama". And he makes a forlorn plea for Sheehy to renounce the "smoke and mirrors of post modern moves" and retain "a faith in the play as the thing". Frankly, the only smoke and mirrors here is Craven's argument: straw men are flying in the wind like nobody's business. Still, an amusing start to the week.

Brett Sheehy, the artistic director of the Melbourne Festival, freely admits that he's nervous about announcing his first program. "I know I've done it before," says Sheehy, who has directed both the Sydney and Adelaide festivals. "But you don't get any less nervous. Melbourne's status as the cultural capital is an additional pressure. But obviously, that's also why I wanted the job."

Certainly, Sheehy has reasons for feeling a little flighty. This time last year, he took over from Kristy Edmunds, whose four-year stint from 2005 produced much critical adulation, especially among younger audiences, and an unprecedented load of vitriolic commentary from the more conservative constituency of our cultural capital.


Sheehy was widely perceived to be a director who wouldn't frighten the horses, a steady pair of hands who would steer the ship into less stormy waters. On the other hand, Edmunds' tenure has generated a strong expectation among Melbourne arts fans that the festival will be challenging, exciting and full of the shock of the new. The depth and range of her festivals brought out stars like Ariane Mnouchkine and Peter Brook, created mini-events within the festival such as Merce Cunningham's 2007 residency and mixed the highbrow and the lowbrow in an intoxicating whirl.

Coming hard on her heels, Sheehy faces a tricky task: to generate a program that doesn't disappoint the keen audience built up through Edmunds' tenure, but which also doesn't bring down the wrath of those who think the main stage belongs to the MSO and the MSO alone. Certainly, Sheehy is anxious to differentiate his program from those which went before; but it looks to me more of an evolution than a revolution. And I think he's pulled it off: MIAF 2009 promises to be a really interesting festival, and will attract a wide range of people.

The feature of this festival is probably the visual arts program. "I've always been enamoured of the Melbourne pride in its built environment," says Sheehy. "And so from the beginning I was thinking of something structured around this great feature of this city." To this end, he galvanised the local boutique galleries, who have each curated their own exhibition around the theme. The centrepiece is Callum Morton's 2007 Venice Biennale piece Valhalla, a monumental sculpture that seems to be part biography, part reflection on modernity. There's also a free large scale video installation at Federation Square, The Living Room, which will intriguingly dress the square as an actual living room.


The performing arts are various, with an emphasis on exclusive international events. 90 per cent of the festival works are exclusive to Melbourne, so those interstaters who want to see them will have to come here. The centrepiece is Sasha Waltz, whom Sheehy describes as the most influential choreographer in Europe after Pina Bausch. Waltz is bringing out her production of Medea, with a score by Pascal Dusapin set to the play Medeamaterial by Heiner Müller, and also her her dance masterwork Körper. If I were you I'd be booking tickets now: these look to me like must-sees.

Other theatrical highlights include Deutsches Schaulspielhaus Hamburg's production of the British playwright Simon Stephens' (Motortown) play Pornography and a dance theatre piece, Le Salon by Belgian group Peeping Tom. And Ireland's Abbey Theatre is bringing a verse play called Terminus, a work on the darker aspects of Ireland written and directed by Mark O'Rowe, which was a hit at last year's Edinburgh Festival.


The Store Room Theatre is part of the local talent, with a new piece by theatre designer Anna Tregloan, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. The MTC, which has been absent from the program for some time, is presenting two shows - Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling, which Sheehy premiered at last year's Adelaide Festival, and Lally Katz's Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, which is sure to attract much interest in the Katz demographic.

As well as Sasha Waltz, the dance program includes British Israeli Hofesh Shechter, who is bringing two pieces - Uprising and In your rooms, and a new piece from Chunky Move which is not choreographed by Gideon Obarzanek but by two stars of the European scene - Erna Ómarsdóttir and Damien Jalet.

Film maker Peter Greenaway is the subject of several events, including an intriguing installation at North Melbourne Town Hall, Leonardo's Last Supper, a video exploration of the famous mural. He'll be giving a lecture about nine classic paintings and contemporary visual illiteracy, as well as showing two films he's made about Old Masters. And there's some Andy Warhol as well.

And I haven't even got to the music. Orchestra fans, who have been somewhat disgruntled over the past few years, won't be disappointed: the MSO will be performing a concert of music by Brenton Broadstock and Julian Yu, and the London Philharmonic will be playing pieces from Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Beethoven. The Melbourne Town Hall's organ is a feature of one of the more impressive free events - a 16 hour marathon of the whole of Bach's repertoire, to be played by Calvin Bowman. And, in a clear sign of continuity with Edmunds' festivals, the Black Arm Band is back.


Another innovation is Beck's Rumpus Room at the Forum Theatre, a larger version of Beck's Bar at the Meat Market. It's basically a club where for $15 you can hear the hippest music from all corners of the globe - from a crowded program that includes a lot of Australian acts, you can hear the West Bank group Ramallah Underground (who recently did a piece for Kronos Quartet), the Cuban Brothers from Havana, Brain Failure from China, Fischerspooner from New York, and the noise band Melt Banana from Japan.

There's lots more, but I'm running out of puff. I'll leave you to trawl through the rest of it yourself. Sadly, I'm going to miss this year's festival - in October, I'm off to the northern hemisphere for a month, being an Ambassador for Australian poetry with Robert Gray. I think every poet in Australia applied for this one, which was offered by the Australian Poetry Centre, and I was pleased to be chosen; but there's enough in this festival program to make the prize of an overseas trip a mixed blessing.

The appointment of Kristy Edmunds' successor as artistic director of the Melbourne Festival has been feverishly anticipated. Well, TN confesses to a deep interest, but I cannot match the enthusiasm of our favourite arts reporter, the Age's Robin Usher.

Usher has been a keen lobbyist against what he perceives as Edmunds' anti-mainstream programming. The most recent name he was gunning for was Brett Sheehy, whom Usher perceives as a director "more likely to return to a traditional programming mix". (Whatever that means.) He also suggested Lindy Hume earlier this year, prompting a sharp rebuke from MIAF general manager Vivia Hickman. And last night, festival president Carol Schwartz announced that Brett Sheehy is the successful candidate, and will helm the festival through 2009 and 2010.

So have the grinches won? Has the MIAF board blinked and gone for the commercial bling, despite the unqualified success of Kristy Edmunds' 2007 program? Or are they, perhaps, being very savvy? Your fearless reporter nailed the hapless Sheehy to the MIAF board table yesterday in order to investigate. And the result of my interrogation leads me to suspect that if Usher expects a sudden swerve to the "mainstream", he might very well be surprised.

I admit it, I was charmed. Although he had no doubt spent his morning being grilled by reporters, Sheehy showed no sign of weariness. His enthusiasm, which has almost a naive quality, is infectious. He says he is hugely excited and very nervous about his appointment. "I'm a huge fan of the Melbourne Festival, and I've attended every festival since 1992. Melbourne audiences are tremendously sophisticated and savvy, and it's a big challenge to present a festival here."

Sheehy has a long track record, and MIAF says he was the "stand out candidate" in their hunt for a new AD. Formerly literary manager at the STC, he's directed both the Sydney and Adelaide Festivals, winning various forms of kudos along the way. He's clearly good at attracting sponsorship - the 2008 Adelaide Bank Festival of the Arts, as it is now known, is the biggest arts sponsorship in South Australia's history.

But what are his plans for our favourite festival? "It would be insanely premature to say anything specific, especially given that Kristy has her own festival to run next year," he says. "But I am very conscious of the Melbourne Festival's Spoleto origins, and its international responsibilities. I am kind of... I am very ambitious and competitive for the organisations for which I work, I want them to strive for excellence in every possible way. And if I can do that, I know that Melbourne will be happy."

So far, so gold plated. But when asked what he thinks about Edmunds' programming, Sheehy is more than diplomatically polite. "Perhaps I'm a bit biased," he confesses. "I think Kristy Edmunds is a terrific artistic director, a terrific woman. But then, I've been programming people like Ariane Mnouchkine, Robert Wilson, Lucy Guerin, oh, for years.”

He is aware of the “vicious” commentary that Edmunds’s directorship has attracted – which he says that he doesn’t understand. “It’s not true, as some say, that she's changed her course,” says Sheehy, referring to the unanimous praise for this year's festival. “She's followed her vision from day one with a wonderful integrity and rigor." But he puts a positive spin on the debate. “On the other hand, it’s exciting that such robust and vigorous debates are happening,” he says. “And that there is this real sense of ownership of the festival in this city.”

Sheehy says he is keen to include organisations like the MTC – a notable festival absence – in his programming, while Usher notes approvingly that he’s all for symphony orchestras and operas. But I'm not panicking yet. It’s worth noting that this year’s Adelaide Festival includes Chunky Move and the Malthouse Theatre production of Marius von Mayenburg’s Moving Target. Mayenburg’s Eldorado, also directed by Benedict Andrews, was one of the works singled out by Peter Craven in a broadside against Edmunds last year, in which the “fringey” Malthouse was caught in the crossfire.

Sheehy, on the contrary, thinks the Malthouse is the most exciting theatre company in the country. To my surprise, he claims that the Malthouse has made waves across Australia, not just in Melbourne. “It’s a role model for all of us,” he says. “Recently I picked Michael Kantor as one of the top ten influential people in culture. It’s just astonishing what they’ve done here.”

Sheehy says a city festival is 50 per cent artistic vision and 50 per cent the milieu of the city itself. In Melbourne, as he says rightly, he can access an artistic community of richness and depth. There’s not much sign that he plans to change the festival's present direction in any significant way. He wants to plug into Melbourne’s visual arts scene and engender collaborations with other artforms, but that’s about as specific as he will get.

For now, he has to steer Adelaide 2008 first. He takes up his MIAF position on April 1 next year. In the meantime, he says that Edmunds’s 2008 program is “absolutely astonishing”. If it’s better than 2007, well, as incoming director, he’ll have to live up to that.

Sheehy will be seen as a “safe pair of hands” – the artistic equivalent of Kevin Rudd – but if he’s sincere about exploiting the vitality of Melbourne's artistic milieu he could be a very good strategic appointment, providing a period of consolidation. Perception is all, and a program strong on innovation under Sheehy – especially after the icebreaker years of Edmunds – might well defuse criticism before it occurs, and end up pleasing everybody. The proof is, as always, in the festival program he actually produces: but for the moment TN feels sanguine about MIAF. I think Sheehy's appointment is a smart move.