Arts Centre Melbourne announced yesterday (17 July) that three leading female philanthropists – Susan Yates (Peter and Susan Yates Foundation), Virginia Boon (Harry and Virginia Boon Foundation) and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty – have provided major donations of approximately $1 million each, in support of showcasing and celebrating Australia’s performing arts history.
Philanthropists Susan Yates and Virginia Boon have both directly supported the construction of the new Australian Museum of Performing Arts (AMPA), opening on Hamer Hall’s Riverside Terrace in December. AMPA’s first exhibition will be announced in September.
Philanthropist Krystyna Campbell-Pretty supported two major acquisitions for the Australian Performing Arts Collection (established in 1975 and containing more than 850,000 objects relating to the history of circus, dance, music, opera and theatre) including 35 objects once owned by Grammy-winning recording artist and actor Olivia Newton-John, who died in 2022, and Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist Barry Humphries, who died in 2023.
The new objects include Newton-John’s custom-painted, turquoise blue Steinway baby grand piano, a classic motorcycle-style jacket worn during her Las Vegas residency, T-shirts worn to perform ‘Physical’ in concert and her ARIA Music Hall of Fame Award from 2002.
The Humphries acquisition includes Dame Edna Everage spectacles, a gown worn by Humphries/ Everage when she danced with Rudolf Nureyev in 1987, and one of Everage’s gown worn by Humphries at the Royal Variety Show in the London Palladium Theatre (2013).
‘Through the generous support of Susan, Virginia and Krystyna, the riches of the Australian Performing Arts Collection will be shared through the new Australian Museum of Performing Arts, and it will continue to be a leader in preservation of performing arts history,’ said Arts Centre Melbourne CEO Karen Quinlan AM.
‘AMPA is an exciting new addition to Melbourne’s cultural landscape, and we look forward to opening the doors in December to put a spotlight on both local and international performing arts history.’
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Humphries left a complicated legacy behind him when he died: renowned for his barbed wit and satirical characters, he was also remembered as someone who called gender reassignment surgery ‘mutilation’ and who defended Australian painter Donald Friend’s ‘benevolent form of paedophilia’.
Newton-John’s legacy, conversely, is untarnished; she is as well remembered for her string of pop hits in the 1970s and 80s, and her iconic role in the 1978 film Grease, as she is for her advocacy for breast cancer research and other health issues.
Items from the Australian Performing Arts Collection are currently accessible to the community via foyer displays in Arts Centre Melbourne’s venues Hamer Hall and the Theatres Building, a searchable online catalogue, a dedicated Research Centre, loans to other cultural institutions, and through the behind-the-scenes Collection Store Tours at Hamer Hall. Iconic objects from the Collection can also be found in the Australian Music Vault in the Theatres Building.
Preserving performing arts history for future generations
Yates, Boon and Campbell-Pretty said their collective support drew from a desire to ensure performing arts history was preserved for future generations and shared with the broader community.
Boon, who grew up in a performing arts family and has a performing arts background, began volunteering with the Australian Performing Arts Collection after donating a few items from her family’s archive.
‘My husband Harry and I are proud to support the dream of making this incredible $80 million collection more accessible,’ she said.
‘It’s a joy to see the history of Australian performance coming into the spotlight and to play a small part in helping it find new audiences for generations to come,’ Boon added.
Yates, who began her career in public and education sector libraries before joining the State Library of Victoria’s Pictures Collection, said the new museum would allow audiences to expand upon their experience of live performance and learn more about the process of taking a show from page to stage.
‘AMPA’s exhibitions will shed light on the creative and collaborative process of bringing entertainment to an audience. I think many Australians, like myself, would love the opportunity to enjoy both iconic and lesser-known artefacts from Australia’s performing arts history. So much of it is kind of ephemeral by nature. You see a fabulous instrument, prop, costume or set in a performance, then the curtains go down and you never see it again,’ she said.
Philanthropist Krystyna Campbell-Pretty, a retired researcher and management consultant known for her significant contributions to cultural institutions, said the Olivia Newton-John and Barry Humphries acquisitions reflected moments in performing arts history that could now be shared with the community.
‘Arts Centre Melbourne has the finest collection of performing arts archive material in Australia. It’s excellent. I have felt for some time that it deserved to be given a focus and properly presented to the public as a part of what Arts Centre Melbourne offers,’ Campbell-Pretty said.
‘Performing arts collections document both cultural and social history. The latter is particularly important as it’s the history of how we live, the things that we do and enjoy every day. That of course changes over time and the collection documents those changes through key objects that are part of people’s lives,’ she added.
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AMPA will open to the public in December 2025 with almost 500 square metres dedicated to showcasing curated exhibitions including international touring exhibitions. Fundraising to complete the full vision for the museum is ongoing.
The first phase of AMPA’s construction has been made possible through significant support from Melbourne’s generous philanthropic community in addition to seed funding from the Victorian Government, through Creative Victoria.
