Making a show that lasts

Can you deliberately set out to create a classic work, or is the creation of a timeless masterpiece more due to chance?
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A new production of perennial favourite The Rocky Horror Show is currently playing in Adelaide. Photo: Jeff Busby.  

Almost 400 years after his death, the works of William Shakespeare are more popular than ever, adapted for the screen and staged in dozens of languages around the world. The classical music canon routinely includes works than are hundreds of years old, while the worlds of ballet and opera are virtually synonymous with remounts of much-loved and traditional works.

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts