Opportunities and risks in booming co-productions

Artists and audiences both benefit from co-productions, but is there a risk more co-productions will mean fewer individual opportunities?
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Image: Peter Paltos, Paul Capsis and Ash Flanders in Sydney Theatre Company / Malthouse Theatre’s Calpurnia Descending by Sisters Grim © Brett Boardman

Co-productions are now commonplace across the performing arts sector, with the popularity of such works showing no signs of abating – a glance at upcoming subscription seasons reveals that we’re going to see everything from the new Australian opera The Rabbits (an Opera Australia co-production with Barking Gecko Theatre Company) to a magical adventure about love, Masquerade (a collaboration between the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Griffin Theatre Company in association with Adelaide Festival Centre and Windmill Theatre) as a result of co-productions in 2015.  

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts