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Brett Joseph Sheehy an Australian artistic director, producer and curator. He has been director of international arts festivals in Australia's state capital cities, Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival, and Melbourne Festival.
Sheehy was educated at St. Joseph's Christian Brothers College, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane and then at University of Queensland where he studied arts/law. Several of his family have been involved in law and public service in Queensland. His grandfather Sir Joseph Sheehy KBE Awards pmc.gov.au served as senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland, as administrator of the State of Queensland in 1965 and 1969, and as deputy governor and acting governor.Lim, Anne (August 2009) "Defining Moments: Brett Sheehy, Festival Director", Wish Magazine, The Australian, p. 62.
As a boy, Sheehy lived with an uncle, property developer Rick O'Sullivan, and his family on several occasions when Sheehy's mother endured lengthy illnesses. O'Sullivan was co-owner of the racehorse Think Big which won the Melbourne Cup in 1974 and 1975.Bart Cummings (2009) Bart: My Life, Pan Australia, pp. 150-151.
Despite several family members' legal background, Sheehy completed only three years of his law studies and his articled clerkship at Short, Punch & Greatorix Solicitors on Queensland's Gold Coast, before abandoning law and moving to Sydney in 1983.Neill, Rosemary, "The Highway Man", The Weekend Australian, Review, 22 September 2012, cover and pp. 8/9.Dow, Steve, (2005) 'Questions for Brett Sheehy', The Sun-Herald, 2 January 2005
While at STC, Sheehy is credited with helping give Sydney the now often-used moniker and nickname of "Emerald City" by suggesting this as the title for playwright David Williamson's 1987 play about the city, which Williamson accepted, adding a line of dialogue "The Emerald City of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves." The play Emerald City was produced nationally and later toured to the West End in London.
In 1991 Sheehy was involved in challenging the automatic attribution of world-wide English-speaking rights in American plays to US producers, which could prevent their presentation in Australia for several years following their Broadway theatre premieres.Neill, Rosemary, "Taking on the Big One: An Issue of Rights", The Australian, 4 July 1991, p. 9.
Sheehy's four Sydney Festivals (2002 to 2005) included 37 world premieres, saw the festival double its box office attendances, posted four successive financial surpluses, recorded a 30% increase in attendances to free outdoor events, established satellite festival precincts at Fox Studios Australia and in Greater Sydney, developed a following in the 18 to 35 age group, was voted Sydney's Best and Most Popular Event by the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, and was twice named the Best Event in New South Wales (2003 and 2005) by NSW Tourism (since renamed Destination NSW).Usher, Robin (28 November 2007) "Sydney, Adelaide; Now Sheehy Takes on Melbourne's Festival", The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 18.Australian Stage, 28 November 2007 http://www.australianstage.com.au/20071128918/news/melbourne/melbourne-international-arts-festival-appoints-next-artistic-director.html
Sheehy's final Sydney Festival event at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, the Came So Far For Beauty Leonard Cohen tribute concert starring Jarvis Cocker, Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, and Antony Hegarty, among others, was filmed and recorded for the international documentary and album .
The reception of the 2006 festival was positive. Australian media claimed Sheehy had restored Adelaide Festival's status as the pre-eminent arts festival of Australia.McDonald, Patrick (2005), "Program 'a work of genius, The Advertiser, 11 October 2005, p. 7. News Limited press headlined "Festival baHeck as best in nation", and the Fairfax Media echoed these sentiments. "The Future's Looking Festive" by Penelope Debelle, The Age, 8 December 2007. ; Retrieved 22 December 2014 The subsequent 2008 festival broke box office and attendance records for Adelaide Festival's 48-year history,Usher, Robin (15 March 2008) "Directing Festival to Record High", The Age (Arts & Culture), p. 25. and was claimed to have been the world's first carbon-neutral international arts festival, achieved in concert with the South Australian Government.
In Adelaide, Sheehy's team secured with Adelaide Bank the largest arts sponsorship in the State of South Australia, at A$3 million over three festivals, with an option on a further two festivals.Usher, Robin (28 November 2007) "Adelaide Festival Director Heading to Melbourne", The Age, p. 9.
In August 2024, after current director Ruth Mackenzie was appointed to a senior government role, it was announced that Sheehy would again take assume the role of AD of Adelaide Festival until a new one is appointed for the 2026 festival.
The 2009 Melbourne Festival saw a 55% increase in the festival's economic impact on the city of Melbourne, with his subsequent festival programs growing that figure by another 41% to $39.5 million, resulting in an overall increase of 120% (independent figures by Roy Morgan Research and Sweeney Research). The Age newspaper claimed that in 2009 the festival "regained much of the tensile strength it lost in recent years (with a program which) made this year's festival special and so beguiling".
Sheehy's 2011 Melbourne Festival broke box office records for that festival's 27-year history. In Melbourne Sheehy programmed his first composer-in-residence suite of works, with British composer Thomas Adès, Faber Music, Thomas Adès; Retrieved 20 November 2014 as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra (hosting the Orchestra's Patron HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent). These and other classical music presentations were in counterpoint to Sheehy's contemporary music programs, curated with Hannah Fox and Tom Supple,Supple Fox, Projects, Melbourne Festival. http://supplefox.com/projects/melbourne-festival mostly staged at Melbourne's historic Forum Theatre. International and national music artists performed in genres as diverse as post-rock, noise rock, psychedelic jazz-hop, R&B funk-rap, synthpop, electroclash and extreme metal, with geographic surveys from Palestinian hip-hop to Chinese indie rock, hardcore and punk to Sri Lankan heavy metal.
For the opening weekend of Sheehy's final Melbourne Festival program he returned to an artist from the Sydney Festival's Came So Far For Beauty concerts, Antony Hegarty, and presented the Museum of Modern Art commission Swanlights – a musical artwork created by Hegarty, Chris Levine and Carl Robertshaw with 44-piece orchestra, based on the Antony and the Johnsons album of the same name. The production Swanlights had been presented one other night previously, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Sheehy has been variously dubbed "Mr Sydney"Clark, Chelsea, "Mr Sydney's Festival Aims for Under 35s", The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 2 November 2001. and Australia's "Mr Festival"Strickland, Katrina & Plane, Terry, "Mr Festival Makes a Capital Move", The Australian, 3 September 2003McMahon, Neil, "Meet Mr Festival", The Sunday Age/ The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2013. due to his extensive festival career which began with his ten-year tenure at Sydney Festival.
At Melbourne Theatre Company, Sheehy's inaugural season in 2013 included MTC's first presentation of an international West End production (with Arts Centre Melbourne), the Royal National Theatre's One Man, Two Guvnors; Australia's first festival of independent theatre NEON; New Light MTC Season 2013. accessed the first stage-play by singer, songwriter, author and actor Eddie Perfect; the MTC debut of director Simon Stone; film and stage actor David Wenham in The Crucible; the family production The Book of Everything; the Company's inaugural Women Directors Program; and the inaugural MTC CONNECT Diverse Artists Program with Multicultural Arts Victoria. This resulted in MTC's highest box office in its 60-year history, with attendances of 263,000 and 19,800 subscribers, the largest theatre subscriber base in Australia. MTC Annual Report 2013. accessed The Age newspaper's end-of-year editorial claimed the 2013 program was jointly responsible (with National Gallery of Victoria's 2013 program) for Melbourne's cultural renaissance in that year. The Age, 28 December 2013; Editorial: "Culturally, A Year Of Revitalisation", Retrieved 4 January 2015.
In 2014 MTC toured its production of Rupert, David Williamson's satirical bio-play about the life of Rupert Murdoch, to Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Sheehy's 2014 program also included the second NEON Festival of Independent Theatre; the first stage-play by Australian film and television artists Working Dog Productions The Speechmaker; MTC's co-presentation of musical Once with Gordon Frost Organisation; and a regional tour of its education production Yellow Moon. 2014 also saw MTC's first mainstage multi-artform production, with dance ensemble Chunky Move, of Falk Richter and Anouk van Dijk's Complexity of Belonging which opened the 2014 Melbourne Festival and opens the Spring Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, in early 2015, followed by seasons at Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre national de Chaillot in Paris.
Sheehy's other awards have included:
In 2005 Sheehy was named by the Australian Financial Review Magazine as one of the 20 Australians to be watched for their impact on society up to the year 2020,Cornell, Andrew (et al.) (25 April 2005) "20 for 2020; People", Australian Financial Review. and in 2007 he was named by ABC's Limelight magazine as one of the five most influential arts figures in Australia, an attribution repeated in 2011 when the AFR Magazine named him as one of Australia's five leading arts identities – with then-Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean, National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood, actress Cate Blanchett and Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron.Turner, Brook (30 September 2011) "Arts A-Listers", Australian Financial Review.
In 2002 Sheehy was painted by artist Paul NewtonPaul Newton – Portrait of Brett Sheehy, Flickr for the Archibald Prize,Guinness, Daphne, "Fit Enough to Tackle the Competition", The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 2002 with the painting subsequently being a finalistPaul Newton: "Career Highlights 2004 – Finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, portrait of Brett Sheehy, Director of The Sydney Festival" in the 2004 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize,Verghis, Sharon, "Reputation Restored in Leaner Frame", The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 July 2004. the richest portrait prize in the world. Sheehy was again painted for the Archibald Prize in 2012 by artist Caroline Thew.
In 2009, Sheehy's partner since August 1994, was chef Steven Nicholls.
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