QPAC Gives Glimpse Into Its Museum Archives With New Free Exhibition

Get a glimpse of Queensland Performing Arts Centre's (QPAC) vast Museum collection in the new free exhibition Show and Tell, which will run from 1 May to 16 June and 10 July to 1 September 2018 in the Centre's Tony Gould Gallery.

Show and Tell explores the power of objects and artefacts, including costumes, photographs, posters, programs and more, and unearths serendipitous connections between people and stories, times and places to take audiences on a theatrical ramble down memory lane.

QPAC Museum collects and cares for Queensland's performing arts heritage and provides community access to the collection through exhibitions, public programs and research facilities. Its collection is home to more than 70,000 objects and artefacts, comprising costumes, set and costume designs, programs, recordings and other memorabilia.

Highlights visitors to Show and Tell will see include a sequinned leotard made and worn by internationally famous aerialist Olga Varona in the 1940s; a fascinating display of autographed photographs from the likes of Anna Pavlova, Gladys Moncrief and an array of 1920s vaudevillians; and a costume worn by Dame Joan Sutherland in her famous performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1965.

QPAC Exhibitions Manager Maria Cleary said in many ways, what audiences saw on stage was the tip of the iceberg.

"A performance someone sees on stage is a fleeting moment that is the culmination of vast preparation, not only by the performer, but by networks of writers and composers, directors, designers and costumiers, scenery builders, makeup artists, staging technicians, theatre managers, photographers and producers - the list goes on," Ms Cleary said.

"Our collection preserves the material evidence of those fleeting moments - the tangible stuff of the theatre that holds the stories of formative years, creative determination and serendipitous meetings, the alchemy of fame and glimpses of great things to come.

"What visitors to Show and Tell will see represents just a tiny fragment of the amazing trove of objects and information in our care."

QPAC Museum sources material from across Queensland - amateur or professional, big or small, established or emerging - in order to build a collection that paints a dynamic picture of live performance in Queensland in the broadest possible sense.

Much of what is held in the collection documents Queensland's extraordinary level of community participation in the arts, both as performers and audiences, as well as changing social attitudes and tastes.

QPAC Museum began collecting theatrical memorabilia from across Queensland when QPAC opened in 1985 and the Tony Gould Gallery became a permanent QPAC Museum exhibition space in 1997.

To post a comment, you must register and login.