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 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 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts