The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
There are two principal texts to read about the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust - both make fascinating reading.
The first is the Chairman's Report from 2006 which looks back on the first fifty years of the Trust's history - and forward to the next.
The second text is a remarkable statement of the vision then held for the Trust when it was set up in 1956.
Click here
to view the AETT financial statements for 2012.
Click here
to read a current press release pertaining to information in the financial statement.
Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
Chairman's Address for 2005
BY
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE WADDY
ON 18 MAY 2006
This year, our 51st, is time to consolidate our fortunes and plan future directions.
THE PAST
The Trust's past achievements over 50 years is now recorded and archived on compact discs in over 120 live interviews with the managers, directors, producers and artists who were involved in the development of the many performing arts companies the Trust started. These memories, so recorded, of those early pioneers provide us with an invaluable history of the development of the performing arts in Australia from 1954. It is our hope that funds may be found to turn this fascinating story into an oral history which may be publicly released in a CD box set.
THE FUTURE
Notwithstanding the many important achievements of The Trust in its fifty years, it is the future which holds the greatest interest and excitement of your current Board and the Trust's General Manager. That future is full of the promise of the wonderful results our music scholars are beginning to demonstrate. From 1999, when our first overseas music scholarships were awarded until now we have been able to assist 80 scholars with grants of assistance totaling over $1,000,000. In 2005 financial assistance was given to five singers, three instrumentalists and one conductor and grants totaling $134,563 were awarded.
ANNUAL REPORT 1957
THE AUSTRALIA ELIZABETHAN THEATRE TRUST
THE BEGINNING
THE DECISION to commemorate the 1954 visit to Australia of Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh by launching an appeal for funds to establish a theatrical Trust might appear to the casual observer as an example of Anglo-Saxon eccentricity in a sun-drenched country.
The object of this appeal was boldly summarised as follows: "Our aim is to provide a theatre of Australians by Australians for Australians."
The casual observer might be tempted to comment that, since Australian interests have been associated rather with sporting and material affairs than with art and literature, the appeal would be unlikely to meet with a wide response. Such misgivings proved groundless and a fund of ₤90,000 was quickly raised from private persons and institutions throughout Australia, many of whom became sponsoring members by donating ₤500 or more. To this was added a grant of ₤30,000 from the Commonwealth Government.
A Board of Directors was appointed representing 1,400 members contributing annual subscriptions of ₤5 each. The Trust was incorporated under Royal Charter and Her Majesty graciously consented to become its Patron.
