It’s almost time to take a bow
SWIMMING in an oversized white dress shirt with kneecaps dancing a trembling staccato, I stepped on the stage of the old Cairns Civic Theatre and sat at the piano.
The theatre was peppered with about 40 grown-ups – really only there to see their own little chidlets murder Tchaikovsky – but it felt like a packed-out Carnegie Hall.
The girl from down the road and I had been practising our duet for weeks ahead of the eisteddfod, and I was bricking it.
Our jitters forced the tempo up to a blinding speed but somehow we ploughed through with only a few wrong notes and earned a piece of paper saying “highly commended” for our effort.
It was a cleansing experience following the utter ruination of my young nerves, and Mum reckoned I was a very clever boy.
After years of planning, accusations of union meddling, budget concerns, a fire safety furore and the threat of the whopping cyclone smashing into Cairns, a new crop of little musicians now gets to endure the same bowel-twisting process I went through.
It has not been an easy ride, but the Cairns Performing Arts Centre is opening tonight – just as Mayor Bob Manning insisted it would.
It is worth looking back on all the hurdles, concept changes and political upheaval that led to the $71.5 million theatre’s realisation.
Back in 2009, then-mayor Val Schier was overseeing plans to build the Cairns Cultural Precinct – a $240 million project on the city’s waterfront that came to be known as the Val-cano.
Its centrepiece, a cone-shaped 1500-seat cultural centre beside the existing Cairns Convention Centre, looked like it might spew lava at any moment.
Getting funding and winning over a confused general public proved a tough task, and the idea met its drowning death in Trinity Inlet when Cr Manning won the 2012 election.
Zoom ahead to December 2015 and the contracts had been awarded for the new mayor’s rejigged version of the Val-cano – a 941-seat theatre on Florence St, a smaller 400-seat studio theatre, and all for less than a quarter of the cost. How good does that sound? But then the real numbers came in. The total cost for The Precinct, which includes the theatre and the Munro Martin Parklands, was initially budgeted at $65 million.
Now the theatre alone has blown out to $71.5 million – due to “scope changes” if you listen to the council – with more costs on the way.
The real drama has been the fire safety of the external cladding, which threatened to stop the opening night from going ahead right up to the final buzzer.
The council finally worked out an agreement with Queensland Fire and Emergency Services with provisional approvals to open the doors as long as extra smoke-watching security guards were on duty, and new sprinklers and fire detectors were installed.
It will still cost more than $1 million to eventually erect intermittent stretches of new fireproof panels to the building, but that is an issue for another day and another budget.
Having clawed his way through those obstacles and arriving battered and bruised but still standing, in the end it was a cyclone that could have blown all of the mayor’s grand-opening hopes away.
He will not give up on his dream that easily.
As much as anything, tonight’s performance will be about Cr Manning achieving what he said he would.
Cairns now has a cultural and musical heartland that blows the tired old Civic Theatre out of the water – all it takes is one step inside to appreciate.
It will be there for generations to come, long after Cr Manning has gone up to the big council chambers in the sky. It is quite the legacy. Mayor Bob Manning must be feeling like that twitchy-kneed little boy who has just persevered through searing white fear and cold sweat to wrap it all up and make his triumphant bow to the audience.
CAIRNS NOW HAS A CULTURAL AND MUSICAL HEARTLAND THAT BLOWS THE TIRED OLD CIVIC THEATRE OUT OF THE WATER – ALL IT TAKES IS ONE STEP INSIDE TO APPRECIATE.