Expanding in Asia Michael Cassel Group announces key appointments

Leading Australian live entertainment producer Michael Cassel Group has announced two significant appointments to the organisation’s production and creative development teams.

Annelies Crowe, who was the Associate Producer for the Australian and international tours of Hamilton and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, has been promoted to Deputy Head of Production overseeing all Australian productions including the Australian premieres of Titanique, Dear Evan Hansen, MJ and Beetlejuice and the highly anticipated return of Hamilton to Sydney.

Crowe, who previously held senior production roles with Sydney Theatre Company, reports to Todd Lacy, Head of Production, who will continue to oversee all production activity, including the company’s global roll out of original content and major international tours.

Announcing Crowe’s appointment, Producer and Chief Executive, Michael Cassel stated “Annelies’ pursuit of excellence, her unwavering commitment to ensuring our productions are world class, her inexhaustible passion for theatre and her incredible leadership skills make her the ideal person to shepherd our Australian slate from concept to completion.

“Along with Todd Lacy’s tremendous experience and with his guidance, I am thrilled to have such an expert team to care for our productions all over the world.”

The company also revealed the appointment of Anna Fox as Creative Development Manager, based in London.

Fox is a Director and writer who has more than a decade of experience in regional, international and West End theatre. Most recently she served as the Associate Director of the musical & Juliet in the United Kingdom and Australia.

She will report to Head of Creative Development Jane Abramson who is based in New York.

Asian Growth
The theatre production company is also continuing its expansion in Asia following the launch of two blockbuster productions in September last year.

This included Hamilton beginning its first ever international tour in the Philippines featuring cast members drawn from productions in Broadway, London, the US tours, Germany and Australia.

The production played at Manila’s The Theatre at Solaire until 26th November in an unprecedented record-breaking run, ahead of a season in Abu Dhabi from January this year

The company is now planning to release eight original shows in the coming years, with the first planned to reach the stage by the end of this year.

Cassel told Gordon Cox that the desire to create its own work came during the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdowns, advising “we were twiddling our thumbs after COVID hit, but we thought: Well, what we can be doing is thinking and creating.

“I really think that we might have one of our first original shows on stage at the end of next year.

“The aim is that in 2025, ’26, ’27, we’ll start to see the fruits of all the efforts and investment.

“Because I’d like our original work to be an equal balance with our licensed titles.”

One of the reason for looking at Asia is a lack of theatre space in Australia.

Here Cassel notes “right now you can’t get a theatre in Australia until 2028.”

This is due to Sydney and Melbourne each having a limited number of venues capable of staging large-scale musicals.

As a result, Cassel is looking to further explore outside of Australia following success in Singapore and the Philippines.

He adds “the strategy is to go where it may not be sustainable to invest in a full-fledged, local language production, but there’s an appetite for great theatre.

“When we look at what sort of wholly new creative pieces we want to wrap our arms around, our mantra is: They have to be global, and they have to be evergreen.

“We want to create our own content and then go and find out whether it can play in Abu Dhabi, or in the Philippines, or Argentina, or wherever.”

The company, founded by Michael Cassel in 2012, established itself with a flurry of big-name Broadway replicas around Australasia including Les Misérables and The Lion King.

Images: The Michael Cassel Group's production of Hamilton (top), Annelies Crowe (middle) and Michael Cassel (below). Credit: Michael Cassel Group.