Shaun Rennie is currently one Australia’s busiest directors. Earlier this year, we glimpsed his process as he began work on a musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Bell Shakespeare titled The Lovers. We also followed him in his preparations for the remount of Opera Australia’s La Bohème at the Sydney Opera House in January. Drawing on Rennie’s verbatim accounts and diary notes, Jansson J. Antmann now provides an insight into his role as Assistant Director on The Phantom of the Opera – this year’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.

Shaun Rennie

Shaun Rennie with Simone Sault. Photo courtesy of Shaun Rennie

THURSDAY, 17 FEBRUARY 2022

Simon Phillips, Simone Sault and I had our first in-person meeting last night. Simone was a “Degas” ballet girl in the original Australian production of The Phantom of the Opera and is now choreographing our production. With little more than a month to go until we open, there was a lot to discuss and I ended up coming home as the sun rose this morning.

Simone presented some choreographic ideas and we discussed the challenges of our raked outdoor stage. It’s being treated for wet weather and...