GWB Entertainment continue to set their focus on Asia

With operations in both Australia and the United Kingdom, GWB Entertainment is currently producing four different major productions over four continents; all with plans to tour Asia in 2019 and beyond.

Ultimate Broadway at Shanghai Cultural Square Theatre (Photo credit: GWB Entertainment)

GWB has a long history producing first class productions in Asia including a national China tour of Disney’s High School Musical, the Korean premiere of the Broadway smash-hit Avenue Q, tour of Ghost the Musical through China, Macau, Taipei and Singapore, Ultimate Broadway at the Shanghai Cultural Square Theatre in 2011, 2012 and 2015, and most recently this year with George Orwell’s 1984 at the Singapore International Festival of Arts. In addition to these producing credits, GWB have also provided General Management services on numerous first-class tours through Asia over the last two decades including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. These experiences have resulted in GWB developing intimate knowledge of venues and audiences across this region and building a trusted reputation for delivering quality productions with local presenting partners.

Director Torben Brookman explains that “Asia plays a key part of the Company’s long-term strategy and the expected growth in this region is a cornerstone of GWB’s business model”. Since entering the industry GWB has been at the forefront of the development of musical theatre in Asia and particularly China. GWB Directors Torben and Richelle Brookman, Paul Griffin and Gareth Williams have gained 17 years of experience working and living in cities such as Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing and Taipei (to name a few) for months at a time resulting in the development of valued relationships with peers based in dozens of venues throughout Asia. With these relationships, GWB has effectively ‘grown up’ along-side their Asian colleagues with everyone experiencing the growth in their respective careers, local economies and demand for quality musical theatre productions in these growing markets together.

Left to right – GWB Directors Paul Warwick Griffin, Richelle Brookman and Gareth Williams attending the opening night of West Side Story Shanghai. (Photo credit: GWB Entertainment)

For the Asia Pacific region, a key strategy for GWB is to seek out production titles they believe will resonate with both Asian and Australian/New Zealand audiences, enabling them to work around venue availability restrictions in each country and deliver a truly viable Australasian tour plan. When explaining their thinking behind this strategy Richelle said “with squeezes on availability in key Australian venues for instance, Asian markets allow us to look at creative touring models where we can not only extend an Australian tour into Asia or vice versa but can go back and forth between these two regions throughout the tour as required to ensure the budget is commercially viable and attractive to our investors”.

School of Rock tram in Melbourne’s CBD ahead of Nov opening (Photo credit: GWB Entertainment)

This strategy is evident in several tour schedules of GWB’s current productions such as West Side Story that is looking to play in Taiwan and China in May/June next year between seasons at Melbourne Arts Centre and Sydney Opera House in 2019. Another example of this is School of Rock the Musical that will spend time across 12 cities in China following a 16-week season in Melbourne at Her Majesty’s Theatre and prior to further seasons in Australia still to be announced.

In some cases, and to help with touring through Asian territories, GWB have developed new international touring productions of shows such as the world-wide hit Matilda the Musical that will open in South Africa in October this year before making its way to Singapore and beyond from February 2019.

Left to right – GWB Directors Torben Brookman, Paul Warwick Griffin, Richelle Brookman and Gareth Williams attending opening night of The King and I at London Palladium (Photo credit: GWB Entertainment)

Having offices in both Adelaide, South Australia and London, UK means GWB can “keep their fingers on the pulse of new work coming in and out of the West End” explains Torben. This provides them with opportunities such as co-producing The King and I at The London Palladium with long time collaborators from Asia and UK. While an office in Australia enables the team to bring such work to the Asia Pacific region and maintain relationships with their partners in this expanding region.

One of the ultimate goals of GWB is to have a truly global Company and the next step sees the Company setting their sights on a new office somewhere in Asia to solidify partnerships and help foster new collaborations in markets such as Indonesia, India and the Middle East.

GWB are new members of AAPPAC and are looking forward to engaging with colleagues within the Association in the hope of creating fruitful collaborations working on innovative ideas.

Visit GWB Entertainment’s website here.