Cabinet of curiosities on market in SA theatre company’s final act
Award-winning theatre company Slingsby is parting ways with hundreds of props and costumes before it draws the curtain after two decades of operation. Read what’s being sold.
It will be a trip down memory lane on Thursday as leading South Australian theatre company Slingsby holds a unique garage sale at its Hall of Possibilities headquarters.
Hundreds of items featured in Slingsby Theatre Company productions over the past two decades will be sold, with everything from courtier hats from the production The Young King to train conductor hats from Emil and the Detectives, umbrella stands, vintage suitcases and a “beautiful green couch”.
Slingsby was established in 2007 by Andy Packer and Jodi Glass and has established an international reputation for creating imaginative and engaging theatre experiences for children and family audiences, with its shows touring across Australia and to more than 12 countries.
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In August 2024, the company announced it would wrap up after it missed out on multi-year federal funding for 2025 to 2028.
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Packer, who is artistic director and CEO of Slingsby, said the garage sale “would fill an eight-car driveway”, with money raised going back to the company to assist in its final stages.
“It’s been really beautiful, actually, to reconnect with the detail of the design works that we haven’t performed for, say, 10 or 12 years. It’s melancholic but it also makes you very happy that we have always been so committed to that detail,” Packer told InDaily.
“One example is Ode to Nonsense, which was a very big show that we made; the opera singers on stage were at one point handwriting Edward Lear’s poems.
“We found these props, which were pages and pages and pages of handwritten poems that the audience in Her Majesty’s Theatre were never going to see, but that’s just typical of the detail that the company goes to, to really, fully create that world.”
The garage sale also includes old costumes, TVs, chairs, desks and cushions, as well as a whole library of theatre and art reference books.
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While technical equipment like microphone stands, speakers and stands for speakers, lighting fixtures, cables, smoke machines, woollen drapes and high gloss silver Tarkett flooring would be sold to industry partners today.
“There will be some things that people will find quite useful, in a practical sense … But I think some people will also find a nice memento or memoir of the company as well,” Packer said.
There will be no set prices on Thursday, with a barter-type system for the items that include handmade props from well-known designer Wendy Todd.
“I think it’ll be a lot of, we’ll point and make a suggestion and then ask people to make us an offer,” Packer said.
Packer said that one unique item was a “beautiful straw hat” that was created for the Edward Lear character in Slingsby’s major opera production, Ode to Nonsense.
He said the company, which had a focus on its environmental impact, had already rehomed many sets and props from its productions, adding that most items not sold at the garage sale would go to charity, and a small amount of “rubbish” would end up in landfill.
Packer was unsure how many people would turn up, but said that “this is about passing these materials on to other people”.
“We may be overwhelmed, or it might just be 15 friends, and either will be fine, probably. Forty friends would be wonderful,” he said.
In the meantime, Slingsby will continue touring its show, A Concise Compendium of Wonder, to places like Whyalla, with a final concert planned towards the end of next year.
“There will be an event or concert or a combination of things that will be the final farewell to the company – sort of vale Slingsby in some ways,” Packer said.
Slingsby’s last garage sale takes place at 96 Glen Osmond Road, Parkside, on Thursday, May 28, from 11.30am to 7.30pm.
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