About the Producer

Acclaimed Australian music theatre producer and performer Simon Gallaher is presenting this unique opportunity for young aspiring, up and coming performers and students.

Gallaher is a theatrical star, a singer, a musician, pianist, a hit songwriter, and most recently a respected theatrical producer and entrepreneur. He started his career at the age of fifteen in his original home town of Brisbane hosting a kid’s TV show for the SEVEN Network. Two years later he was studying fulltime music at the Qld. Conservatorium. He staged his first concert singing and playing piano at aged 18 (which he entrepreneured himself). Only months after his successful concert debut Gallaher’s career was launched nationally through the highly successful Australian television show The Mike Walsh Show. Suddenly thousands of viewers around Australia discovered the talent of this young Queenslander and he quickly won the hearts of Australians eager to see his concerts and buy his recordings. Five Gold albums later his career and entrepreneurial skill were starting to show results.

Gallaher became the youngest entertainer to be given his own night-time television variety show running for 2 successful seasons on ABC-TV. At 23 years of age Gallaher had cut a swathe through the Australian entertainment scene winning enough awards to be the envy of any seasoned performer....... a TV-Logie Award; 3 Mo Variety Awards, A Queenslander of the Year; and twice voted Queensland's Entertainer of Year.

He then made the transition to the stage in the Australian production of the Broadway smash hit The Pirates of Penzance. Together with Jon English he played for almost 3 years and over 1,000 performances in what was at that time one of the most successful musical productions in Australian history. Of course there was more Pirates to come again later. As an actor he has also performed as Cornelius in Hello Dolly; the title role of Karl Franz in the Lyric Opera's revival of The Student Prince; Freddie Eynsford-Hill in the hit revival of My Fair Lady and more recently in creating the roles of Nanki-Poo; Ralph Rackstraw & Camille De Rossilon in his company’s productions of The Mikado; HMS Pinafore & The Merry Widow.

In 1992 Gallaher’s company also took on the entrepreneurial task of a National Capital City tour An Unforgettable Evening combining his talents with Australian singer Julie Anthony, conductor Tommy Tycho and the symphony orchestra in each city's major concert hall. In 1994 Gallaher’s most daring risk paid off by recreating The Pirates of Penzance with himself and Jon English in a new 1990’s version. This was an overwhelming success playing live to over 500,000 people,  a TV audience of over 2,000,000 people, a triple-platinum video and an Aria Award for Best Musical Soundtrack. In 1995 Essgee Entertainment Australia and the Pirates creative team brought a new version of The Mikado to the stage to more critical acclaim and a loyal audience hungry for this fresh approach to musical theatre.

In 1996 Gallaher formed Essgee Entertainment (NZ) to stage the New Zealand production of The Mikado in the hope that other countries would warm to this style of entertainment as much as the Australians. New Zealand took Gallaher’s Mikado to their hearts and claimed it as their own. Within six months a new but now sequel Pirates played again across New Zealand to capacity houses. 1997 brought a grand finale to this showbiz phenomena with HMS Pinafore as the last of his G&S trilogy which toured both countries and was acclaimed by many as the best of the three. Productions of all three shows have since been staged in U.S.A. & United Kingdom and Essgee’s television productions have been screened across the world.

1998 brought a new and lavish production of The Merry Widow to the stage for an exclusive Brisbane-only season. Another hit show saw this production staged in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide during 1999 starring Marina Prior. 1999 was probably the busiest year in Gallaher's production schedule with two other major productions. The acclaimed Tony Award winning play Master Class starring Amanda Muggleton was an outstanding triumph in Melbourne winning Amanda many accolades and awards and a new production of Stephen Sondheim’s farcical musical A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum toured across Australia and New Zealand starring Jon English.

The year 2000 marked 25 years in showbusiness for Gallaher and he returned to the concert stage for the first time in some years to mark this special occasion. 2001 saw the Special Anniversary Production of The NEW Pirates of Penzance which again toured across the country until mid-2003. In 2004, Simon produced the new Australian epic musical EUREKA which opened in Melbourne to much critical acclaim.  2005 saw Simon return to the concert stage for a limited number of engagements to mark his 30 years in showbusiness. A new duet album with Julie Anthony Together At Last was released in May 2006. Simon's newest project SHOWSTOPPERS is a collection of music theatre workshops using the cream of Australian music and acting talent & will commence in 2007.

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