THE Canberra Theatre Centre’s next director is to be a Canberran who combines a high-flying background in the opera world with grassroots connection in the ACT arts scene.

Alex Budd, presently executive producer, touring & commercial for Opera Australia, will replace the long-time Canberra Theatre administrator and technician, Bruce Carmichael, as director after he retires in November.

While still to be formally confirmed by the Canberra Cultural Facilities Corporation, his appointment is described as an “open secret” around the theatre centre’s staff and local arts circles.

Meanwhile, late this afternoon (October 29) Canberra Cultural Facilities acting CEO Ian Tidy issued a statement saying the corporation was “still in the process of finalising the appointment” of the incoming director and that “any discussion of that at this stage would be premature and potentially damaging”. To whom, he didn’t say, nor did he deny it was Alex Budd.

Budd, a former music scholar at Canberra Grammar School who went on to study voice at the ANU School of Music while also working under Alex Sciberras in lighting at the Canberra Theatre, was part of a dynamic cohort of opera students at the university.

He was a founding member of the Canberra chamber opera company, Stopera, later going on to work as head electrician and touring lighting designer for Graeme Murphy’s Sydney Dance Company.

He joined Opera Australia as tour manager of OzOpera, before setting up the OA’s Enterprises division and spent a year at Royal Opera House Covent Garden project managing the Paul Hamlyn Performances

In 2008 he became Opera Australia’s general manager, Melbourne and Enterprises with executive producer responsibility for the music theatre and commercial projects of the Opera Australia business.

Budd has produced 11 New Year’s Eve galas at the Sydney Opera House, as well as the musical tours of “South Pacific,” “The King & I,” “Anything Goes” and “My Fair Lady,” directed by Julie Andrews.

Budd is well-known as an adept committee-sitter, a qualification which should suit him well in negotiations for a new Canberra Theatre.

In 2004 he was appointed to the Federal government’s Playing Australia Committee, where he served for seven years. He is an executive councillor of Live Performance Australia and a board member of Australian Boys Choral Institute, where his three sons have trained in voice.

Budd’s sister, Sibylla, is well-known as an actress in “The Secret Life of Us” and “Sea Patrol, while one of his brothers, Hamilton, is a screen writer.