Cocktail cabaret is proving to be a winning mix for the Mill Theatre and Ambrosia at Dairy Road. Photo: Mill Theatre.
Budgets are tight, and it’s the middle of winter. So how does a little theatre at Dairy Road manage to sell out shows when the big productions are struggling?
Owner and producer Lexi Sekuless isn’t gloating, but the Mill Theatre can boast full houses for its cocktail cabaret at Ambrosia Lounge, its neighbour at Dairy Road.
The Mill is enjoying a great run this winter, with the Rare Bird ensemble selling out Ambrosia in June for Love and Forgetting -Tales from a Young Mixer, and now readying for the July-August performances of the show, back by popular demand.
From 24 July in the theatre proper, the Mill will stage Live Radio Play: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows adapted by Bart Meehan. In August, a youth (18-25) cast takes on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
Ms Sekuless admits the venues are small – The Mill seats 67 – but they are doing good business despite the tough times and climes.
She’s survived lean seasons at the box office, but a conscious decision to use targeted programming to attract different groups of people to the theatre has paid off.
The ACT Government’s liquor licence discounts for live shows have also contributed to a revival in what was an entertainment staple – the dinner show. Offering a packaged experience also proved successful.
“I picked shows that already had a stakeholder base, so I did much smarter programming,” Ms Sekuless says.
“For example, shows about nurses and veterans or shows about the finance sector, so the topic and subject matter touched a key established area.”
It meant she wasn’t eating into her own audience or expecting theatregoers to come to three or four things a year, but was targeting different audiences who may only be coming just for that play.
It was even easier at Ambrosia, which already had its own clientele.
Audiences thrive on the intimacy, says Lexi Sekuless. Photo: Mill Theatre.
Ms Sekuless says the interesting thing is that the smaller, intimate spaces are as different as possible from watching something on a laptop at home.
“It’s incredibly immediate; the liveness is almost like it’s turned up by 10,” she says.
The surprise at Ambrosia, which had actually approached Mill about staging a live show, is that most people are opting for the more expensive full package of dinner and show.
“We know that full experiences are what people are willing to pay for,” Ms Sekuless says.
“Visit Canberra actually has been talking about this for some time. They’ve been trying to get all the cultural institutions to do packages, because they’ve noticed that people are being really selective.”
Ms Sekuless says people see the value in the package, and if money is tight, they want the fullest experience.
The feedback is that patrons love the intimacy and involvement, something Ms Sekuless is capitalising on by having the cast greeting them in the foyer as they come out and talking about the show, something that doesn’t happen with the big shows.
Despite the smaller scale, the emphasis remains on maintaining quality production values and distinctive shows.
“You’ve got to make sure that the experience is as different as possible, otherwise they won’t keep coming back,” she says.
Good times for Mill also mean good times for the Dairy Road precinct. Ms Sekuless says three-quarters of her punters spend more than $100 elsewhere around Dairy Road.
“It’s exactly the kind of thing that builds precincts and the life of a city,” she says.
That’s an economic multiplier that government ministers also talk about in relation to Canberra Theatre and the big productions that come to town, but Ms Sekuless wonders what the future holds for these very costly shows that rely so heavily on pre-bookings.
She says, admittedly selfishly, that she doesn’t know why the government is building a massive lyric theatre in the current environment.
Ms Sekuless supports moves for a federal tax rebate to support the big shows but says it should be limited to home-grown Australian productions.
The question remains: How do we make people leave the house?
“How do we? Because we’re all in competition with Netflix,” Ms Sekuless says.
Part of the answer may be found at Dairy Road this winter.
- Love & Forgetting – Tales from a Young Mixer. Winter Residency with The Mill Theatre & Ambrosia Lounge, Dairy Road, 17-19 July & 7-9 August 2026, 7 pm Friday, Saturday and 2 pm Sunday
- Live Radio Play: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows adapted by Bart Meehan, 24 July – 1 August
- The Winter’s Tale Youth Production directed by Heidi Silberman, 5 – 15 August.
To book, or find out more, visit Mill Theatre at Dairy Road.
