Live Performance Australia's Hall of Fame is a designated section published on the organisation's official website since 2006. The inductees were chosen from an expert committee and initially comprised eighty practitoners. Since then the Hall of Fame has included winners of the James Cassius Williamson Awards (recognising living individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the performing arts in Australia) have been added, along with other notable performers.
'This virtual Hall of Fame is Live Performance Australia’s way of paying tribute to a remarkable collection of theatre people. In our Hall of Fame you’ll encounter actors and directors, playwrights and designers, singers and instrumentalists, comedians and dancers, circus performers and puppeteers, theatre architects and entrepreneurs, and even a critic or two. Some you’ll know, others not. But they’re all great people with great stories and we know you’ll enjoy meeting them' (Hall of Fame website).
The official historian for the Hall of Fame is Frank Van Straten.
'George Fairfax paid this tribute: ‘Known to her great family of “theatre children” as Renee, or Miss Mitch, or Teach, Irene Mitchell director, actor, teacher and theatre enthusiast was a mentor to thousands of actors, designers, playwrights and directors in Australia in a lifetime that spanned all but ten years of the 20th century. Long before Australian plays were fashionable or good box office, she was encouraging local writers, working with them on their texts and, above all, presenting their plays...' (Frank Van Straten).
'[Peter] Scriven’s contribution to puppetry is an important part of Australia’s performing arts history,’ said Jenny Gould, who toured through Asia with him. ‘He developed puppetry as an art form in this country where there had been none. It was original, creative and visionary in its scale. He sought funding from the corporate sector, a new concept we now take for granted; he was an entrepreneur. He had a genius for attracting talented and hardworking creative people – writers, musicians, actors, technicians and craftsmen – to implement his ideas...'
