Who is Heather Croall?
CEO and artistic director of the Adelaide Fringe, Heather Croall, lives a very colourful life – at least from what we can see from the outside. CityMag sat down with three people who have a unique understanding about what has shaped the course of Heather’s life.
If you’re looking for a story on the life and career of Heather Croall from the mouth of the Adelaide Fringe CEO and artistic director herself, then look elsewhere, because this isn’t it.
Instead, this is a story shaped by the people who’ve helped shape Heather; three people who come from different parts of her artistic and colourful life, who each offer different perspectives about one of South Australia’s most-loved creatives.
The first person is renowned political journalist Annabel Crabb, who is a long-time friend of Heather’s, the two having met almost three decades ago when they were in their early 20s, the pair even coming to purchase a beach house together at Aldinga.
“Heather found this cool beach house and went ‘let’s do this’ and we all went ‘ok’,” Annabel says of their decision to buy the property along with other friends.
Annabel explains it was the type of house where “anyone could come and stay” and reminisces on her most memorable New Year’s Eve there.
“It was a night where there was phosphorescence in the water… tiny organisms in the water and when you touch them, they glow,” she tells CityMag.
“On this one New Year’s Eve, where there was this phenomenon happening on the beach at Aldinga, I remember diving in and this burst of light swimming around in the water and it was glowing.
“It was magical. It was a very magical time, really. It’s the sort of thing that might happen around Heather.”
Annabel says Heather’s most prominent quality is summed up in one word: connection.
“It’s quite an unusual person who’s good at that,” says Annabel. “Heather says yes to life in every way.
“And if you have a look at her career and the things she’s done, she is not a person who’s daunted by much, and she’s a person who takes a great amount of pleasure and delight in meeting somebody and thinking ‘Oh, you are interesting. You would love (such-and-such) person’.”
Nick Phillips, Heather Croall and Annabel Crabb
Annabel says Heather has an innate ability to see people and think ‘Oh, you’ll be good at this’; as she once also did with Annabel, suggesting her voice be used in an ABC television series she was working on titled Australian Icons.
“Heather rang me, she said ‘I want you to voice this series I’m making’ and I’m like ‘What are you on about? I don’t use my voice professionally’. By that stage, I think I was a very junior journalist for The Advertiser. And she’s like ‘No, no, no; you’ll be perfect at this’,” Annabel says.
“It was such a weird thing for her to ask me to do, and then it ended up being something I turned out to be good at, but I would never have considered it.”
Annabel says this quality of Heather’s most likely stems from her upbringing, growing up in Whyalla in the 1970s.
“I think when you grow up in a country area, you tend always to be able to converse with or find interest and fascination in almost anybody you run up against,” Annabel says.
Lyn Breuer grew up in Whyalla, as did Heather Croall. This picture: supplied.
One person who knows Heather well thanks to the country upbringing Annabel speaks of, is former politician Lyn Breuer. The two became friends back in the 1970s as they both grew up in Whyalla and although Heather is more than a decade younger than Lyn, Lyn knew the extended Croall family well.
Heather was born in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, but emigrated to Whyalla with her family when she was five, thanks to a job opportunity for her doctor father.
“Heather’s father, John, was a very prominent doctor here in Whyalla – very well regarded,” Lyn says.
“And he was very well known in the town, not just for his skill – because he was a very skilled doctor – but also for his eccentricity, as much as anything.”
Lyn says “everybody knew him” and “everybody liked him”.
“I remember him one day when I was in the hospital…he came down, he’s flapping his arms, as if he was an airplane, running down the corridor,” Lyn laughs.
“He would do things like ride his push bike to the hospital, and then pull up at a big window and get out and climb through the window, because he said he was scared of the matron because she told him off.
“It was like ‘okay. That’s John Croall’.
“Heather grew up with that. It was always a performance at home, I’m quite sure, because he performed everywhere else.”
When we ask what Heather was like during those younger, formative years, Lyn says she was confident and attracted attention.
“And she’s always been very upfront,” Lyn says. “Very outgoing and friendly and would stop and talk to people and always got involved in the things she was doing.”
Former chairman of the Adelaide Fringe Board David Minear. This picture: supplied.
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Advertising, marketing and entertainment consultant, David Minear, was chairman of the Adelaide Fringe board in 2015 when Heather was hired as the new artistic director of the Fringe. This role lured Heather home to South Australia from the United Kingdom where she’d been director of the renowned Sheffield DocFest for almost a decade.
David describes Heather as “hungry, energetic, strategic and strong”.
“She wanted to ensure that the Fringe was clearly moving up the ladder in a global sense and in a local sense. I think that was really the driver for her,” he says.
When Heather went through the interview process, David “liked what he heard”, especially because the panel was looking for someone to take Fringe to the next level.
“Looking at Heather, and looking at the resume and interviewing her, she was really interesting,” David explains, adding that at the time, Fringe needed a digital transformation, and a shift in how it sold tickets.
“And in conversation with Heather over a Skype call, we started talking about the whole idea of (this) and she had done something similar in Sheffield,” he says.
“So, it became very obvious to me there was an advantage, and her language was exactly what I wanted to hear.”
David says Heather was a person who “seemed to be very aware of arts festivals and how they work”.
“She knew about the layers of (arts festivals), about the strategies for them, about the growth of them, about the evolution of where they were going,” he tells CityMag.
“And I felt quite a bit of simpatico with the conversation. I was quite naive in some ways – having been just a recently appointed chairman – but she was giving me lots of confidence that my thoughts and her thoughts were aligned in where we were going.”
Heather at her first Fringe as director. This picture: supplied.
Heather’s first Fringe as CEO/artistic director was 2016, although she was around and able to see Greg Clarke – the former CEO/artistic director – finish his last Fringe in 2015.
When we ask what David remembers from that 2016 Fringe, he replies: “Well, it was a race to the start line”, given the digital transition.
“There was just high energy, high emotion, fun, chaos and it was quite incredible,” he says.
“Heather led from the front. With any transition there are always complications and difficulties and meeting people and realigning values and different things.”
According to David, Heather had quite a social business strategy, and “she went out constantly to meet all the sponsors and supporters of the Fringe”.
Annabel says when Heather is confronted with bureaucratic red tape, she’s very clear about her ideas and innovation, and the need to move forward.
“I think a lot of her success has been around visualising a creative idea and pursuing it even when people are going ‘that’s not going to work’, or ‘that’s too reckless’,” Annabel says.
Heather at the 2024 Fringe program launch. This picture: Bee Saint James/supplied.
Back in 2015 when Annabel heard the news of Heather’s new role at Fringe she thought: “this is going to be amazing”.
“Some of these jobs are a little bit about executive function and the things that you can arrange and your use of the bureaucratic structures and so on. But sometimes they’re also about – and I think this is Heather’s particular ability – igniting enthusiasm,” she says.
“Sometimes the difference between a major international organisation or artist coming to Adelaide or not comes down to the vibe they are expecting: What kind of vibe is being created? Will it be cool? Will it be fun? Will it be surprising?
“And I think that one of Heather’s abilities is to create that sense of adventure and surprise.”