“So I was surprised to read that it was going ahead and that it was announced at such a busy time.” The announcement came on the eve of the Easter long weekend and the first day of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

This masthead has sought a response from the Arts Centre.

Ian Potter was a banker, company director and philanthropist who served on the Arts Centre’s original building committee, formed in 1956. He created the philanthropic Ian Potter Foundation in 1964 and left shares worth some $50 million to it after his death in 1994.

The Ian Potter Foundation has a long relationship with the Arts Centre, including millions in donations going back to the Arts Precinct’s early planning stages.

The name “Ian Potter” has already been applied to numerous arts facilities across the city, including several within the Arts Precinct itself, from the Ian Potter Southbank Centre around the corner to the NGV’s Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square and the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Parkville. The Ian and Primrose Potter Foyer is within the same building as the State Theatre.

Charles Goode, Chairman of the Ian Potter Foundation, has said that Arts Centre Melbourne offered the naming in recognition of this donation.

“As a first donor and significant donor, sometimes [venues] offer naming,” Goode said last week. “It’s very fitting, given his lifelong contribution to the arts, that the theatre will be called the Ian Potter State Theatre.”

Goode announced his retirement from the foundation on Thursday, the same day as the announcement of the renaming.

“I’m not an idealist who would look a gift horse in the mouth,” says Perfect. “I know philanthropy is really important to the arts and these conversations are hard. But is it a good deal for the state of Victoria? What does it mean, what we call our buildings in 2024, and how do people feel about it?”

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Perfect says any renaming is an opportunity for public engagement. “I question whether that was Arts Centre Melbourne’s name to give,” he says. “It’s important we do as much as we can to make sure our public buildings feel as if they belong to everyone. This is a great opportunity to find a name that suits everyone.”

In his 2022 letter to Arts Centre Melbourne, Perfect expressed a preference that the theatre be named to reflect that it is on the land of the peoples of the Kulin Nation. “It seems a missed opportunity to find a First Nations name for the state theatre – a name that speaks to place, people, and the continuity of culture and storytelling that connects the Kulin Nation to the contemporary theatrical storytelling of today.”

“Surely a name like ‘The Naarm Theatre’ or ‘Birrarung Theatre’, would send a message of hope, connection and continuity that everyone can really get behind?”

Perfect recently starred in Candide for Victorian Opera, and his Broadway hit Beetlejuice will be coming to Melbourne next year.

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