Budd, 44, will officially begin his directorship on February 3. Like his predecessor Bruce Carmichael, who began as a mechanist, Budd began working at the theatre in a much less glamorous role, years before becoming its director.

"It's a venue I've known through my stint working as a lighting technician back in the '90s," he says.

He worked there from 1993 to 1997 - his first professional theatre job.

As the Canberra Theatre Centre is the ACT's major performing arts venue, with three spaces of various sizes - the Canberra Theatre, the Playhouse and the Courtyard Studio -,Budd says it "plays a pivotal role in the performing arts in the national capital".

Its aim, he says, "is to give the good citizens of Canberra access to the best in Australia of things that don't currently have unless they go out of town".

As part of a five-year plan, he hopes the business case for constructing an additional, 2000 seat venue will be approved. That would lead to the construction of the bigger theatre, with additional parking, to entice large-scale productions from the Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and touring professional musical theatre companies to Canberra.

Budd was born in Sydney and soon moved to Melbourne with his family, who came here when he was an infant. He learned violin and piano and singing as a child and was involved in school productions at Canberra Grammar School - he played the title role in Oliver! and worked backstage on shows - and was its drama captain in his final year. Budd remembers seeing productions at the Canberra Theatre Centre as a child including the ballet Swan Lake.

He studied voice at the ANU School of Music and was a founding member of the Canberra chamber opera company Stopera!

When Sydney Dance Company toured to Canberra he became acquainted with its artistic director, Graeme Murphy, and its technical director. After he moved to Sydney in 1997 he became the company's head electrician, touring internationally with them.

He built up many contacts in the arts sector and in 2000 began working for the Australian Opera, including as a tour manager for its touring company, Oz Opera and working with the ABC on recording and broadcasting operas.

Apart from a year as project manager at the Royal Opera House in London, he stayed with the Australian Opera until last year. Budd worked in a number of executive roles for the company, the last of which was executive producer, touring and commercial. The productions he worked on included two of My Fair Lady - one of which, starring Reg Livermore, came to the Canberra Theatre - and West Side Story, which came to the same venue last year.

In addition to his other work, Budd also served on the federal government's Playing Australia Committee for seven years. He is an executive councillor of Live Performance Australia and a board member of Australian Boys Choral Institute. Budd is married with three children. His sister Sibylla Budd is an actress, who starred in the hit television show The Secret Life of Us.

When the Canberra Theatre Centre opened in 1965, Canberra's population was less than 100,000. Now it is more than 420,000, with a regional reach now of about a million people. Budd hopes to use this increased population as part of the plan to attract big productions to the new venue, where they can run seasons long enough to make it worth their while.

Budd says he does not intend to rush things when taking on the directorship, which will be made easier by the fact most of the theatre's 2020 season is set.

"I'll be meeting and working with the entire team - there's a lot of work going on in the background including the new venue - and I want to absorb myself in the broader Canberra arts scene: locals and hirers - local and national and overseas."

One aspect he considers important is outreach, particularly in attracting children and young people to the theatre in order to ensure it has audiences for years to come. When he worked in London, a philanthropic organisation subsidised tickets for some Royal Opera House performances, making them available at heavy discounts for people who could not otherwise come for reasons of income or distance.

Having been away from the Canberra arts community for many years, he says he wants to learn "how it ticks".