Theatre Royal, Adelaide
The Theatre Royal on Hindley Street, Adelaide was a significant venue in the history of the stage and cinema in South Australia.
It hosted both stage performances and movies, passing through several changes of ownership before it was eventually demolished to make way for a multi-storey car park in 1962.
In December 1850 the Royal Victoria Theatre (later Queen's) opened, also on Gilles Arcade, with Coppin and Samuel Lazar joint managers.
[citation needed] In December 1865 a prospectus was issued in Adelaide for a Theatre Royal company to take over White's Assembly Rooms and the adjacent Clarence Hotel,[2] alternatively to purchase a vacant site and erect a new building.
[3] By December 1867 plans had been prepared for a new structure to be added to the rear of Peter Cummings & Son's drapery store at 21 Hindley Street, Leonard Voullaire's at 23 (then was the financially troubled Paull & Meredith's wine bar 1868–1870), and Mrs Bament's at 27.
[8] The rebuilt house was opened on 25 March 1878 with an address written by Ebenezer Ward, followed by the opera Giroflé-Girofla with Emily Soldene, Minna Fischer and Clara Vesey.
On 19 October 1896 he hosted the first public demonstration in South Australia of moving pictures, the projector being a cinématographe Lumière.
Pitt's design included a proscenium arch in order to improve the acoustics, and lengthening of both the auditorium and the exterior facade.
[8] In 1918 the theatre hosted the premiere of The Woman Suffers, an Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford.
[26] During the war years, the Theatre Royal ran an orchestra, in which the mother of QC Ted Mullighan played violin.
Pit and gallery entrance via lane at left, dress circle by the wide entrance far right, stalls by the narrow door to its left.