The Theatre Royal on Hindley Street, Adelaide was a significant venue in the history of the stage and cinema in South Australia. After a small predecessor of the same name on Franklin Street (built 1838), the Theatre Royal on Hindley Street was built in 1868.
- Venue
- Theatre Royal, Adelaide
- Town
- South Australia, AU
The Theatre Royal on Hindley Street, Adelaide was a significant venue in the history of the stage and cinema in South Australia. After a small predecessor of the same name on Franklin Street (built 1838), the Theatre Royal on Hindley Street was built in 1868. 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. The first "Theatre Royal" in Adelaide was a small venue above the Adelaide Tavern in Franklin Street, managed by a Mr Bonnar, and was opened in May 1838. The first production staged there was Mountaineers, or, Love and Madness (Colman). Bonnar was succeeded as manager by Sampson Marshall. This was eclipsed in 1841 by the opening of the Queen's Theatre on Gilles Arcade, off Currie Street, and the old theatre was remodelled as a Commercial Exchange. In December 1850 the Royal Victoria Theatre (later Queen's) opened, also on Gilles Arcade, with Coppin and Samuel Lazar joint managers. 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, alternatively to purchase a vacant site and erect a new building. 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. Paull & Meredith had a wine bar. Thomas English was chosen as supervising architect and W. Lines the builder. The proprietors were Lazar, John Temple Sagar, and Jochim Matthias Wendt. The foundation stone was laid by owner of the property Henry Fuller on 8 January 1868, and the At the foundation ceremony, Fuller, then Mayor of Adelaide, said that it would replace the "inferior" Royal Victoria as Adelaide's principal theatre. Seating 1300, it opened as Adelaide's second major theatre.