DARK DESCENDS ON THEATRE ROYAL
DARK DESCENDS ON THEATRE ROYAL
The future of one of Sydney’s major commercial theatres, the Theatre Royal, is under a cloud. The venue will close at the end of the year and it remains uncertain for how long, writes BRYCE HALLETT.
The closure coincides with the remodelling and renovation of the MLC Centre of which it is part. A number of leading Australian producers say the loss of the venue, most likely for all of 2014, will have an enormous impact on live performance, touring shows and tourism in Sydney.
It is believed that the Sydney Festival had again sought to program work at the Theatre Royal in January 2014 but were told it was unavailable. Meanwhile...
No bookings for the use of the 1183-seat theatre are being taken after December 31 this year. Stomp opens at the theatre in September and the final show scheduled is the musical version of the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, opening late October for a planned 10-week season.
Designed by architect Harry Seidler and opened in 1976, the Theatre Royal is one of the city’s best-known venues for plays and musicals. Belvoir’s acclaimed production of Angels in America transfers to the venue on July 17 for a limited season.
The theatre has been home to many worldwide hit shows, including Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, My Fair Lady and, in more recent years, Rent, The Woman in Black, Company, Jersey Boys and Driving Miss Daisy, starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. The venue also hosted the world premiere of the musical Dirty Dancing, which became a huge success on London’s West End.
In the past few years the Theatre Royal has had an uneven, at times, uncertain life, because many of the big musicals, such as Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins, could not fit into the venue while the seating capacity made it difficult for such high-cost shows to be profitable. The acclaimed Australian premiere production of the long-running Jersey Boys turned the tide and, once again, the venue became a vibrant and much-needed asset given Sydney’s dearth of sizeable and effective theatres.
It is understood that the Theatre Royal will bounce back eventually and that its joint owners, The GPT Group and Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC), expect to have a lease arrangement in place from one of the world’s leading theatre entrepreneurs.
Until that time it is dark days ahead and many headaches for producers already locked out of Sydney because of the high demand for existing venues, particularly the Capitol Theatre and the Lyric. They each seat about 2000 people and are essentially the only theatres in Sydney capable of housing large-scale musicals such as The Lion King and the forthcoming Strictly Ballroom, which opens at Sydney Lyric in April next year.
