Adelaide Festival Centre

Performing-arts centre in King William Street, Adelaide. Architect: Hassell Pty Ltd. Includes Festival Theatre, opened 1973; Playhouse 1974; Space 1974; Amphitheatre 1977.

The Adelaide Festival Centre has provided an optimal combination of low cost, workability and audience enjoyment. The idea for it emerged in 1960, the year of the first Adelaide Festival of Arts, when it became clear that future festivals would need a first-class venue for leading attractions. The Adelaide City Council set up a cultural committee in 1963 to consider the city’s needs, and the state government announced that it would join in financing a hall. An act passed in 1964 incorporated the Festival Hall and provided for the council to construct and operated it.

A design was produced in 1965 but inadequate finance but delayed the project. There were fundamental objections that the hall could not be used for ballet or opera, and after talks with performing-arts groups the council proposed a multipurpose hall with full stage facilities. A New York consultant, Thomas De Gaetani reviewed the scheme and recommended that a drama theatre, experimental theatre and workshop be attached. The council instructed Hassell Pty Ltd to design a multipurpose theatre, remembering that the project could be extended as proposed.

Building of the Festival Theatre began in 1970 on the northern edge of the central business district, facing Elder Park and the Torrens River. In August 1971 the South Australian Premier, Don Dunstan, announced that the drama theatre and the experimental theatre would be added in a separate building. At the end of I971 the government and the city council agreed that the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust should be set up to operate the centre.

The Festival Theatre, completed first, is a lyric theatre with a proscenium stage and a fly tower. With a removable orchestra shell and an organ, it is convertible to a concert hall. It seats up to 1978 on three levels. The second stage was the Playhouse and the Space. The Playhouse, seating up to 612 on two levels, has a semi-thrust proscenium stage and a fly tower, with flying over the full stage, including the thrust. The Space Theatre (originally named The Space) is a square, flat-floored flexible space with pull-out bleacher seating for up to about 350 in theatre-in-the-round configuration, and fewer in thrust-stage, corner-stage, or end-stage configuration.

The centre, which cost $21 million, was completed in 1977 with the plaza and the car park. The Playhouse and Space building appears to be connected to the Festival Theatre beneath the plaza. Entrances from car ‘drop-off points’ here and from the car park are rather bleak, but seem to be the only disadvantages of the centre. In 1978 work began on adding a restaurant, a banqueting room, a brasserie and a piano bar at a cost of $2 million. Allowing for inflation and the lack of a separate concert hall, the cost of the centre, facility for facility, was one-quarter to one-third the cost of the Sydney Opera House and about half the cost of the Victorian Arts Centre to its second stage.

The Festival Centre functions better than the Sydney Opera House in several ways. There are some disadvantages in attempting to produce an auditorium that can double as lyric theatre and concert hall, such as the Festival Theatre, but it was wise to build a good, large lyric theatre that can be converted to a concert hall by constructing a heavy acoustic shell within the proscenium stage. The acoustic shell can be removed and the proscenium adjusted to the lyric-theatre format within three hours. Reverberation times are changed as required for theatrical or concert modes by positioning acoustic curtains and banners. A 13 tonne pipe organ can be moved to the front of the stage for organ recitals, to the rear for orchestral or choral performances, or backstage for use in an opera. The stage - the largest in Australia until the State Theatre of the Victorian Arts Centre was built - is very workable with ample wing and rear space. The auditorium combines the rectangular plan of a traditional concert hall with the three tiers and side boxes of a traditional theatre.

Intimate theatre

The Playhouse is also cleverly designed, with a wide auditorium crouching over the stage for an intimate actor-audience relationship. The design maximises the combined effectiveness of a thrust stage and a proscenium stage. Stage entrances surmounted by Juliet balconies in front of the proscenium wall on each side permit a performance style approaching that practised in the Georgian, Regency and early Victorian eras.

The Space was the first square, boxlike space built in Australia for experimental or alternative theatre. At 21 metres square it is as large as this type of theatre can be and still have satisfactory acoustics. The room echoed until absorbent banners were hung above the surrounding walkway balcony. Between the Festival Theatre and the Playhouse is the Amphitheatre, an outdoor thrust-stage theatre with stepped seating for 800. An overflow crowd of 400 can be accommodated on the steps and walkways above the Amphitheatre. At the back of the stage there are vine-covered fences, trees and shrubs. On the eastern and southern sides of the two buildings is an open plaza 1.4 hectares in area.

State Theatre is resident in the Playhouse, which is also used annually by Australian Dance Theatre and for a summer comedy season. The Festival Theatre is used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for concerts, by the Australian Ballet, and by touring opera and modern-dance companies. The Space is used regularly by the Stage Company and for alternative-theatre productions from other states, chamber music and children's theatre. The trust also conducts community arts activities in the Plaza and the amphitheatre, particlarly in summer.