Freemason's Tavern
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Text: Article | |
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| Title | Freemason's Tavern | |
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| Source | Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance, Companion To Theatre In Australia, Currency Press with Cambridge University Press, Sydney, NSW, 1995 | |
| Page | 236 | |
| Date Issued | 1995 | |
| Language | English | |
| Citation | Gillian Winter, Freemason's Tavern, Companion To Theatre In Australia, 1995, 236 | |
| Data Set | AusStage | |
| Resource Identifier | 64719 | |
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Theatre on comer of Harrington and Davey Streets, Hobart, opened 24 December 1833. Used until 1835
Samson Cameron fitted up a large room in the Freemason's Tavern, where the Freemason's Hotel now stands, to stage the first professional theatrical production in Tasmania. The theatre had a gallery, pit seats on a rake, a proscenium, and a dais 450-600 mm high for a small stage which, it was said, ‘admits two or three good scenes'. The Colonial Times said 'a more respectable assembly was never collected in Hobart Town' for the opening. The theatre held an audience of 150 but the first-comers spread themselves on the benches because of the heat of the night and some ticket holders were among the hundreds who failed to gain admission to see The Stranger by August von Kotzebue. Cameron's season ran until May 1834, with twice-weekly productions, and he returned to the theatre for another season in December 1835.