La Mama Theatre

Theatre in former shirt factory in Carlton, Melbourne, opened by Betty Burstall, 30 July 1967.

The new Australian drama of the late 1960s and the 1970s was first nurtured and developed in a pocket playhouse in Melbourne. La Mama Theatre, like its namesake in New York City, was essentially a resource centre, open to groups that could persuade the management they had a worthwhile project. Poets, film-makers, folk singers and other rnusicians were also encouraged to read, show or perform their works there. It was the first home of the influential Australian Performing Group before its members turned professional and moved to the larger Pram Factory. 

La Mama was the brainchild of Betty Burstall, a former high school teacher. She was living in New York in the mid-1960s, when the coffee-house theatres in Greenwich Village were staging the works of the new generation of American playwrights, including Sam Shepard, Megan Terry and Jean-Claude Van Itallie. She was impressed by the new and informal audience-actor relationship made possible by these venues, which also allowed new ideas and new modes of expression to be tried out. On return to Melbourne, Burstall leased a shabby two-storey brick building in inner-city Carlton and officially opened it as La Mama Theatre with a production of Jack Hibberd's brief three-hander Three Old Friends. This was followed by Barry Oakley’s Witzenhausen, Where Are You? and by another Hibberd double bill.

Creative vitality and energy distinguished the early years at La Mama. It brimmed with talent. The main occupants were the La Mama Company, which later became the Australian Performing Group; Tribe, an experimental and improvisational group run by Doug Anders; and a group under the leadership of Syd Clayton which specialised in 'happenings' involving music and drama. Since the Australian Performing Group moved out in 1970 La Mama Theatre has never had its own resident company.

In the first two years some 25 plays by Australian writers were presented there, as well as seven events or 'happenings' and eight plays from abroad. Seven of the 25 local plays were by Hibberd, five by the English-born poet Kris Hemensley, four by Frank Bren and two by John Romeril. Plays in the early years included Hibberd's Dimboola and White with Wire Wheels; David Williamson's The Coming of Stork and The Removalists; Romeril' s Chicago, Chicago and I Don't Know Who to Feel Sorry For; and Alex Buzo's Norm and Ahmed and The Front Room Boys. The playwrights most frequently represented at La Mama have been Buzo, Hibberd, Romeril and, in more recent times, Barry Dickins, Lloyd Jones, Peter Mathers, Phil Motherwell, Roger Pulvers, Max Richards and Colin Ryan.

In a tenth anniversary season in 1977 La Mama repeated some of the best plays and productions from the early years, including The Removalists with its original cast. In 1986 it won a Sidney Myer Performing Arts award for sustained achievement. By its 25th anniversary in 1992 it had played host to 675 productions, as much as three-quarters of them Australian in origin. La Mama's importance lies chiefly in its nurturing of writers and other creative people and its provision of a sympathetic environment in which their work can be staged free from box-office pressures. In its early years La Mama used to stage 15-20 productions a year, but in recent times its annual output has risen to 40 or more. On many nights there are two shows. Audiences have increased too, reflecting the vitality of Melbourne theatre and the keen interest in new and experimental works.