Resource | Text: Article | |
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Title | Minerva Theatre | |
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Source | Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance, Companion To Theatre In Australia, Currency Press with Cambridge University Press, Sydney, NSW, 1995 | |
Page | 369 | |
Date Issued | 1995 | |
Language | English | |
Citation | Ross Thorne, Minerva Theatre, Companion To Theatre In Australia, 1995, 369 | |
Resource Identifier | 64967 |
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Theatre in Orwell Street, Kings Cross, opened 18 May 1939, seating 1016 on two levels. Architects: Guy Crick and Bruce Furse; Bruce Ward. Became cinema as Metro Theatre 29 April 1950. Returned to live theatre 5 June 1969. Converted to shopping market 1979. Now film studio.
Possibly the finest modern theatre built in Australia in the 1930s, the Minerva Theatre was intended to have a companion but this was never built. Minerva Centre Ltd aimed to build two theatres on facing sites at Kings Cross, according to the Sydney Morning Herald on 27 August 1937. The company's managing director was David N. Martin, formerly managing director of Imperial Theatres Ltd, which owned the Liberty Theatre, designed in 1934 by C. Bruce Dellit, an exponent of the fashionable Art Deco style. A share prospectus published on 7 September 1937 showed Dellit' s design for the Minerva Theatre. It would be erected in Orwell Street opposite the rather monumental Paradise Theatre Building, which would face Macleay Street and include a dance hall and a restaurant as well as a theatre.
Other architects, Guy Crick and Bruce Furse, prepared the Minerva Theatre drawings that were submitted to the Sydney City Council and the licensing authority, but the two designs showed similarities of style. Crick's Moderne interior demonstrated his interest in German expressionist theatre design. The resulting theatre was very comfortable, with lounge chairs throughout a cocoon of sweeping, wide plaster troughs washed with indirect lighting. The foremost lighting trough curved down to the stage floor on each side of a striated proscenium frame. The stage apron extended to a rarely used small side stage on each side.
The theatre, grandly opened with Robert E. Sherwood's play Idiot's Delight on 18 May 1939, brought the number of professional theatres in Sydney to three-the others were the Theatre Royal and the Tivoli Theatre. It was initially managed by David N. Martin Pty Ltd in association with J. C. Williamson's. Then there were several changes of management until Martin's company resumed control. Some 25 plays were performed, including Shakespeare at matinees, until 1 May 1941, when Whitehall Theatrical Productions took over the lease. Under this management the Minerva became the only commercial playhouse in Sydney producing comedies, thrillers and mysteries, usually starring actors who were well known on radio, such as Lyndall Barbour, Neva Carr Glyn and Lloyd Lamble.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the building and used it as the Metro cinema from 29 April 1950 and later sold it to the Greater Union Organisation. It was not a success as a cinema and on 5 June 1969 Harry M. Miller reopened the Metro as a live theatre with the rock musical Hair. It had a long run but the theatre generally would have been unprofitable for large-cast shows. In 1979 Greater Union flattened the floor of the stalls and converted the space to a shopping market. This was also unsuccessful and the Kennedy-Miller organisation finally took over the building as a film studio.