Playbox Theatre Sydney

Theatre in Phillip Street, opened as Macquarie Auditorium 1941, seating 306. Became Playbox Theatre 1968. Demolished 1973.

Radio 2GB in Sydney fitted out new studios, including a theatrette on the ground floor, in late 1941. The raked auditorium, with well-upholstered seats, was lined with sound-absorbing soft fibreboard, the geometrically cut edges of overlapping sheets providing late Art Deco decoration. The radio shows it housed gradually disappeared after television came to Sydney in 1956, and in 1968 Harry M. Miller began live theatrical presentations in the little theatre. For the second stage production - Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, produced by Miller and Phillip Productions - the small stage was converted to a fixed two-level apartment set. The Playbox proved to be popular for well-proven overseas plays not taken up by larger commercial managements and, under Miller, it remained a live theatre almost until it was demolished in 1973.