Queensland Theatre (1874-1881)

Theatre in Elizabeth Street, opened January 1865 as Mason's Concert Hall. Architect: W. Coote. Name later alternated between Victoria Concert Hall and Victoria Theatre. Renovated, reopened on 21 April 1874 as Queensland Theatre. Rebuilt and reopened on 18 April 1881 as Theatre Royal, seating 1350. Improved with electric lighting and redecoration 1911. Closed 19 December 1959 and converted to cabaret and orchestral rehearsal room.

The first true theatre in Brisbane began as a one-level hall behind the Victoria Hotel. A photograph of the old hotel shows 'Theatre Royal Est'd 1863' in plasterwork above the cornice, but the publican George B. Mason did not open the simple concert hall that became the theatre until early 1865. There were dress seats, stalls and pit on the flat floor, but there was neither gallery nor boxes. The stage appeared 'to be well adapted for theatrical representation', said a correspondent in the Brisbane Courier. The theatre was first advertised as the Victoria Theatre on 30 September 1865, but patronage seems to have been mediocre. 

After the theatre reopened as the Queensland Theatre on 21 April 1874, the Brisbane Courier said the formerly 'dingy and cellar-like' house had been considerably improved. It had a raked floor, a new proscenium, a new gas sunlight, lighter colours and generally increased comfort. The newspapers still did not consider it a good theatre, however. The whole building appears to have been rebuilt from the street backwards in 1881, parts of the hotel becoming integral with the theatre as refreshment and smoking rooms. Both hotel and theatre were named Royal. The theatre housed 350 in the dress circle, 250 in the stalls and 750 in the pit. The newspapers rated it suitable for a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants. It was rather austere, with numerous closely spaced posts supporting the circle. From 1900 until the Second World War its uses fluctuated between vaudeville and popular light drama. It was in the Brennan Vaudeville Circuit for a period after the 1911 refurbishment. During the Second World War it was a theatre for the American armed forces. It returned to vaudeville in 1948 under the direction of George Wallace jnr, but his weekly-change shows lost popularity after television began in Brisbane and it soon closed.