Coordinates: 33°52′05″S 151°12′32″E / 33.868°S 151.2088°E / -33.868; 151.2088
The Theatre Royal in Sydney is Australia's oldest theatrical institution. Sydney's original Theatre Royal was built in 1827 by Barnett Levey behind the Royal Hotel, but burned to the ground in 1840. The name was dormant for 35 years until 1875 when a new Theatre Royal was built in Castlereagh Street on the corner of Rowe Street, adjacent to the Hotel Australia. In the early 1970s the theatre along with much of the block on which it was situated, was demolished to construct the MLC Centre. Action by construction unions forced the developers and a reluctant architect to incorporate a replacement theatre into the design. The current Theatre Royal opened in 1976 in the MLC Centre at 108 King Street between Pitt Street and Castlereagh Street. It seats 1,180 and offers a broad range of entertainment including dramas, comedy, and musicals.
Famous quotes containing the words theatre and/or sydney:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)
“What is more hopelessly uninteresting than accomplished liberty? Great swarming, teeming Sydney flowing out into these myriads of bungalows, like shallow waters spreading, undyked. And what then? Nothing. No inner life, no high command, no interest in anything finally.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)