Her Majesty's Theatre $66m makeover from 2020 aims to bring back greatness of Adelaide era on the Tivoli circuit

The reborn Her Majesty's Theatre in Grote Street, Adelaide city.

Her Majesty’s Theatre in Grote Street, Adelaide, had a $66 million upgrade completed in 2020. The theatre was run by the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust that planned to make it the venue for national touring musical theatre productions, that had previously overlooked Adelaide due to a lack of large-scale theatre venues  besides the heavily-committed Festival Theatre.

The theatre was an Adelaide landmark since it opened as the Tivoli Theatre in 1913 but an unsympathetic redevelopments in 1962 and 1979 halved its capacity to 970 seats. The upgrade gave the theatre a 1,472-seat auditorium over three levels, rejuvenated foyers and spacious backstage areas.

The $66 million upgrade to Her Majesty’s Theatre included a new entertainment wing featuring three levels of bars, along with entertainment and exhibition spaces.

The original central front entrance will be restored, with a dramatic new canopy incorporating modern technology and celebraing the building’s Edwardian grandeur. The gods section, sealed off in 1970s, was revealed again.

The reopened Her Majesty’s Theatre would be able to host at least 50 extra performances each year.

Barry Humphries, patron for the rebuilt public fundraising campaign (with Dame Edna Everage as its official face), made his first stage appearance at the old Tivoli (later Her Majesty’s Theatre) in 1953.

When it originally opened in 1913 as the Tivoli Theatre with a performance by British vaudevillian Lillie Langtree, the building was regarded as the finest theatre in Australia. International artists who have appeared there include Lauren Bacall, WC Fields, Judi Dench and Whoopi Goldberg. They and others have signed the autograph wall still preserved in the rebuilt theatre.