Betty and Don Quin's Q Theatre a 1970s stage for Australian plays, in former Halifax Street, Adelaide, Sunday school

The Q Theatre building in Halifax Street, Adelaide, was also a centre for Stow Church's missionary work during the early 20th Century Depression.

A former bluestone Sunday school building from 1882 in Halifax Street, Adelaide, was transformed into the Q Theatre by actors Don and Betty Quin in 1970.

The Q Theatre, with 150 seats from the old Theatre Royal, fulfilled an ambition of its owners and directors Betty and Don Quinn. It.opened with Betty Quin’s prize-winning play The dinkum bambino. 

Betty Quin had worked in London for the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and commercial television as a scriptwriter and producer. Back in Adelaide, she was a regular contributor to television shows as well as writing more than 30 full-length and one-act plays.

In 1972, Robert Stigwood, the well-known theatrical entrepreneur from Adelaide, sent seven large paintings of actors from the famous Garrick Theatre in London to decorate the foyer

The Q Theatre’s policy in 1973 was to produce six plays a year, each running for a season of six or eight weeks and these were only plays by Australian writers. Workshops, one-act play production and children's theatre were also part of its activities. In 1976, the Q Theatre produced The Sentimental Bloke by South Australia’s C.J Dennis and My Sainted Aunt.

After audiences declined later in the 1970s, the theatre was forced to close in the early 1980s. It was later revived as the John Edmund Theatre.

Don Quinn also was the first coordinator administrator of the Fringe of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. 

The theatre building was originally the Stow Church (named after pioneer Congregational minister Thomas Quinton Stow) Sunday school, opened in 1882, to cope with increased attendances. By 1890, 23 teachers were instructing 477 children at the Sunday school.

In the early 20th Century, the building became a centre for missionary work, particularly during the Depression. But church activities dwindled after World War II and from 1956 the building was leased to various companie