Theatre Royal built in Adelaide's Hindley Street and privately run from 1868; razed for a carpark in 1962
The Theatre Royal in Hindley Street, Adelaide, in 1881. Its posters advertise La Fille du Tambour Major, a three-act opera by Jacques Offenbach, to be presented by George Musgrove's New London Opera Comique Company. Next door are the premises of Tattersalls, A.M. Bickford & Sons and J. Miller Anderson & Co.
Image by Samuel White Sweet , courtesy State Library of South Australia
In 1865, a prospectus was issued for a Theatre Royal company to take over White's assembly rooms and the adjacent Clarence Hotel, in King William Street, Adelaide city, or buy a site for a new building. By 1867, plans were ready for a theatre in Hindley Street, Adelaide city, to be added to the rear of Peter Cummings & Son's drapery store Leonard Voullaire's at No.23 (then the financially troubled Paull & Meredith's wine bar 1868–1870) and Mrs Bament's shop at No.27.
Thomas English was supervising architect and W. Lines the builder. The proprietors were John Temple Sagar, Samuel Lazar (son of John) and J.M. Wendt.
The property owner Henry Fuller laid the foundation stone in 1868 and the first performance on Easter Monday 1868 was All that glitters is not gold by J.M. Morton. Edgar Chapman became owner shortly after. (Adelaide Town Hall, also newly built, became a theatre for three months in 1868 but closed because of poor acoustics.)
The Theatre Royal's first lessee and director was George Coppin (pioneer of Adelaide theatres) of Coppin, Harwood and Hennings, with comedian J. R. Greville as stage manager.
Samuel Lazar was Theatre Royal sole lessee from 1871 with James Allison succeeding him around 1876. In 1876, Edgar Chapman bought the Theatre Royal, its hotel and the adjoining shops for ₤11,000, and quickly appointed architect George Johnson for a rebuild opened in 1878 with an address by journalist and amateur actor Ebenezer Ward, followed by the opera Giroflé-Girofla with Emily Soldene, Minna Fischer and Clara Vesey.
In 1885, Arthur Chapman became sole trustee and manager until Williamson, Garder & Musgove took over the lease and appointed English actor and impresario Wybert Reeve as manager. On October 19, 1896, Reeve hosted the first public demonstration in South Australia of moving pictures with a cinématographe Lumière projector.
Reeve in 1900 sold the lease to actor F.H. Pollock who was forced by illness to take on Herbert Percy Myers, his wife's nephew, as manager. Pollock died in 1908, and his wife partnered with Myers to run the theatre that was enlarged and updated in 1914.
Myers bought the lease and the property from the Chapman estate in the early 1920s. He then sold half to George Tallis, who sold half of that to the Tait family business. Myers' half share was inherited by his widow, and in 1954 Tallis sold his interest to the J. C. Williamson organisation.
Department store Miller Anderson bought the theatre in 1955 for £175,000. The theatre had become rundown and the company said it was concerned by the safety of the proscenium wall. This became the determining factor in demolishing the theatre in 1962, to build a multi-level car park.
