From The Hut to Little Theatre, University of Adelaide Theatre Guild giving tutorials since 1938 in quality, courage

Adelaide University Theatre Guild's original home, The Hut, followed by the Little Theatre. Below: Jean Walker (in chair) in her award-winning role with Rachel Burfield and Jessica Carroll in Three tall women, 2017.
Image courtesy The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild

The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild is the second oldest amateur theatre company in South Australia, started in 1938, with its first home being The Hut, a former chemistry laboratory on the campus.

After 400 productions, the guild continued to win awards in a pivotal contribution to both amateur and professional theatre in Adelaide and Australia.

In 2018, it won the Adelaide Theatre Guide Curtain Call best show drama (amateur) award for Three Tall Women, with Jean Walker awarded best female performance (amateur). This followed the same awards in 2016 for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Julie Quick in the role of Martha.

The guild has presented many world, Australian and South Australian premières, most notably the first performances of Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral (1961), Season at Sarsaparilla (1962) and Night on Bald Mountain (1964).

The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild has its home in the university’s North Terrace campus and, since 1974, its Little Theatre in the Union building, now heritage listed and designed by Adelaide music/drama legend Ralph Middenway with architect Robert Dickson. With a stress on quality in all its productions, the guild places particular importance on supporting student-led productions and fostering a learning environment through workshops, play-readings and events.

The guild aims to embrace the obscure, with a commitment to support modern Australian playwrights, and a willingness to work with new talent from the city.

Chris Drummond, artistic director of the Adelaide’s ground-breaking Brink Productions, was among those grateful to the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild “for being my first true theatrical home. A home where I was encouraged to be an artist, to take risks and to make mistakes. For me, the guild was transformative. It gave me the courage and the conviction to dream bigger dreams.”