The National Theatre is a historic former theatre in
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston () or () is a city in the north of Tasmania, Australia, at the confluence of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River (kanamaluka). As of 2021, Launceston has a population of 87,645. Material was copied ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
.
History
Located on the corner of Charles Street and Paterson Street, the National Theatre was formally opened on 25 September 1915 by Mayor Alderman Percy Hart, whose wife Margaret raised the curtain for a production of ''
The Silence of Dean Maitland
''The Silence of Dean Maitland'' is an 1886 novel by Maxwell Gray (the pen name of Mary Gleed Tuttiett). Set in a fictionalized Isle of Wight, particularly around Calbourne, it concerns an ambitious clergyman who accidentally kills the father o ...
'' staged by the
George Marlow Dramatic Company
George Marlow (24 September 1876 – 21 May 1939) (born Joseph Marks) was an Australian theatrical entrepreneur born in London of Jewish extraction, noted for bringing melodrama and pantomime to Sydney audiences in the early 1900s. His name has b ...
.
The National was used for theatre productions, films, ballet, opera, and sporting events such as boxing and wrestling. Early theatrical performances and amusements included
Harry Lauder
Sir Henry Lauder (; 4 August 1870 – 26 February 1950)Russell, Dave"Lauder, Sir Henry (1870–1950)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition, January 2011, accessed 27 April 2014 was a S ...
,
Roy Rene
Roy Rene (born Henry van der Sluys, 15 February 189122 November 1954) was an Australian comedian and vaudevillian. As the bawdy character Mo McCackie, Rene was one of the most well-known and successful Australian comedians of the 20th century.
...
and
Annette Kellerman
Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann (6 July 1887 – 6 November 1975) was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress, and writer.
Kellermann was one of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume, instead of the then ...
.
Classical music and operatic productions included
Eileen Joyce
Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (died 25 March 1991) was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years.
Her recordings made her popular in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War I ...
,
Ignaz Friedman
Ignaz Friedman (also spelled ''Ignace'' or ''Ignacy''; full name ''Solomon (Salomon) Isaac Freudman(n)'', yi, שְׁלֹמֹה יִצְחָק פֿרײדמאַן; February 13, 1882January 26, 1948) was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics (e.g ...
,
Essie Ackland
Essie Ackland (27 March 189614 February 1975) was an Australian contralto who performed ballads, songs and in oratorio and concerts. At one time her recordings were more in demand than those of any other female singer in the world. She also re ...
,
Rudolf Pekárek
Rudolf Pekárek (24 February 190026 October 1974) was a Czechs, Czech-Australian conductor.
In 1934 he founded the Prague Symphony Orchestra, giving work to many unemployed musicians. It was known as the FOK Orchestra (Film – Opera – Konzert ...
,
John Brownlee,
Peter Dawson and brothers
Jascha Spivakovsky
Jascha Spivakovsky (18 August 1896 – 23 March 1970) was a Russian Empire-born Australian piano virtuoso of the 20th century. He was hailed as a child prodigy in Odessa but almost murdered by Imperial Guard (Russia), Imperial Guards during the O ...
and
Tossy Spivakovsky
Nathan "Tossy" Spivakovsky ( – July 20, 1998), a Jewish, Russian Empire-born, German-trained violin virtuoso, was considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.
Biography
Tossy Spivakovsky was born in Odessa, which in 1906 was ...
.
In 1934, the National was remodelled to address safety and accessibility issues, which saw the stage dropped to ground level, the stalls lowered and the Charles Street entrance stairs removed.
The auditorium was updated with Australian-made Raycophone sound technology, and the National reopened as a talkie with ''
The Head of the Family'' and ''
Fashions of 1934
''Fashions of 1934'' is a 1934 American pre-Code musical comedy film directed by William Dieterle with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert and Carl Erickson was based on the story ''The Fashi ...
''.
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
and
Hollywood actor Mona Barrie
Mona Barrie (born Mona Barlee Smith; 18 December 1909 – 27 June 1964) was an English-born actress, active on stage in Australia before establishing a career in the US, and in Hollywood films.
Career
Born Mona Barlee Smith in London to comedi ...
appeared in theatrical performances at the National in the 1940s whilst contracted to
J. C. Williamson's
J. C. Williamson's, formerly Williamson, Garner, & Musgrove and Williamson and Musgrove, was an Australian theatrical management company and theatre owner. With its beginnings in the theatrical productions of J. C. Williamson and his p ...
.
Throughout the 1940s several
ballet companies A ballet company is a type of dance troupe which performs classical ballet, neoclassical ballet, and/or contemporary ballet in the European tradition, plus managerial and support staff. Most major ballet companies employ dancers on a year-round bas ...
and personalities visited the theatre including the
Borovansky Ballet
The Australian Ballet is the largest classical ballet company in Australia. It was founded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1962, with the English-born dancer, teacher, repetiteur and direct ...
,
Bodenwieser Ballet
Gertrud Bodenwieser (3 February 1890 – 10 November 1959), also known as "Gertrude", was a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and pioneer of expressive dance.
Early life
The daughter of Theodore and Maria Bondi, a wealthy Jewish couple ...
and acclaimed Russian ballerina
Tamara Tchinarova
Tamara Tchinarova ( tr. Chinarova, russian: Тамара Чинарова), also known as Tamara Finch, (18 July 1919 – 31 August 2017) was a Romanian-born émigré Russian and French ballerina who contributed significantly to the development ...
.
Purchase by the Launceston City Council
Following the Second World War, the theatre fell into financial hardship and after several years of closure was purchased by the
Launceston City Council
Launceston City Council (or City of Launceston) is a Local government in Australia, local government body in Tasmania, located in the city and surrounds of Launceston, Tasmania, Launceston in the north of the state. The Launceston local gov ...
(LCC) for
£A17,000.
Although the LCC proposed the theatre be renamed the ''Margaret McIntyre Memorial Theatre'' after
Margaret McIntyre
Margaret Edgeworth David McIntyre, (28 November 1886 – 2 September 1948) was the first woman elected to the Parliament of Tasmania, representing the seat of Cornwall in the Legislative Council.
Life and career
McIntyre was born in Maitlan ...
, the first female elected to the
Parliament of Tasmania
The Parliament of Tasmania is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Tasmania. It follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system and consists of the Governor of Tasmania, the Tasmanian House of Assembly (the lower house), and T ...
, this never eventuated.
The theatre continued to be used to host international theatrical performances, live music, amusements, as well as amateur theatre productions. In 1951, the stage was damaged in a fire caused by experimentation with
flash powder
Flash powder is a pyrotechnic composition, a mixture of oxidizer and metallic fuel, which burns quickly and produces a loud noise regardless of confinement. It is widely used in theatrical pyrotechnics and fireworks (namely salutes, e.g., cherry ...
, causing over £A6,000 worth of damage.
Following the refurbishment of Hobart's
Theatre Royal in 1954, Minister for Health
Reg Turnbull
Reginald John David "Spot" Turnbull (21 February 1908 – 17 July 2006) was an Australian politician.
He was a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1946 to 1961 (1946–1959 for the Labor Party, 1959–1961 as an Independent), then a ...
requested the LCC approach Premier
Robert Cosgrove
Sir Robert Cosgrove (28 December 1884 – 25 August 1969) was an Australian politician who was the 30th and longest-serving Premier of Tasmania. He held office for over 18 years, serving from 1939 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1958. His involve ...
for a grant to restore the National Theatre.
In 1958, South African actor Morry Barling suddenly died onstage. The theatre remained active throughout the 1960s, largely hosting performances by the Tasmanian Ballet Company.
Closure
Due to ongoing costs, the LCC decided to sell the theatre in 1969, although events continued into the next year. The
Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust is a theatre and performing arts company that was founded in September 1954, with the aim of establishing drama, opera and ballet companies nationally.
Founding
In 1954 the Australian Elizabethan Theatre T ...
premiered
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (born Ermanno Wolf) (January 12, 1876 – January 21, 1948) was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as '' Il segreto di Susanna'' (1909). A number of his works were based on plays by ...
's comedic opera ''School for Fathers'', Welsh
dramatist
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
Emlyn Williams
George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor.
Early life
Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flintsh ...
performed his one-man show on the life of
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
and world-renowned pianist
Winifred Atwell
Una Winifred Atwell (27 February or 27 April 1910 or 1914There is some uncertainty over her date and year of birth. Many sources suggest 27 February 1914, but there is a strong suggestion that her birthday was 27 April. Most sources give her ye ...
gave the final performance at the theatre on 14 November 1970. The building was sold to the printing company Foot & Playsted.
Contemporary use
The National Theatre has been greatly preserved by Foot & Playsted, who use the auditorium for storage.
Since
MONA FOMA festivities expanded to include Launceston in 2018, the National Theatre has been used for arts events by
Quandamooka
The Quandamooka people are Aboriginal Australians who live around Moreton Bay in Southeastern Queensland. They are composed of three distinct tribes, the Nunukul, the Goenpul and the Ngugi, and they live primarily on Moreton and North Stradbro ...
artist
Megan Cope
Megan Cope (born 1982) is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island/Minjerribah. She is known for her sculptural installations, video art and paintings, in which she explores themes such as identity and ...
and visual artist
Thomas Demand
Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.
Demand had his first solo exhibition at Tanit Galerie in Munich ...
. In 2022 the National Theatre was featured in programming by
Open House Launceston.
See also
*
List of entertainers who died during a performance
Through history, many entertainers have died while performing live or while recording a performance. The following list excludes deaths involving stunt persons, as they are List_of_film_and_television_accidents, listed separately.
17th century
* ...
*
List of national theatres
Several countries have one or more national theatres. This component in the name of a theatre indicates that the funding is not only a concern of private investors or the local city, but of the national or federal budget. The Comédie-Française in ...
*
List of theatres in Hobart
This is a list of theatres in Hobart in Tasmania, Australia. The Hobart City Centre has several theatres in continuous operation, including live theatre venues, picture theatres, a single multiplex operated by Village Cinemas
Village Cinem ...
References
{{Cinematic and theatrical buildings in Tasmania
1915 establishments in Australia
Cinemas in Launceston
City of Launceston
Former theatres in Tasmania
History of Tasmania
Theatres completed in 1915
Former cinemas