The Playhouse Theatre (Perth)

On 11 December 1919 the Repertory Club was established in Perth, with about forty members. Its earliest productions were The Amazons and Lady Windermere's Fan, staged in 1920.[1] The Repertory Club initially worked out of a basement room at the Palace Hotel, then a room in Commerce Buildings, King Street, before moving into a cottage in Pier Street from 1921 to 1932.[1] Their next move was to the old composing room of the Western Australian Newspaper Company[2] in St George's Terrace, with their first performance there on 3 August 1933.[1] The club organised a range of entertainments apart from plays, and usually had two productions in rehearsal while one was being staged. Its membership was restricted to 1,000 members and most shows were sold out before opening night, so advertising was seldom necessary.[3]

The need for the Playhouse arose as Perth's main theatre, His Majesty's Theatre was considered too large to provide a feasible venue for locally produced live-theatre productions, and had been functioning principally as a cinema since the early 1940s. In the mid-1950s the board and members of the Repertory Club commenced fundraising for the construction of a smaller purpose-built theatre to stage their productions.

The theatre was constructed adjacent to St George's Cathedral on Pier Street land owned by the Anglican Church, the former site of the Church of England Deanery tennis court.[4] The building was designed by the local architectural firm of Sheldon & Krantz and constructed at a cost of £65,000. The main lobby contained a mural by Iwan Iwanoff, a local brutalist architect. The theatre was formally opened on 22 August 1956[4] to a capacity audience of 700, with the opening production of John Patrick's 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Teahouse of the August Moon.[5][1]

With the opening of the Playhouse, the Repertory Club became a fully professional theatre company, the National Theatre Company,[4][5] after amalgamation with the Company of Four.[1]

Notable actor Edgar Metcalfe was a regular performer on stage and also served three terms as artistic director between 1963–1984.[6] A rare period of box-office success was enjoyed by the theatre from 1978–1981 when Stephen Barry was artistic director of the National Theatre at the Playhouse. He arranged outstanding guest performances by international celebrities Warren Mitchell, Honor Blackman, Robyn Nevin, Timothy West, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Judy Davis, among others. Barry commissioned Dorothy Hewett's play, The Man from Muckinupin,[5][7] for the State's sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary celebrations in 1979 (WAY '79), despite hostile resistance from then state premier Sir Charles Court.

However, soon after Barry's departure, the company lost its audience appeal. Despite an extensive renovation in 1982, with reduction of seating capacity, the National Theatre was liquidated in February 1984[5][8][1] and the building and company taken over by the Perth Theatre Trust.[1]

The theatre company continued to operate under the names Threshold Theatre Company and then XYZ Theatre Company for a short while, in May 1985 becoming the Western Australian Theatre Company. This name was retained until they dissolved in July 1990.[1][5]

The Playhouse Theatre remained one of the city's principal venues for performing arts until replaced by the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia in January 2011.[9] It was demolished in October 2012 as part of a redevelopment of Cathedral Square.[6][10]