Theatre Building Bonanza

Image: Adelaide Festival Centre. Photographer: Rob Brown.

There’s no business like the theatre building business, with every mainland capital city either constructing or planning new performing arts venues, or re-vitalising existing ones. Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Parramatta and Sydney are sharing in the spoils. David Spicer reports. 

Adelaide. 

The safari suited Premier Don Dunstan famously championed the construction of the Adelaide Festival Centre complex during the 1970s, and it has been home to city of churches’ multitude of festivals ever since.

The Malinauskas Government is more fashionably attired these days and has announced an upgrade to the centre’s three theatres to follow suit.  The Festival Theatre, Dunstan Playhouse and Space Theatre will receive new seats, lighting and staging. A plaza outside the theatre complex will also be spruced up and safety will be upgraded.

The three theatres will close in July 2025 and are scheduled to re-open early the following year. Events will be transferred to the award winning renovated Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Brisbane

The future Olympic City has long frustrated producers because it has only one lyric theatre at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre for big musicals. It has meant that Brisbane has missed out on seeing many shows, while also complicating touring schedules.

All that will change in 2026 when a brand new 1500 seat theatre finally opens, seven years after it was first announced, with building work delayed when the site was flooded. An extra 260 performances a year are expected to take place, while the theatre will become the new home for the Queensland Opera and Queensland Ballet.

A distinctive feature of the building will be a rippled glass façade, while there will be two new studios below the theatre, and a single balcony auditorium with enhanced audience sight lines. Iconic First Nations artwork is planned for the foyer. 

Canberra

It’s still only on the drawing boards, but the ACT Government has ambitions to redevelop the Canberra Theatre Centre. The public service town has long struggled to get on the national touring circuit, forcing its citizens to trek to Sydney or Melbourne to see most blockbusters. 

Under the concept drawings released by the Government, a new 2000 seat lyric theatre would be built for musicals, opera and ballet. Other theatres in the centre would also be upgraded. 

Melbourne.

After 40 years of continuous performances, the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne closed this year for renovations and is scheduled to re-open in 2027. The upgrades will will introduce new lifts, aisles in the stalls and circle, and accessible seating in the stalls. 

When the upgrades are complete, audiences are promised they will experience greater comfort, and technology upgrades in sound and lighting.

Whilst one door has temporarily closed, another has opened. The Arts Centre has added a new performance space, The Show Room. The 150-seat studio theatre will feature productions from independent artists and established companies such as the Australian Ballet.

Parramatta

A 1500 seat Broadway-style lyric theatre with First Nations inspired interiors is the hallmark of the winning design for the $188 million redevelopment of Riverside Theatres at Parramatta in western Sydney. 

The winning design, led by COX Architecture with 3XN Architects, Aileen Sage, Turf Design Studio, and Bangawarra, will more than double Riverside Theatres’ current capacity to 2,780 seats, welcoming more than 400,000 visitors per year.

Along with the new 1,500-seat lyric theatre, the venue will include a refurbished 760-seat Riverside Playhouse theatre, an all-new 420 seat black-box drama theatre, a state-of-the-art 80-seat digital studio and cinema, and enhanced public spaces.

Riverside is scheduled to close next July, with the upgrade expected to take at least two years to complete.

Perth 

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts is moving to a new city campus in 2026, bringing up to 300 additional public performances a year to the Perth CBD. These will comprise student performances, but venues will also be available for hire during major arts festivals.

A three-storey fly-tower will be incorporated into a new playhouse theatre. 

The 60,000 square-metre Edith Cowan University City campus will feature a dynamic digital media façade, activated streetscapes and laneways and an immersive entrance that envelops the Perth Busport.

Sydney 

The operators of the Sydney Lyric Theatre are about to open the first of what they hope will be two new performing arts spaces in the complex which houses The Star Sydney Casino.

The Foundry Theatre is a new multi-purpose venue, accommodating audiences of 630 people standing or 360 seated, that has been carved out of the loading dock for the Lyric. It’s described as a space with soaring ceilings, minimalist interior design and dynamic lighting that allows an audience to sit, stand or dance.

Stephen Found, the owner of both the Lyric and Capitol Theatres, has also received planning approval to convert The Star’s 4000-seat event centre into a two-level 1550-seat proscenium arch theatre, and a 1000-seat live room for contemporary music, comedy and cabaret nights.

When I last spoke to him about this project, he said that it would proceed when a suitable builder was found for the development.

Elsewhere, on Sydney’s north-shore, The Concourse in Chatswood has launched The Lounge, a flexible live performance venue with a 300-seat capacity in cabaret style and state-of-the-art facilities including high-end lighting, audio and visual technology. 

Minerva-Metro

There are renewed hopes Sydney's Metro-Minerva Theatre in Kings Cross will be saved following news that the art deco building has been purchased by arts philanthropist Gretel Packer. 

The 1500 seat theatre, which opened in May 1939, had previously been earmarked for re-development as a hotel.

Following Gretel Packer’s purchase of the building the speculation is that it will be restored as a fully functioning theatre.

Industry insiders say a lot of work is needed to make it viable, so theatre fans should not expect to see a show there anytime soon.