|
Princess Theatre is a heritage-listed theatre at 8 Annerley Road, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by architect John Beauchamp Nicholson and built in 1888. It is also known as South Brisbane Public Hall and Boggo Road Theatre. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. == History == This large brick building was constructed in 1888 for prominent Brisbane solicitor Phillip Hardgrave and the South Brisbane Public Hall Company.〔 Its construction was an entrepreneurial venture responding to the needs of a rapidly expanding South Brisbane, East Brisbane, Woolloongabba, and Thompson Estate population. It provided the newly created Borough of South Brisbane with a central public hall which could be hired for public meetings, lectures, balls, theatrical and musical performances and other public functions. In 1887 Hardgrave acquired the Boggo Road (later Annerley Road) site, set up the subscription company, and commissioned Brisbane architect John Beauchamp Nicholson to design the hall. It was erected the following year by builder Blair Cunningham, for a contract price of £5,220.〔 In the early years, the privately funded hall was known variously as the South Brisbane Public Hall (1888–91) and the Boggo Road Theatre (1892-3).〔 In 1893 Hardgrave sold the property to his father, John Hardgrave, a former mayor of Brisbane. Renamed the Princess Theatre, the building was used during the 1890s for sporadic productions of live performances and vaudeville, but did not emerge as a major theatrical venue in Brisbane.〔 Brisbane draper Thomas Finney acquired the property in 1899 and used the theatre as a clothing factory, although the stage was still hired for occasional performances.〔 With a change of ownership in 1912 the building was rented to clothing manufacturers and Wests Olympia, and from 1914 to 1942 it was leased mainly as a movie-house and performance space for amateur theatre. In the 1930s Brisbane's fledgling amateur theatre companies - Brisbane Repertory Theatre (now La Boite Theatre Company), Brisbane Arts Theatre and the Twelfth Night Theatre Company (later TN! Theatre Co.) - all performed at the Princess.〔 From 1942 to 1945 the theatre served as the administrative and rehearsal centre for the United States Entertainment Unit. In the years immediately following World War II, it was hired to a variety of community groups such as ballet schools, college revues, and scout troops.〔 From 1949 to 1985 the building lost all association with the performing arts, and was rented to various small businesses, including a paper wholesaler, an engineering firm, a rag merchant, a secondhand dealer and a used appliance retailer. The stage area was leased separately to a printing firm for over thirty years from 1948 to 1979.〔 In 1985 the property was acquired by REMM Group Ltd, who carried out external restoration, and offered TN! Theatre Company a ten-year lease from 1986. Internal restoration and refitting was carried out by TN!.〔 Due to financial difficults, TN!'s last production was in 1991. Since 2001, the theatre was leased by the Metro Central Community Church (now the LifeCity Church) and purchased by them in 2003. The church uses the theatre for its church services and other events and also offers it for hire to others for use as a theatre and a venue for weddings and other events.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://princesstheatrechurch.com/the-princess-theatre )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Princess Theatre, Woolloongabba」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|