Resource | Text: Article | |
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Title | Palais Theatre | |
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Source | Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance, Companion To Theatre In Australia, Currency Press with Cambridge University Press, Sydney, NSW, 1995 | |
Page | 423 | |
Date Issued | 1995 | |
Language | English | |
Citation | Ross Thorne, Palais Theatre, Companion To Theatre In Australia, 1995, 423 | |
Resource Identifier | 65011 |
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Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne, opened 11 November 1927 as cinema seating 2968. Architect: Henry E. White. Converted in 1960 to opera theatre seating 2854.
For nearly a quarter of a century from 1960 Melbourne's venue for large-scale musical theatre and dance was the 2854-seat Palais Theatre in suburban St Kilda. Since the opening of the Victorian Arts Centre the Palais has been more used for concerts but it remains the largest-capacity theatre in Australia. Henry E. White designed it for Harold, Leon and Hermann Phillips as a palatial suburban cinema, in a composite French and Oriental style, to replace the New Palais Pictures, opened in 1922 and destroyed by fire in 1926. The new cinema originally seated 1630 in the stalls and 1338 in the dress circle and it had a large stage and orchestra pit suitable for the variety acts that supplemented de luxe film presentations in the 1920s, but it was devoid of dressing rooms for performers. It showed films until 1960, when it was used for an opera season. The pit was enlarged to take the orchestra, reducing the stalls seating to 1516. Dressing rooms were built in 1962. The Palais housed the Melbourne season of Jesus Christ Superstar.