Seymour Theatre Centre

Performing-arts centre on Darlington campus of University of Sydney, opened September 1975. Architects: Allen, Jack and Cottier. Contains thrust-stage York Theatre, seating 788; end-stage Everest Theatre for music and dance, seating 600; Downstairs studio theatre, seating up to 200.

Metropolitan theatres derive their image from the type of shows performed in them, their district or the sense of occasion they engender but none such distinction serves the Seymour Theatre Centre. It houses a wide range of shows and it is a kilometre from the central business district. In many ways it is like a performing-arts centre in a large country town, but without the local status.

The centre commemorates Everest York Seymour, who developed a chain of shops, bred cattle and took an interest in the arts. When he died in 1966, aged 60, he left the Sydney City Council $4 million for the 'purchase or construction of a building as a centre for the cultivation, education and performance of the musical and dramatic arts befitting the City of Sydney'. No money was provided for maintenance or performances. Building costs virtually meant that the recipient of the bequest would have to provide the land for a new building. The University of Sydney, apparently the only organisation within the city able and willing to provide the land and infrastructure, obtained the funds.

The Seymour Centre was designed to supplement the city's theatres with a fully-equipped thrust-stage theatre, a medium-capacity concert hall-theatre with good acoustics, and an adaptable studio theatre. Its success has varied, in the case of the York Theatre partly because of the dull brick and concrete architectural style and the black interior, so loved by directors, and partly because of the lack of a permanent vibrant company. From 1984 to 1987 the Nimrod Theatre Company was resident in the York. The seating capacity made viable such productions as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman with Warren Mitchell and Mel Gibson, but the style of acting contrasted unfavourably with the informal style which the company had been identified in the smaller Nimrod Theatre. Some actors have found the actor-audience relationship demanding and alienating, but on occasion it could not be bettered, as with the commercial productions of Nell Dunn's Steaming and Claire Luckham's Trafford Tanzi. The York is mostly used for touring productions of drama, comedy, musicals and dance. The Everest Theatre has been modified for dance and musical theatre as well as concerts.