Brisbane Theatre Company’s last performance at Petrie Terrace HQ
A Brisbane amateur theatre company will lower the curtain on its final production in June at the building it has called home for 70 years. But its president says the show will go on.
South West
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Brisbane Arts Theatre will lower the curtain on its final production on June 1 at the Petrie Terrace building it has called home for seven decades.
But BAT president Paula-Jeni (Paje) Battilana has reassured fans that it will continue as a production company, with proceeds from last year’s sale of the building funding ongoing costs.
She said they had been busy planning for the future, including holding an AGM on the weekend, hiring a transition manager and buying two commercial units in a Herston complex.
One unit was tenanted on a longterm lease, providing a 7 per cent return which would generate much-needed cashflow.
The other would be used for its Costume Cottage outlet, a costume hire business to support schools, community theatre and professional organisations.
Dan and Fiona Kennedy, the couple behind the Ad Astra Theatre Company, bought the 210 Petrie Tce building last year for $3 million, saving it from the wrecking ball.
They planned to renovate the building, which was badly damaged in a fire in 1964.
The site has been home to Brisbane Arts Theatre since 1961 after the organisation bought the property in 1956 for £6000.
“Let me re-confirm to our community that Brisbane Arts Theatre was a production company before it built a stage at 210 Petrie Tce,’’ Ms Battilana said in an e-newsletter.
“While over the years the name Brisbane Arts Theatre has also meant a theatre building and a place of education, it has always continued to be a production company.
“When the building was sold in 2023, it was purely the address at 210 Petrie Terrace that was sold — not the name Brisbane Arts Theatre, not our community, not our theatre company.
“Brisbane Arts Theatre continues to be an arts institution for the people of Brisbane.
“And under the strategic plan created by the current board it will continue to be an arts institution for the people of Brisbane for decades to come.
“Moving out of a building that we have lived, loved and created art in for 70-odd years is a huge undertaking and it requires a large amount of time and attention.
“Until the end of June this task has to be our focus, but I promise you that in the background we are slowly but surely developing plans and processes for all our artistic arms.’’
Ms Battilana said their youth education program was the first item on the “to-do list’’.
Costume hire, children’s theatre, adult education and Arts Theatre productions would, in time, all resume.
“We are not stopping any of the things we’ve always done for as long as anyone can remember, but we are pausing and reviving each of these sections of our company,’’ she said.
“After seven decades of doing all our artistic projects within the confines of these brick walls, we need to learn how to be a production company without their own stage again.’’
Brisbane Arts Theatre was founded in 1936, as Brisbane Amateur Theatres, by Jean Trundle and Vic Hardgraves. The company’s name was changed in 1947.
It was the first theatre company in Brisbane to operate its own theatre premises.
Small, annual state government grants ceased in the 1990s and since then it has relied solely on performance and theatre bar revenue, as well as theatre workshop tuition fees.
Long rumoured to be inhabited by ghosts, in 2012 Paranormal Paratek Queensland surveyed it for unusual activity.
Frankenstein and Danny Champion are currently showing, while A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens on May 4, closing on June 1.
Plenty of tickets, priced from $25-$36, are still available.BOOK HERE
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