‘A win-win’: Iconic Sydney theatre makes a comeback

One of the city’s most iconic theatres, where many of our most famous theatrical names first started out, reopens this weekend after a near 20-year hiatus.

Originally known as the Union Theatre and part of Sydney University, the Footbridge Theatre in Camperdown first opened in 1961. Performers there over the years include John Bell, Marcia Hines, Nancye Hayes, John Gaden and Germaine Greer.

Among those Footbridge alumni is veteran actor Belinda Giblin, who recalls her Sydney University days and the theatre with fondness.

The Footbridge in the 1960s before the pedestrian bridge was built in 1972. It was then known as the Union Theatre.

“I was there during the Vietnam War,” she says. “In my day, university was free, so anyone who had a neuron to rub together went. It was a period of patchouli oil, pot and incense. We were doing the marches and the love-ins and be-ins and sit-ins. For a young girl from Tamworth coming to Sydney and being in the middle of all that really was wonderful.

“Those were the days of the big faculty reviews [at the Footbridge]. All the engineering students would sit up the back and heckle and all the little conchie arts students would sit down the front and be deep and meaningful. It’s a lovely space and I can’t believe it wouldn’t get good audiences now.”

After graduating, Giblin went to NIDA, returning to the Footbridge in 1990 to star in Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves.

Theatre director Neil Armfield, who graduated in 1977, got his first experience acting and directing at the Footbridge.

“It was like we formed this little small theatre company,” he says. “You couldn’t study drama at Sydney University at that time. So you did it yourself. It was extraordinary training for me.”

He recalls a production in 1973 that was repeatedly hit by blackouts caused by industrial action.

“We quite often would turn up and found that we couldn’t perform that night,” he says. “But we always had a party. We did about 10 out of 17 shows, but we had 17 parties.”

Later, in 1983, high-profile producer John Frost leased the Footbridge with business partner Ashley Gordon, staging productions there for about 20 years.

Director Neil Armfield, actor Belinda Giblin and Armfield’s “theatre dog”, Lock, on stage at the new-look Footbridge.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“Without the Footbridge, I think I probably would’ve still been working for somebody also instead of myself,” he says. “The stuff we put on there was very broadly commercial and with a lot of names at the time that were on television. I wish them all the success and the luck with it. And I hope Sydney does embrace it. It’s a win-win for our industry.”

Work started last year to refurbish the theatre and return it to its original purpose, after it was converted into a lecture hall for medical and psychology students in 2006.

Now operated by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and with a reduced capacity of 230, the new-look theatre is to be used mostly by students studying musical theatre there. The opening show will be a production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods on October 26.