Victoria Theatre

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Uploaded on: April 20, 2024

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Source - https://www.victoriatheatre.com.au/revive

ORIGINALLY BUILT IN 1876, NEWCASTLE’S heritage-listed Victoria Theatre was rebuilt in 1890 and for decades has been shuttered and the subject of mystery and rumours.

With a capacity of around 1500 people, the Victoria Theatre was once a professional, state-of-the-art, nationally important theatre that rivalled any in Australia’s capital cities.

Despite being well over 100 years old, the Victoria Theatre hosted the cutting-edge technology of its day including a massive fly-tower for set and scenery management, a solid fire curtain behind the proscenium arch, 16 dressing rooms, and a small private hotel.

From the three-level fly tower, the fly galleries are visible. There are two timber tiers on which the crew moved around behind the scenes, making the magic happen.

The Victoria was built before electricity was introduced in Australia in the small regional town of Tamworth in 1888. In Newcastle, trams in Hunter Street were electrified in 1920, so the grand Victoria Theatre would have been operating for some 50 years without electricity. The stage would have been illuminated for performances using ‘limelights’.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -