Melbourne's theatres

Map of 8 locations in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Melbourne keeps more working theatres in good condition than any other Australian city, and the differences between them are structural: a picture palace that was never built for actors, a dress circle hung so low it eats the back of the stalls, a brewery malt store whose seating bank can be removed altogether. This list reads the rooms rather than the posters, with the sightlines, the refits and the ownership noted where a source states them. It runs from the Marriner houses on the CBD circuit out to Southbank and to an arena that becomes a theatre once the tennis has gone.

Places in this collection

  • The Athenaeum — The theatre attached to the Melbourne Athenaeum, and the one house on the commercial circuit here that is not part of the Marriner group. I…
  • Malthouse Theatre — A producing company with its own announced seasons rather than a house for hire, working out of a converted brewery malting plant. The Merl…
  • Rod Laver Arena — A tennis court for a fortnight in January and a theatre the rest of the year. Once the Australian Open clears out, the floor is available a…
  • Hamer Hall — Opened as the Melbourne Concert Hall and designed by John Truscott, whose interior is the reason bright orange reads as formal here rather…
  • The Comedy Theatre — Smaller than the Regent or the Princess and better for it: a Spanish-inspired interior seating up to 1,000 across two tiers, with workable…
  • Her Majesty's Theatre — Art Deco inside, with a foyer that functions more like a loading zone than a room to stand in. The dress circle sits unusually low, which m…
  • Regent Theatre — Built as a cinema, a picture palace rather than a playhouse, which is why for years the only genuinely good seats were the ones packed into…
  • Princess Theatre — One of the city's grand old dames, and the house that was rebuilt around Harry Potter and the Cursed Child before being converted back to i…

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