AustLit

The Twelfth Night Theatre company began its illustrious history located in Empire Chambers in Brisbane's CBD with a teaching studio, rehearsal room and a seating capacity of 104 (Batchelor 9). In 1941, they leased from Miss Dorothy Brockway the gymnasium her father built her at the back of property on 51 Wickham Terrace (Batchelor 11). In the same year, the company was the first to put on a play at Albert Hall, which adds to the history of the amateur theatre (Batchelor 12). This was also the venue in which the little theatre produced its first Australian play titled A House is Built (1949) by Eunice Hanger. Later, in 1948, the company leased a large two-storey building again on Wickham Terrace. The upper floor became a rehearsal and play-reading space while the lower housed speech teachers and their studios (Radbourne 226).

Gowrie Hall on Wickham Terrace was acquired in 1956. This was a church hall that was transformed into the company’s own personal theatre which complemented Albert Hall, where the major productions were staged (Radbourne 242). Radbourne (243) marked this as a “milestone in the history of the Little Theatre Movement in Brisbane.” The upper area converted to a small theatre space, and the lower area for speech-training studios and dressing rooms (Radbourne 243). Felgate anticipated staging all productions in this hall in the future and, by 1966, this came to be (Radbourne 244). However, the discovery that road works under the Wilbur Smith Plan would pass through this hall led to the company purchasing land in Bowen Hills to build a new theatre (Batchelor).