A GUIDE TO HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE

Past Owners

The building's founder was Sir William Clarke, Baronet, one of Victoria's most prominent landowners and businessmen. He was also a well-known patron of the arts. The theatre in Ballarat was just a small part of his extensive business empire, and was managed by his local business agent. It was known at this time as The Academy of Music.

In 1898, after Clarke's death, the Theatre was sold to a consortium of local businessmen, James Coghlan JP, Harry Davies and Johannes (John) Heinz. Davies was a draper, Coghlan a brewer, and Heinz a butcher - together they were known as "Rags, Bottles and Bones." The purchase of the Theatre was both a commercial opportunity and a public service - there was talk of the Salvation Army buying it as a Temple. With the assistance of their agent, John Blight, the consortium undertook an extensive remodelling of the Theatre and renamed the Academy Her Majesty's Theatre.

James Coghlan died in 1902 and in 1904, his share of the theatre was bought by Heinz's brother, Christoph. In 1906, the owners undertook further work on the Theatre, to meet the requirements of the Central Board of Health. Between 1898 and 1907, the consortium spent over £20,000 on remodelling and refurbishing the Theatre.

By 1920, Davies and the Heinz brothers had all died and the building was sold again. The new owners were William Crowley, a solicitor and businessman from Bendigo, and his brother Cornelius, a Melbourne doctor. The theatre business was already well known to Crowley, as he and his two brothers had inherited Bendigo's Royal Princess Theatre from their father, John Crowley.

In 1928, Ballarat Theatres P/L, a Hoyts subsidiary, opened the Ballarat Regent Theatre, a purpose-built movie house in Lydiard Street North. At the same time, Ballarat Theatres bought Her Majesty's from the Crowleys for £22,500. However, the purchase price for Her Majesty's was never paid: instead, the Crowleys received 6½% annual interest payment on the amount owing.

In 1936, Ballarat Amusements leased Her Majesty's from Ballarat Theatres. Ballarat Amusements was a subsidiary of the Melbourne-based Woodrow Distributing Corporation P/L, which used the Theatre to screen the MGM and Paramount Pictures which they distributed. At the same time, a sister company, Bendigo Amusements took over Crowley's Princess Theatre in Bendigo. Both theatres were extensively remodelled and Her Majesty's was also redecorated.

Hoyts (Ballarat Theatres), having leased Her Majesty's to Woodrows. plannned to take use the massive Coliseum as a second venue: a plan which went up in smoke when the Coliseum burnt down in a spectacular blaze in 1936. They were forced to revise their plans and instead took over the ANA Hall in Camp Street, calling it the Plaza Theatre.

When Crowley died in 1937, his interest in Her Majesty's passed to his nieces in England, the estate being administered by Sandhurst Trustees. They were the theatre proprietors in name only: Ballarat Theatres still continued to control the building and leased it to rival distributor, Ballarat Amusements. The curious question of ownership was resolved in 1942, when Ballarat Theatres finally purchased Her Majesty's from the Crowley estate.

Hoyts at the Regent was evidently happy to run their Regent and Plaza Theatres in competition with the Woodrow controlled Her Majesty's, even when the Regent was destroyed by fire in January 1943. They screened their main features in their second venue, the Plaza in Camp Street, until the Regent re-opened in October of the same year.

Ballarat Amusements continued to lease Her Majesty's until the end of its life as a cinema. This came after local television station BTV-6 commenced commercial broadcasting in Ballarat in April 1962 The effect on local cinema audiences was immediate and disastrous, and Woodrow decided to close down the Theatre. The last movie screened by Ballarat Amusements at Her Majesty's was Mutiny On The Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris, on 27 April 1963.

In June 1965 Ballarat Theatres sold Her Majesty's to the Royal South Street Society for £32,000. The Society was able to purchase the Theatre through a mix of government subsidy and private donations: a major donation of £10,000 came from local businessman Alf Reid, of Reid's Coffee Palace in Lydiard Street North. Royal South Street Board member James Kittson also made a contribution towards the purchase. However, the major part of the purchase price was covered by a grant of £20,000 from the Bolte Government. The Society changed the name of the Theatre to the Memorial Theatre, to ensure that donations to its renovation appeal were tax deductible, since they were made to an official war memorial. The Bolte Government and Alf Reid both made further substanital donations to the renovation appeal.

The Building of the Theatre

Theatre was part of Ballarat life from the early years of the gold rushes. The earliest theatres were associated with the hotels along Main Road, the commercial hub of the Ballarat Flat, in the midst of the diggings. The best known were the Victoria, the Charlie Napier and the Montezuma. These goldfields theatres were wooden structures, very susceptible to fire, and were regularly destroyed in major conflagrations along Main Road and rebuilt.

Ballarat's first permanent theatre, the Theatre Royal, was built in 1858 in the new township on the hill, away from the crowded conditions on the Flat. The Royal, in Sturt Street, was a part of the shift in the centre of business activity away from Main Road to the Township. It was a handsome brick structure and opened with a declaration by its first manager, Shakespearian actor William Hoskins, that it would lift the standard of Ballarat's cultural life. There was a permanent 'stock' company based at the Royal, presenting a range of shows from Shakespeare and opera to farce and melodrama.

The Main Road theatres disappeared as the centre of town life shifted to Sturt St. Ballarat East was left with one theatre, the Charlie Napier, which, following a fire in 1861, was rebuilt as the New Adelphi, along similar lines to the Royal. It closed after a short life, opening again in the mid-1860's as the Bijou Theatre, and finally closing its doors about 1868. The Royal was left as Ballarat's only fully equipped theatre. By that time, most performances presented there were limited seasons of touring productions originating from Melbourne or overseas.

By the 1870's the Theatre Royal was felt to be inadequate for the needs of an important provincial city like Ballarat. The stage facilities were too cramped for the productions that Melbourne theatrical managers were now producing. It needed refurbishment, and had a reputation for being rough, even after becoming delicensed in 1872.

Ways were examined of providing Ballarat with a new theatre. A group of Ballarat citizens approached the family of W. J. T. "Big" Clarke, a wealthy pastoralist with vast land holdings across Victoria. Their extensive interests in and around Ballarat included the 40,000 acre Dowling Forest Estate, as well as land in Ballarat and business investments. At the time, the Clarkes were very interested in developing some of their property holdings. The running of the family properties was increasingly coming into the hands of Clarke's son, William John Clarke (later Australia's first baronet).

The proposal for the Clarke family to build a new theatre in Ballarat was part of a massive investment in commercial enterprises that Clarke Jnr undertook at this time. The Chairman of the Academy of Music Company was Charles Seal, a former Tasmanian like the Clarkes, and formerly the manager of the Dowling Forest run. Seal was responsible for overseeing the Clarke's business interests in Ballarat. He had been one of the original backers of the old Theatre Royal in 1858.

The Clarkes spent £12,000 building the Ballarat Academy of Music on land owned by the family in Lydiard Street South. The Ballarat group agreed to lease the theatre for ten years at a guaranteed ten per cent of Clarke's investment. The yearly rental of £1100 was to prove unsustainable and the Academy of Music Company handed the Academy back to Clarke within two years.

The architect responsible for designing and building the new theatre was George "Diamond" Browne, a fashionable young colonial architect who had undertaken several large commissions for the Clarkes in the previous three years. He was not a stranger to theatre design, having built the New Theatre Royal in Bourke Street, Melbourne, in 1872, at the age of 25, for impresario George Coppin.

For the new Ballarat theatre, Browne designed a three-story building, very similar to the Melbourne Theatre Royal, in an ornate "Byzantine" style. The design was reduced to two stories for reasons of economy. Although Clarke was spending lavishly on Rupertswood, the new country mansion he commissioned Browne to build for him at Sunbury, it seems the decision to economise on the Ballarat theatre came from the local company, concerned at their commitment to pay 10% of the construction cost.

The Foyer & Facade

The facade is an early example of the "Boom" style characteristic of the 1880's. "Diamond" Browne's pupil William Pitt, architect of many Australasian theatres, including Melbourne's Princess Theatre, was to become a leading exponent of this style. Browne was not completely happy with the reduced scale of the building because the roof of the auditorium, which was supposed to be concealed behind the facade, is clearly visible from the street.

In order to maximise the commercial return, the street-frontage of the Theatre was planned as shop-fronts or offices, a common practice when building theatres at that time. Two passages on either side were to give access to the different levels of the auditorium. Before the Academy opened, Browne redesigned the front to create a grand entrance in place of the central office. It is still possible to see the different sections of the foyer - the business offices with their wooden ceilings and fire-places, the passageways plastered and tiled.

The portico over the main doors to the building was installed in 1990, a replica of one placed there in 1912. That portico survived until 1936, when first took over the lease oif the Theatre and started to modernise it. They replaced the old portico with a cantilevered (postless) verandah over the central doors. They then extended this 1952 to go across the entire street frontage.

The foyer area also accommodates a Candy Bar and the MajesTix Box Office. The foyer was extended into the northern shop area in 1946 when a kiosk was first installed. Before that time, patrons went out of the Theatre to Hager's Cafe two doors down Lydiard St, to Craig's Royal Hotel opposite, or out of the side doors of the Stalls to Beacham's Unicorn Hotel in Unicorn Lane. The southern shop was opened up in 1952.

The Foundation Stone

The Foundation Stone of the Academy of Music was laid on Thursday 24th September 1874 by Madame Arabella Goddard, a famous British pianiste of the time. Madame Goddard was in the middle of a world tour and was in Ballarat to give a series of three recitals at the Mechanics Institute. Browne visited the lady in her rooms at Craig's Royal Hotel and asked her to do the honours.

The laying of the Stone on that day coincided with a business visit to Ballarat by W. J. Clarke. George Browne officiated at the ceremony as Clarke was late in arriving. The Stone, with a bottle underneath it containing coins and newspapers, was at the north-west corner of the building and is not currently visible. Madame Goddard laid it with an engraved silver trowel, which was then presented to her by Browne. This trowel has been given to the Theatre on permanent loan by relatives of Madame Goddard and is now on display in the Long Room. Clarke, who missed the laying of the stone, joined the party afterwards at Craig's Hotel for celebratory bumpers of champagne.

The Original Name

The name "Academy of Music" came from the United States of America, where the name was briefly in vogue, indicating that the proprietors were intending to attract a clientele who were hesitant to enter a "theatre" for reasons of religious prejudice, temperance or concern for respectability.

The Ballarat Academy was unusual in that the design of the building did actually reflect this, being in effect a concert hall with full stage facilities. It was promoted as a respectable place of amusement, and the intention was obviously to offer a "higher class" of entertainment than the broad farces and Irish comedians people might encounter at the Theatre Royal.

The name goes back to 17th Century France, and the Royal Academy of Music licensed by Louis XIV, which became the Paris Opera. In the nineteenth century, the name came into vogue with the building of the New York Academy of Music in 1854, and quickly spread across North America. In Australia, there were Academies of Music in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Launceston.

The Hugh Williamson Auditorium

The 1875 Academy of Music was built with a flat floor, suitable for dances and dinners, and had a single balcony around three sides. The separate areas were known as the Parquette, with the Pit behind it, and the Paradis tier. The significance of the single balcony was that the upper balcony, or gallery, of Victorian theatres was the roughest part of the house, with the cheapest seats. It seems the management of the Academy of Music, in wishing to establish a respectable place of amusement, dispensed with a gallery.

In 1898, the new owners commissioned noted theatre architect William Pitt, who had probably worked on the original building as an apprentice, to modify the auditorium and improve the stage facilities. The result was the auditorium we see today, which is much more "theatrical" than the 1875 auditorium, which was more of a concert hall. The Paradis was removed and audience capacity increased by building two balconies - the Dress Circle and the Family Circle, now the Balcony. The level floor was overlaid with a raked or sloping floor, to improve sight-lines. The division of the ground floor into Stalls at the front and Pit at the rear was retained until 1907.

The Theatre currently has 959 seats. The original seating capacity was 1,700: 500 in the Paradis on upholstered seats, 400 in the Parquette, or front stalls, on cane chairs, and the remaining 800 on plain wooden forms in the Pit, or rear stalls. Access to the Parquette was via a separate door and a passage down the northern side of the auditorium.

In 1899, when the Academy was transformed into Her Majesty's, it was claimed that 1,600 could easily be seated, with more standing in the promenades at the back of each Circle.

The Auditorium is heated by a system of hat water pipes connected with foot-warmers under the seats. The foot warmers came from the original Rivoli Theatre in Burke Road, Camberwell. That theatre made way for the new Rivoli in Camberwell Road in 1941, and the foot warmers were installed in Her Majesty's at about that time.

The first performance in this auditorium took place on Monday 7th June, 1875. It was La Fille de Madame Angot, an opera bouffe set during the French Revolution, with music composed by Charles Lecoq. It was part of a season of operettas presented by the Royal Opera Bouffe Company of William Saurin Lyster, the founding father of opera in Australia.

The Dome

At the rear of the auditorium is a framed metal panel, painted with a figure in picturesque dress. This panel is the sole survivor of the mural panels that lined the 1899 dome of the Theatre. Hugh Paterson of the Melbourne interior designers Paterson Brothers painted the mural, which depicted carnival figures in an Arcadian landscape. The current colour scheme of the auditorium recreates the Paterson Brothers' decoration of the Theatre in 1899.

Despite some differences in design, the dome increases the similarity between this auditorium and Pitt's 1886 design for the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. Like the dome at the Princess, the central panel of the dome opened to allow hot fumes and the waste by-products from the gas lamps to escape. This central opening section is the only surviving part of the original dome. The present dome is made of plaster - the original dome was a timber structure covered with strips of metal, which had the mural painted directly onto them.

The decision to put a dome into the flat coffered 1875 ceiling was made at the last minute. Unfortunately, the insertion of the dome required the removal of the bottom chords of two of the ceiling trusses, which seriously weakened the structure. The removal of the dome may also have been a fire safety requirement, as the large hole in the roof would have enormously increased the updraft in case of fire.

In 1906 - 7, the dome was removed by local architects Clegg and Miller, and replaced with a large octagonal sub-ceiling. This octagonal insert was removed in 1989, when the installation of steel trusses in the ceiling allowed the dome to be reinstated. When the octagon was removed, parts of the original paintwork were revealed. This original paintwork is clearly distinguishable in the ceiling. The 1899 pattern has been restored in the ceiling coffers directly around the dome.

The Proscenium

The current proscenium arch replaced the original proscenium in 1906 - 7. Original drawings of the Academy of Music show a much more delicate arch, with an inner proscenium arch built into it. The inner arch acted as a funnel for the sound, ensuring the sound produced on stage did not get lost in the fly tower above the stage. It also provided a small apron or forestage, where "entr'actes" could be performed during scene changes behind. Doors in the proscenium were incorporated in the action on stage, and were used by actors to take their bows after the fall of the curtain.

In 1899, Hugh Paterson decorated this inner proscenium with murals representing Comedy and Tragedy, and a bust of Shakespeare in the centre of the top. The original proscenium wall was constructed of timber and plaster, and did not provide a fire barrier between the stage and the auditorium.

In 1906, the Board of Health required the owners to construct a masonry proscenium wall, with an asbestos fire curtain, to separate the two areas. Accordingly an entirely new proscenium wall was constructed. The plasterwork and decoration is contemporary with the decoration of the Dress Circle Lobby.

The 1899 design of the theatre included a blue curtain to match the colour scheme of the auditorium. The present red curtain was installed by the Royal South Street Society and came from the Dendy Brighton.

Behind the red house curtain hangs a painted act drop, or front cloth, a gift to Her Majesty's from Scenic Studios in Melbourne, the only company of traditional scene painters in Australia. The cloth depicts a scene of Sturt Street, Ballarat in 1880 from an original watercolour by A. H. Fullwood in the collection of the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.

Cloths of this sort were used during the acts of a performance to cover scene changes - the main cloth would come down at the end of the performance. The earlier act drops were painted by well-known scenic artists of their day: the 1875 act drop, a copy of a landscape by French Baroque painter Claude Lorraine was painted by Mr Holmes; the 1899 drop depicting the village of Bray in Berkshire, was painted by Billy Little.

Lighting the Auditorium

The original lighting in the building was gas. The auditorium was lit by a combination of "sunburners, coronation fringes, brackets and floats", with light coming from the central burners as well as from lamps around the walls. The burning of the gas created fumes and carbon residues. Keeping theatres clean was a constant problem.

As part of the 1899 overhaul, extra gas mains were laid to increase the gas pressure to allow a light double in power to that used in the Academy. The Theatre was lit by gas until 1914, when electricity was put through the building. The present plaster chandeliers are typical Hoyts fittings and were probably installed in the 1950's. The connections from the original gas lamps are still visible projecting from the walls.

The Orchestra Pit and the Theatre Organ

Orchestras were always a feature of performances at the Theatre. Local musicians would be recruited by the agents of the visiting companies and engaged for the period of the Ballarat engagement.

With the movies came more regular employment for the musicians, with each of the three cinemas in Ballarat employing a regular band of between four and ten musicians. They accompanied the movie and provided entertainment during the interval. Orchestras would play set pieces to accompany the different sorts of action on the screen - as soon as the action changed the leader would move them on to the next piece.

Between 1970 and 1982, the Ballarat Theatre Organ Society installed a Compton Theatre Organ under the floor of the theatre. The organ console is directly under the floor of the pit, and is brought to stage height for performance. The organ itself was built by the English fiorm of John Compton & Co in 1937, and was originally installed in The Ritz Cinema in Warrington, Lancashire. The Ballarat Compton is unusual in that the pipes as well as the console are housed below the pit. This was done because the side stage area, where the pipes would typically be housed, was required as wing space for stage shows.

The orchestra pit, which used to be level with the floor of the auditorium, was dropped one metre during the renovation of 1988 - 1990, and can seat between 25 and 35 musicians. Access is from a door on the upper dressing room level.

Other Features of the Auditorium

The ceiling coffers of the Theatre were constructed on the "fiddle back" principle, with closely jointed narrow wooden boards, covered with canvas, then treated with glue and whiting and smoothed down to represent plaster, then painted in imitation of plaster cornices. This was done both for acoustic reasons, timber being a valuable acoustic material, and for safety, since it couldn't crack or fall on the audience.

The curve of the Dress Circle originally duplicated the curve of the Balcony above. The box, which now projects from the front of the Dress Circle, was built by the Royal South Street Society in 1967 to accommodate the Adjudicators during the Competitions. The curves of the balconies form a lyre shape, hence the name "lyric" theatre to describe this style of auditorium.

The Royal South Street Society also built a stair giving access from the Dress Circle to the northern side of the stage and to the Chairman's Box which is set up next to the Orchestra Pit on the same side.

The Stage

The stage is constructed on a slope - a "rake" - of 1:25 to assist the sight lines from the auditorium, and to assist the performers in projecting the action out into the auditorium. The stage formerly had "traps" to allow the sorts of stage effects that were fundamental to the spectacular melodramas popular in late Victorian theatre. These traps were removed when the Royal South Street Society laid a new hardwood stage, which is stronger, but not as "live" as the more reverberant old pine stage.

The large space underneath the stage, now occupied by dressing rooms, was formerly the site of a large workroom, where machinery was installed "to produce novel scenic effects." Two large wooden posts supported the stage.

Ballarat Lyric Theatre installed a new trapdoor in 1993 for a production of Les Miserables. Saftey concerns have put this trap out of service.

The entire stage area is 18.25m wide by 15.3m deep, considerably deeper than the original stage because of the removal of the old stage dressing rooms. The proscenium arch is 8.46m wide and 6.15m high. The back of the stage is 6.3m above Lewis Street at the rear of the building. All stage equipment and scenery is brought up to stage level by a hydraulic scissor lift.

On the northern side of the stage, above 'prompt corner,' Until recent times the old manual dimmers for the stage lights were operated from a platform above the prompt desk. A piano store and a lighting store open off the rear of the stage.

The Fly Gallery

The fly system, the series of ropes and pulleys used to hang lights above the stage and to "fly" scenery in and out, is operated from the Fly Gallery, which runs around three sides of the stage, between 6 and 7 metres above stage level. The original dressing rooms in the Theatre were situated at the back of the Fly Gallery.

Originally, on the eastern side of the Gallery, there was a row of 7 small rooms. The windows of these former dressing rooms are now shuttered. Actors would go to and from their dressing rooms via narrow stairs on the OP (northern) side of the stage. There were two "stars'" dressing rooms on the level of the stage itself, which were large and comfortable and equipped with fireplaces. It is still possible to see the remains of one of the chimneys in the northeast corner of the stage.

Fly System

Some of the old hand-lines are still in place and in use at Her Majesty's, but most of the scenery and lights are on the new counter-weighted fly system installed in 1990. There are 31 double purchase 4-line counterweight sets operated from the Fly Gallery above the Stage, with provision for an additional 16 sets. Each line can take a total of 140 Kg in weight.

It is likely that the 1875 Academy used a combination of scenery flown up into the roof and the older style of side pieces that slid from the side on low trolleys. There is evidence that that the roof beams were altered in 1899 to allow large cloths to be flown - previously flying would be limited to narrow sky borders hanging above the stage.

The "Paint Room"

In front of the row of dressing rooms in the Fly Gallery was a bridge over the stage, which was used to paint the canvas scene cloths. The scene painters would attach the cloths to a large wooden frame, and gradually winch the frame down to stage level. The painters would work on the cloths from the bridge spanning the two sides of the Fly Gallery.

In 1899, when the dressing rooms were removed from the Fly Gallery, the paint frame was moved against the rear wall of the Fly Gallery and is still in position, althouth the hole in the floor, through which the cloth would drop. Also surviving in the Fly Gallery is the large wooden winch used to operate the paint frame.

Melba Room/ Props Room

Halfway up the staircase to the Fly Gallery is the Melba Room, the top level of an 1899 extension to the building. When the Theatre was remodelled, it was necessary to improve the fire access. Accordingly, a large fire escape was built on the site of an access lane on the southern side of the Theatre, purchased by Sir William Clarke from Ballarat pioneer Thomas Bath in 1881.

A benefit of this extension was the provision of dressing rooms at stage level. The top floor of the extension was the Props Room, where the Theatre's stock of theatrical properties was housed for the use of visiting companies. It is now used as an overflow dressing room, and called the Melba Room, in honour of the diva. Melba did perform here at two periods - in 1885, as Mrs Armstrong, she came to Ballarat several times as a young professional singer, and returned in 1902 and 1908 as Madame Melba. It is unlikely, however, that the great lady used the Props Room as a dressing room.

The Props Bay

The Workshop and Props Bay open out of the southern side of the stage. These rooms are situated directly above the 1899 fire escape. There were originally three dressing rooms in this area next to the original scene dock. The principal performers had their dressing rooms in this section, with the leading performer having the one closest to the workshop, and therefore closest to the stage. This was the room most probably used by Melba and other visiting stars.

The Green Room

The backstage common room is traditionally known as the Green Room. There are a number of theories as to how this name for backstage common rooms in theatres originated: perhaps because they was always painted a "cool" green colour, to soothe performers' eyes after being under the bright stage lights, or because the rooms were sound-proofed with green baize.

The Green Room in Her Majesty's is a skillion-roofed section attached to the rear wall of the Theatre and built directly over the Lewis Street footpath. The skillion section is interrupted by the loading bay, with a large rear door at the rear of the stage through which scenery, props, etc are brought up to the stage. On the northern side of the loading bay are piano and lighting stores, also built over the Lewis Street footpath.

This skillion addition was first built in 1899, and housed three dressing rooms and backstage toilets. It abutted a similar set of dressing rooms built behind the rear wall of the Mechanics Institute hall. This part of Her Majesty's was demolished in 1969, and replaced in 1990.

The Pianos

The Theatre's piano store houses a Steinway grand, the property of the Royal South Street Society, and a Bluthner grand, which was originally housed in the old Alfred Hall.

The Bluthner was bought for the Alfred Hall by a citizens committee originally formed in 1946 to raise money to send talented young Ballarat singer Elsie Morison to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Lyle Blackman, secretary of the Committee, and also General Secretary of the Royal South Street Society, which used the Alfred Hall for its Competitions, suggested that the Committee continue to raise money to provide the Hall with a grand piano. The Bluthner stayed in the Alfred Hall until 1956 when it was moved to the new Civic Hall, which was built to replace the it. The City Council bought the Bluthner from the Committee, which used the money to buy a small Bechstein grand, which is now in the Ballarat Town Hall.

Dressing Rooms

The space directly beneath the stage was formerly a workshop area, housing the stage machinery necessary to operate the traps in the stage. The large amount of clearance under the stage was one reason why this site was particularly attractive for the building of the Theatre. Another was the easy access to the back of the building via Lewis Street.

In 1967, the Royal South Street Society gutted the sub-stage area and installed dressing rooms under the stage. There are now thirteen dressing rooms there, together with a laundry, toilets, lift room and electricity supply room. In addition, directly underneath the Green Room, and above the Fire Escape, is the office of the Theatre's Technical Operations Manager.

The Organ Chamber

Also under the Theatre are the rooms housing the Ballarat Theatre Organ Society's Compton Organ. The Organ Console is operated by a hydraulic scissor lift. There are nearly 800 pipes in two separate chambers, together with the relays necessary for the Organ's operation.

Theatre Offices

The offices of both Her Majesty's Theatre and the Royal South Street Society are housed in an area that was formerly a basement storage area. The floor was lowered and a concrete floor laid. As well as the offices the area houses the Kittson Room, the Royal South Street Society's meeting/board room named in honour of J. F. Kittson, who played an important part in organising the acquisition of the Theatre by the Society in 1965, and contributed £1,500 towards the purchase price.

Beneath the Theatre Director's office is the (capped) shaft of the Unicorn Mine. The shaft was dug in 1857 to exploit the rich Gravel Pits Lead on the edge of the plateau. Soon forgotten, the mine had a wooden hall built over it, the first home of Ballarat's Stock Exchange. In 1874, when demolishing this old hall to build the Theatre, two building workers narrowly escaped falling to their deaths down the old shaft.

Basements

The Theatre Toilets are housed in an area that was the storage basements of the shops/offices in the front of the building. They were converted into toilets in 1927. A lift provides disabled access between the front foyer, the stalls and the toilets in the basement.

The Dress Circle

The Dress Circle Lobby overlooks the lower foyer. Between 1899 and 1907, patrons would enter the Dress Circle, the Theatre's exclusive, expensive seating area, directly from the northern staircase.

In 1907, this arrangement was altered to create direct egress from the Dress Circle to the street doors. The small rooms behind the Circle were converted into a handsome "crush lobby," approached by a handsome cedar staircase with a brass handrail. The stair ran straight up from the front doors of the Theatre, along the wall which divided the northern shop from the main entrance.

The decoration of the Lobby is an eclectic blend of art nouveau and Egyptian decoration, executed by the local building firm of R. Ludbrook. The floor tiles are Italian. The old Paradis tier of the Academy was divided into the traditional arrangement of a central Dress Circle and Side Boxes with partitions made up of ornamental uprights, brass rods and green damask curtains, creating private boxes for family use. During the time when the Theatre was fitted out as a cinema, the Dress Circle was known as the Lounge.

The Long Room

This large room, which now houses the theatre bar, was originally the Supper Room associated with the old Paradis of the Academy of Music. The changes in 1898-9 meant that the level of this room did not match that of either of the new balconies. The room was given its own access via a staircase in the northern entrance passage and was leased independently of the rest of the theatre.

For some years, Paterson, Laing and Bruce used it as a softgoods showroom, and it was later a tailor's premises. In 1950, a central staircase was constructed through the front of the building, and the upper room was included once again in the public areas of the Theatre as the Upper Foyer. The 1990 renovation saw partitions removed and the room restored to its original dimensions.

A few months after the Academy of Music opened, William Bridges opened a private art gallery here. Bridges was a former gold-miner and keen tapestry worker, who made a great deal of money from running Art Union Lotteris, with his tapestries as first prize. The winners were very ready to exchange these for cash, and the tapestry would reappear as the prize for the next lottery. Some of his tapestries were included in the display of artworks at the Academy. The Queen Elizabeth Centre and the Ballarat Gold Museum own two surviving Bridges tapestries. Bridges moved his operation to Melbourne circa 1882.

On 11th September 1884, the Governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Loch, opened the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery in this room. Sir William Clarke agreed to make the room available to the Gallery Society as a temporary Gallery for the token rent of 10/- a year. He also donated £100 to the building appeal for a new Gallery and gave several watercolours to the Gallery's collection. Clarke laid the foundation Stone of the new Gallery in Lydiard Street North on 21St June 1887. The Art Gallery remained in the Academy until the new building was opened on 13th June 1890.

The Long Room is the home of the Melba Piano, a Bechstein Concert Grand once owned by Dame Nellie Melba. The piano was brought to Australia by Melba for a tour and sold when no longer required. A local music teacher, Miss Tillie Howarth bought it and many Ballarat children learnt to play piano on it. In the 1940's, it was sold it to local radio station 3BA as a studio piano. At the initiative of Mr J. H. Davey, Ballarat Broadcasters P/L gave it to the Royal South Street Society, when it was no longer required in the Studio. The Melba Piano was signed by the diva, and the signature is preserved under the lid.

The bar is made of Tasmanian blackwood, the bar top made from pieces of a single tree. It was installed in 1990, the first year the Theatre was licensed to sell alcohol. The Long Room houses a collection of framed images and objects connected with the Theatre's history.

The Long Room Display was first set up with a grant from the Rotary Club of Ballarat South, and new items are added from time to time. Features of the display are the Goddard trowel, the Davison autograph collection, photographs of Melba and Ballarat-born singers Alice Rees and Florence Towl ('Madame Ballara') and copies of original architectural drawings by George Browne and William Pitt.

The Balcony

As in most the theatres, 'the Gods' was the cheapest place in the theatre to sit. The top level of nineteenth century theatres was usually called the Gallery, where the notorious 'gallery boys' would sit, ready to throw insults - or missiles - when they felt they weren't getting value for money. It is significant that the Directors of the Academy of Music chose to build their theatre without a Gallery. When the Gods was installed in 1899, it was called the Family Circle, although for many years this top level was known as "the spit and dribble."

The Bio Box

Moving pictures came to Her Majesty's from the 1890's, usually as part of the variety shows that toured the provincial centres from Melbourne. Her Majesty's career as a full-time cinema began on Monday 4 April 1910, when Royal Pictures commenced screening. From this time until the early 1960's, cinema was the predominant, but not exclusive use of the building, as it remained the chief live theatre venue for local and touring performances.

Her Majesty's was Ballarat's third cinema, with Pathé's Pictures starting at the Alfred Hall on Friday 13 August 1909 and Tait's Pictures at the Coliseum starting on Wednesday 23 February 1910.

In 1911, Royal Pictures at Her Majesty's became part of Amalgamated Pictures Ltd, an organisation combining the theatre interests of John and Nevin Tait with the film-making expertise of Johnson and Gibson, two early Melbourne film-makers whose films were already a regular feature of the Her Majesty's regular Friday night "City Entertainers" vaudeville shows. Amalgamated Pictures was to grow into the Greater Union cinema chain.

By the First World War, moving pictures had established a dominant position in the entertainment industry, and theatres were being adapted to accommodate them. The Biograph Box was installed in Her Majesty's in 1916, above the Dress Circle lobby. When Ballarat Theatres sold Her Majesty's in 1965, the original carbon arc projectors were disabled and left in the building. All three projectors are missing the sound heads and motors.

The oldest of the projectors is a Nicholas Powers Co. Inc. stand dating from c.1906 - 1910, adapted to run as a slide projector. It is likely that it held the original projector at Her Majesty's, possibly being modified when the two newer stands were installed. The two other projector stands are Simplex pedestal models dating from the 1920's.

The projectors operated by directing an electric current onto a carbon rod, producing an intense flare. A selenium rectifier controlled the current. The fumes and heat created by this technology proved to be hazardous to many cinema projectionists, who often worked in small, poorly ventilated spaces. The projection room opened into a small rewind room, which has now been incorporated into the South Stair. The original projection holes have been enlarged to allow the stage follow spots to be operated from here.

The Roof

The roof cavity above the auditorium is accessible from the Bio Box. Theatre technicians come up here to adjust the stage lights installed in the dome.

The main feature of historical interest in the roof is the large wooden ventilation shaft, which sits directly over a ring of decorative grills in one of the ceiling coffers. The shaft indicates the site of one of the two large gas sunburners that were used to light the auditorium. The shaft took the heat and carbon residue created by the sunburner out to turrets in the roof of the theatre. A second shaft was removed when the dome was installed in 1899.

In 1994, theatre staff found the remains of a large calico banner in this area. Subsequent investigation revealed that it dated from 1914, when cloth was extensively used for advertising because of wartime paper shortages. The banner advertised Sadler & Beveridge's Vaudeville de Luxe at Her Majesty's. Sadler and Beveridge moved into Ballarat from Hobart, attempting to run the Theatre as a full-time vaudeville house, part of the Fuller-Brennan vaudeville circuit. After the venture failed the lease of the Theatre was taken up by Royal Pictures, and the reign of the movies at the Theatre began. Two thirds of the banner survived and a scale drawing is on display in the Long Room.