The Empire Theatre is a former theatre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was a live music venue for a few years before 1929, when it became a cinema. Around 1940 it had a dual role and by 1950 it was hosting various kinds of stage shows, increasingly musicals, and was finally destroyed by fire in the early 1960s.
The theatre was designed by Kaberry and Chard,[1][2] and built by R. P. Blundell as a music hall for a syndicate led by leading bookmaker Rafe Naylor.[3] The site was a 150 by 130 feet (46 m × 40 m) block on the Bijou Lane corner of Quay Street ("Saunders' Corner"[a]), Railway Square, near the side entrance to Central Station.
It opened on 1 May 1927 with the new Jerome Kern musical Sunny, followed by The Student Prince.[4]
By this time stage musicals as public entertainment had been largely usurped by "talkies" and the theatre was reconfigured as a talking picture house around June 1929.[5] It was one of the few Sydney cinemas independent of the General Theatres Corporation / Fullers' Theatres combination, so showing few "first release" films, until management signed up with RKO, and with Paramount Pictures, who already had an arrangement with Prince Edward Theatre.[6]
During World War II, the Empire again hosted live performances, mounted by the A.I.F. Entertainment Unit[7][8] interspersed with regular movie programmes.
In 1953 "The Firm" announced a major refit and facelift for the old theatre, leading to calls (around the time of the Coronation of Elizabeth II) for it to be renamed "Her Majesty's Theatre".[13] The suggestion was taken up much later, when the musical My Fair Lady was being staged there.[when?]
The building was destroyed by fire in the early 1960s.[citation needed]
^"Side of proscenium surround, new Empire Theatre, Sydney", Building: The Magazine for the Architect, Builder, Property Owner and Merchant, 40 (237), Sydney: Federated Builders' Association of Australia.: 3, 12 May 1927, nla.obj-343997713, retrieved 15 February 2024 – via Trove
^"New Sydney Theatre". The Sun (Sydney). No. 4591. New South Wales, Australia. 22 July 1925. p. 10. Retrieved 7 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Film War". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 29, 688. New South Wales, Australia. 27 February 1933. p. 9. Retrieved 6 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.