Australia's first performing arts centre celebrates 60 years - and its next 60 looks even better

In 1965, Canberra held the keys to a national first.

The Sydney Opera House was still in the early stages of construction. The Adelaide Festival Centre wouldn’t open for nearly another 10 years. Art Centre Melbourne and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre were also years off.

This meant that when the Australian Ballet company from Queensland was invited to the opening of the Canberra Theatre Centre (CTC) in June 1965, they would be coming to Australia’s first performing arts centre.

“There was no Canberra Symphony Orchestra at the time, and so they also brought the Queensland Symphony Orchestra down from Brisbane to play for them,” CTC director Alex Budd says.

“They did three different pieces, one an Australian-first work called ‘Melbourne Cup’, the next called ‘Lyre Bird’, and then act two of Swan Lake, which has got all the big numbers that everybody loves.”

The theatre is now asking for the public’s memories of those early days as it gears up for “a massive year” of diamond anniversary celebrations.

An online portal has been launched on the website where members of the community can submit their memories (including attaching files).

“We’re spreading the word to try and get as many memories as we can from as far back as 1965,” Alex says.

“Effectively, the whole of the Canberra population has been involved with the theatre in some way over the years.”

Many of the year’s events are still being finalised, but on 20 June, The Australian Ballet is also coming back for a modern take on George Bizet’s opera Carmen.

“I saw it at the Sydney Opera House last year and was just transfixed, so to have them back exactly 60 years on is going to be a real treat.”

Alex returned to the theatre as director in 2019, having grown up in Canberra and worked as a lighting technician there as a young person.

After “running away with the circus” to join the Sydney Dance Company and touring the world with ballet performances, followed by a 20-year stint with Opera Australia, he arrived back in his hometown just as the Canberra Theatre Centre was really feeling the squeeze.

“One of the hardest things we did at Opera Australia was bringing a performance of My Fair Lady to Canberra in 2008, and then we did another in 2016 – recreating the Broadway original – but that was a beast of epic proportions that was never going to fit in the current Canberra Theatre,” he says.

“But what attracted me back here was how supportive the ACT Government was of the theatre redevelopment project.”

So far, the government has allocated $28 million towards planning and designing work to bring CTC back to its former glory.

The headline addition will be a new 2000-seat theatre suitable for musicals, opera and ballet on the northern side of The Playhouse. The Playhouse itself, together with the Canberra Theatre on the other side of the existing building, will also be refurbished.

Alex expects construction to start in earnest by the end of next year.

“But it’s not just about the bricks and mortar, but also what it can do for performing arts in Canberra,” he adds.

“We want more artists to want to live and work in Canberra.”

In the early days, the theatre also doubled as a cinema and classical music hall when there wasn’t much by way of either here.

“In 1965, there weren’t a lot of other cinemas in town, so The Playhouse was originally for movies. And the Llewellyn Hall didn’t come along until quite a few years later, so there used to be a special roof piece that could create a sort of reverberant box for orchestral concerts.

“It really only became more predominantly a theatre later in its life.”

During COVID, Alex says a lot of people left the industry and became “very used to not having to work nights”, which has led to performing arts employers across the world racking their brains for ways to make the industry more attractive.

“That comes at a cost, but it also builds a robustness into the industry and makes it more likely more people will join in the future,” he says.

“So yes, I think the outlook is pretty rosy.”

Want to share your memories of the Canberra Theatre Centre? Here’s where to do it.