Wenona School buys the Miller Street Independent Theatre, North Sydney from the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
The Wenona School has purchased the Independent Theatre, at 269 Miller Street, North Sydney, from the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust for $4.97 million.
"This beautiful heritage building, adjacent to our school, has served as a venue for many Wenona drama performances, HSC music recitals, presentations and other functions, throughout its long history," said the Wenona principal Dr Briony Scott.
"Some of our independent school’s first students in 1886 may well have trod parts of the current building which date from the same year, when it was built as a cable tram terminus and depot," she said.
The Edwardian theatre, originally named the North Sydney Coliseum, opened in January 1911, and from 1939 to 1977 was home to the grand dame of Australian theatre, the late Doris Fitton. It has been used as a boxing hall, a vaudeville hall, car service depot and even an ammunition store.
It now has a recently refurbished 300 seat two-tiered auditorium and reception foyer on the 916 square metre land holding. The artists who have current booking with the Independent Theatre throughout 2013 will continue to perform.
The sale followed an apporach by the AETT to Wenona, the AETT chairman, Lloyd Waddy confirmed. Waddy thanked the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation and previous donors to the Seaborn Broughton and Walford Foundation, and The Friends of the Independent.
The AETT bought the theatre in 2004 for a second time from a group of philanthropists headed by Dr Rodney Seaborn who had saved the venue when purchasing the Independent Theatre at North Sydney for $600,000 in 1993 after the financial collapse of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust which had bought it in 1988 for $450,000, with plans to restore it.
Lloyd Waddy said he had devoted over a third of his life to its preservation and enhancement.
"Since 2000 the AETT have awarded over $1 million in 100 scholarships to help them achieve excellence in their music," he said.
"We intend to continue that mission, including assisting such use of the Independent to the extent it might be available," he added.
The building will provide much-needed presentation and performance spaces for Wenona’s students.
Wenona has been an independent, non-denominational day and boarding school since 1886.
