{"id":1640,"date":"2017-01-20T14:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T03:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2016-12-12T14:56:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T04:26:23","slug":"opening-little-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/01\/opening-little-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Streakers and the Opening of an Adelaide Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Dickson remembers the opening of the Little Theatre at Adelaide University in<\/em>\u00a0Addicted to Architecture<\/a>. It was obviously<\/em>\u00a0a ‘suitably anarchic’ affair involving a hefty number of streakers \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Addicted<\/a><\/p>\n

The Little Theatre<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Little Theatre was the great gain. It was a 120-seat thrust-stage\u00a0theatre with sophisticated control facilities and a small theatre bar.\u00a0Students and other University users could use the theatre and operate\u00a0all the sound and lighting equipment without any\u00a0paid staff being there. The theatre consultant\u00a0was none other than its promoter and the Union\u00a0redevelopment client representative, Ralph Middenway.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to recall now which of us\u00a0designed which part.\u00a0The Little Bar, fitted in partly under the main\u00a0western staircase, was nicely intimate, a tiny\u00a0version of the Union Hall Cellar. With 120 patrons,\u00a0it was a bit crowded, but they could always spill\u00a0out into the Cloisters. The Little Theatre was to be\u00a0finished early for the 1974 Adelaide Festival, twelve\u00a0months before completion of the remainder of\u00a0the complex.<\/p>\n

The opening by the Vice-Chancellor was a\u00a0suitably anarchic theatrical occasion.\u00a0\u2018Streakers\u2019 punctuated his opening address. But the Vice-Chancellor took it in his stride. Cued by audience reaction as each bare figure\u00a0raced across the stage behind his back, he paused a little, awaiting audience response\u00a0to fade, then continued, as though the interruptions were scheduled to accentuate his\u00a0message. It was an appropriately professional performance.<\/p>\n

A newspaper review of Adelaide theatres by Shirley Stott Despoja featured a photograph\u00a0of the Little Theatre, with the comments, \u2018Only the Elder Hall lower level, and the\u00a0Little Theatre combine a naturally comfortable seating position with excellent visibility and\u00a0acoustics wherever you may sit\u2019.<\/p>\n

Read more about the Little Theatre and Dickson’s other famous buildings here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"GA09-2830<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Dickson remembers the opening of the Little Theatre at Adelaide University in\u00a0Addicted to Architecture. It was obviously\u00a0a ‘suitably anarchic’ affair involving a hefty number of streakers \u2026 The Little Theatre The Little Theatre was the great gain. It was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[496,490,495,491,494,493,497,492],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","tag-acoustics","tag-addicted-to-architecture","tag-elder-hall","tag-robert-dickson","tag-shirley-stott-despoja","tag-union-hall","tag-university-of-adelaide","tag-vice-chancellor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-qs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1815,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}