Theatre Royal Sydney 1833-38

Theatre in George Street, opened 5 October 1833. Seated about 900.Closed September 1838. Destroyed by fire 17-18 March 1840.

The first continuously licensed permanent theatre Australia, the Theatre Royal was the brainchild of Barnet Levey, an amateur singer of comic songs. In April 1826 he began a building spree on the eastern side of George Street between King and Market Streets. The first structure was to be the Colchester Warehouse, which would include a two-tier theatre, with one floor of grain storage beneath it and two above. During 1827 Levey was preoccupied with building a windmill atop the warehouse and commencing a new building between the warehouse and George Street. This building, which was attached to the warehouse, was at first noted as being a dwelling, purportedly designed by the architect Francis Greenway. By mid-1828 the 'dwelling house' was being roofed and the theatre was being prepared. It then emerged that Levey did not possess title to the land on which the warehouse was built.  

Part of the 'dwelling house' was opened as the Royal Hotel in March 1829 and Levey obtained a licence to hold balls, dances and concerts at the hotel, but he appears to have transferred the concerts to the theatre in the warehouse, which was first used on 24 August 1829. Then he went further and performed dramatic sketches at an 'at-home'. This riled Governor Ralph Darling and he further restricted Levey's licence for balls and concerts when it was renewed on 1 January 1830. Unable to use the theatre for theatrical performances, Levey advertised the concerts that he held there as being in the Royal Assembly Rooms.

On 18 December 1830 the hotel and warehouse, including the theatre, were sold by order of the mortgagee. The purchaser transferred the title to the former mortgagee, Daniel Cooper. He employed John Verge, architect and builder, to refit the theatre and enlarge it by adding a third tier in place of a storage floor above. The hotel in front was to be completed and include an 'orchestra surmounted by the royal arms' in the saloon, for concerts. George Sippe, the new licensee, reopened the hotel in September 1831.

Levey leased the theatre and the saloon of the hotel and obtained a licence under a new governor to hold at-homes, including theatrical sketches, in the saloon until work on the theatre was completed. Newspaper reports of the time are confusing as to whether Levey held his at-homes in the saloon or the theatre, but it is clear that the saloon was fitted up with a 'tasty stage' and 'a tier of boxes' for a performance of Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan on 26 December 1832. Regular performances were given in this temporary abode until the beginning of June 1833. Finally the new three-tier theatre within the warehouse was completed. It opened on 5 October 1833 with a melodrama, The Miller and His Men, followed by a farce, The Irishman in London. With the exception of an additional tier of audience accommodation, in dimensions and style the theatre was similar to the Georgian Theatre at Richmond in Yorkshire - two tiers of narrow boxes, the lower at the level of the stage, and one tier of gallery, including side slips over the boxes. These, together with the stage, were arranged in a rectangle enclosing a raked pit. The pit and the three tiers above it were contained within a height of 8.8 metres. The theatre was 26 metres long, including the stage, and about 9.7 metres wide. The space for each person at that time was about half today's allowance, so the capacity would have been about 900 persons.

Management fluctuated between Levey and Joseph Simmons until June 1836, when Conrad Knowles took control as actor-manager until early February 1837. There were consistent complaints of imperfect preparation of plays even after Levey reopened in April 1837. Thomas Simes became manager in May. Levey died on 2 October 1837. His wife Sarah took over the management, with the stage under John Lazar's control, but closed the theatre without notice just before Joseph Wyatt opened the Royal Victoria Theatre on 26 March 1838. She continued to occupy the building, and its owner, Daniel Cooper, sued her in September 1838. He won an action for ejection, leaving him free to lease or sell the building to someone else. Wyatt bought all the buildings on 2 January 1839.