La Boite Turns 90 With Style

Boys get out your blazers and boaters, and girls put on your flapper dresses and cloche hats and all Charleston on down to Kelvin Grove for the party of the year. Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre turns 90 in July, and to celebrate it’s throwing a ball in keeping with 1925 - the year the company started. Peter Pinne looks back at the company’s remarkable history.

La Boite is the *sixth oldest theatre company in Australia and the only one to move from amateur status to professional that is still in operation. It began as Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society with the A.A. Milne play The Dover Road, directed by founding artistic director Barbara Sisley, which was produced at the Theatre Royal, a venue, along with Her Majesty’s Theatre, that was frequently used in the early days.

Brisbane Repertory later found premises in Hale Street, Milton, and with it came a name change to La Boite. Members renovated an old Queenslander, knocked down the internal walls and used the timber to build seats on all four sides with a stage in the centre (hollowed out it looked an old box – hence the French ‘La Boite’).

It was Brisbane’s first theatre-in-the-round. Later a new building on the same site became Australia’s first purpose built theatre-in-the-round. Today the company uses the Roundhouse Theatre complex at Kelvin Grove.

In its early years, like most theatre companies of the time, its programming choices were safe, with plays by Shaw, J.M. Barrie and Coward. Later, with success, came more adventure with Miller, Pinter and Albee. Today the theatre has been repositioned thanks to some innovative artistic directors; Sue Rider, Sean Mee and David Bertold amongst them, as Brisbane’s home of alternative theatre, like Malthouse is to Melbourne and Belvoir is to Sydney. In fact these days some productions play those like-minded sister venues.

Throughout its history La Boite has always been a theatre company dedicated to producing Australian work and in particular plays by Queensland writers. Their first playwriting competition in 1931 was won by the prolific and then 26-year-old George Landen Dann with In Beauty It Is Finished. Controversy reigned over its first production because it dared to put Aboriginal characters on stage in a story about miscegenation.

Some of the theatre’s most successful productions from the last 20 years have been local plays; 2000’s Milo’s Wake by Margery and Michael Forde, which also toured the country, 2004’s Zigzag Street by Philip Dean adapted from Nick Earls novel, and 2006’s Johnno by Stephen Edwards, adapted from the novel by David Malouf, which toured to Derby Playhouse in the UK. Other productions to have been seen internationally have been the 2013 Tommy Murphy adaptation of Timothy Congreve’s book Holding the Man which had a season in London.

One of the most successful plays from the amateur days is the musical Man of Steel by Simon Denver and Ian Dorricott, which only had a short season at La Boite but went on to become the most successful Australian musical of all time with over 4000 productions as of 2010. Louis Nowra’s Cosi has been a popular choice, with three productions since it first appeared in 1994. But its Prince of plays, with more outings than anything else is Shakespeare’s melancholic Dane, Hamlet, which last appeared in 2010 with Toby Schmitz in the title role.

The theatre’s first professional artistic director was Rick Billingshurst in 1971, and the first play under his leadership was Rodney Milgate’s A Refined Look at Existence, which featured Bille Brown in his first role for the company. Brown later went to London where he had great success with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Other actors who started at La Boite and who have gone on to memorably spread their wings nationally and internationally have included Ray Barratt, a fixture on British TV of the 60s in Emergency Ward 10 and The Avengers, Barry Otto whose films include Bliss, Oscar and Lucinda, and the movie adaptation of Cosi, Deborah Mailman with Bran Nue Dae and The Sapphires credits, and Anthony Phelan, who played Ken Smith in Home and Away, and whose Hollywood entries include, Heaven’s Burning, Acolytes, and X Night of Vengeance.

In 1993 La Boite turned completely professional and it has remained that way ever since.

Although men have been at the helm for the past few years, with Todd McDonald the current artistic director, throughout its existence the company has been built on strong female artistic leadership; Barbara Sisley in the 20s, 30s and 40s, Babette Stevens in the 60s, Jennifer Blocksidge in the 70s, with Sue Rider in the 90s the last woman to hold the fort.   

It’s fitting that the “Belle of the Ball” and La Boite’s “poster-girl” for their 2015 season is actress Muriel Watson who, like La Boite, turns 90 this year. Muriel is a life member.  She first appeared in Gloria Birdwood-Smith’s production of Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse’s The Great Sebastions in 1959.

So join Muriel and the La Boite gang at the Roundhouse on the 31st of July to celebrate this auspicious occasion.

Using all of the theatre spaces and surrounding courtyard for the twenties themed ball, there will be drinks, food, a big-band, jazz combo, swing dancing, and hidden away in a corner a specially built speakeasy designed by Lucas Stibbard. Not only will there be amazing entertainment, but everyone will be able to join in at the open-mic La Bamba, a La Boite tradition of old, which will be staged again for this one night only.

La Boite’s history has been studded with milestones and attendees will be able to view the journey via video projections and photos around the foyer and theatre spaces.

The night will also launch La Boite’s 90 year history on a website made possible by a grant from the Brisbane City Council. It’s a fascinating journey and a part of Brisbane theatre history, which is celebrated on this important archival commemorative site that includes photos, posters, flyers and programs of the productions through the years.

Peter Pinne

La Boite 90^th Ball, Friday 31^st July 2015. $90 includes food, drink and entertainment.

More Details

* Stage Whispers would like our readers to help us work out which are Australia’s oldest theatre companies.

From what we can tell these are the oldest.

1889 - Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) and Northam Theatre Company (WA)

1891 - Lieder Theatre Goulburn (NSW)

1903 - Mosman Musical Society (NSW)

1908 - Adelaide Repertory Theatre (SA)

1912 - Geelong Amateur Operatic Society (now more popularly known as the Geelong Musical Comedy Company GMCC)

1925 - La Boite (QLD)

1927 - Hobart Repertory Theatre (TAS)

1932 - New Theatre (NSW) and Canberra Repertory Society

1935 – Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria

1936 - Brisbane Arts Theatre (formerly Brisbane Amateur Theatres).

1937 - The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of South Australia

1938 - National Theatre Ballarat (Vic) and Hartwell Players (Vic)

1939 - Rockdale Musical Society (NSW)

Please drop us an email if you know of any other companies that should be on the list.

Article originally published in the July / August 2015 edition of Stage Whispers. Read more.