Page 4098 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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or 15 years while other matters are discussed and other plans are made. We would all urge that this recommendation about Childers Street is a short-term recommendation. It does mean that the whole Childers Street area needs to be looked at in a planning sense, and I look to several of my colleagues here. We are not trying to close off the possibility of planning that entire site; it is just that there are some immediate needs and those needs need to be met. At some point there will be a whole new development on that site. I am making a distinction between the actual theatre itself, with "Fortune" painted on the roof which needs refurbishment, and the entire complex. We are not in the business of suggesting that we replan the entire complex; that is a larger concern for all of us in the Territory. I do believe that such groups as Tau, Eureka, Jigsaw and other groups would rejoice if we could provide them with a solution to the problems that presently face them. To be sure, a better option would be if we had enough money to clear the site and build a new theatre. We are faced with cost problems and problems of time - all the time that it would take to do that - meanwhile there could be some relatively fast refurbishment of a usable theatre for that kind of activity.
I would now like to reflect on the Playhouse, as Mr Stefaniak noted, and I turn your attention to pages 12 to 13. In all discussions the question would come up, "Will the Playhouse be demolished?". People would say, "The Playhouse is going to be demolished". We kept hearing this. But always in every group, perhaps with one or two exceptions, there would be the feeling, "What a pity that the Playhouse has to be demolished". Those of us who have been there will surely agree with that. It is a delightful small theatre; it is effective for the kinds of productions that are put on there; and it is certainly one of the more comfortable theatres in Canberra. Comparing it with certain others - and I had better not mention them - some of us can barely sit in them, given our size. The Playhouse is a comfortable, appropriate theatre for certain kinds of small productions. Some of the actors who have worked there like it as a theatre; they think it is a good working theatre; they are not worried about some of the technical problems that are indicated at point 4.10. Those technical problems, of course, do exist; we would not for a moment suggest that they do not. Some of the people in theatre, however, suggest that not all of those things need to be done - it may not have a fly tower, there may not be adequate wing space, but that depends on the kind of production that is put on there. At least one theatre said that it was ideal for their purposes.
Another problem related to getting rid of a small theatre and putting up an expensive new theatre is that the small groups - I want to stress this and underline it three times - are very worried that, if a large and expensive theatre with all kinds of technical facilities is put up, they will not be able to afford to hire it for the productions they wish to put on. In some ways they like
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