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To restore or not restore, that is the question The University of Western Australia wants to ask the wider community as it undertakes a Lotterywest funded community interest feasibility study into the future of UWA's New Fortune Theatre.

The study will consult existing and potential users about a proposed restoration of the University's 47-year-old Shakespearean inspired theatre.

UWA's Faculty of Arts has commissioned consultants to complete the study to support a future application to Lotterywest to upgrade the New Fortune to a fully functioning performance space.

The New Fortune Theatre is located in the heart of the Arts building on UWA's Crawley Campus and was opened in 1964 with a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  It's an outdoor theatre modelled on England's Fortune theatre and is the only theatre in the southern hemisphere with an open-air, thrust stage based on the Elizabethan model.

The consultants want to hear from established and emerging drama, music, dance and other performance groups as well as members of the broader community who may be interested in either hiring the theatre as a venue or attending theatre productions.

There is also significant opportunity to involve secondary schools in the theatre development

Ted Snell, Director of the UWA Cultural Precinct, said a refurbished New Fortune Theatre would be small compared to its namesake and Shakespeare's Globe but it had the potential to host high quality productions through excellent facilities for performers and audiences.

Winthrop Professor Bob White, a leading scholar of Shakespearean theatre at UWA said "As very few renaissance theatres exist, particularly those with an open-air, thrust stage, it is possible that this revamped facility could generate a national and possibly international profile."

Individuals and groups who are interested to explore how they might use the New Fortune Theatre are invited to contact Lana Glogowski by 20 December 2011.

Media references

Bianca Galipo (UWA Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences)  (+61 8)  6488 4212
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783