Garrick Theatre

Originally operating as a cinema, Snowden’s Picture Theatre was located at 5 Aikman Street (adjacent the Alexandra Mansions) and was designed by architect A. Phipps Coles (1873-1940). Plans of the ground and first floor bearing his name and dated 20 July 1912 are in the state archive (State Library of Victoria). Snowden’s was operated from opening in later 1912 until March 1913 by Walter Hoadley (son of Abel Hoadley, whose well known jams and preserves factory was nearby) and later operated by Charles Barrett until 1915. It apparently briefly was also renamed the Picadilly in late 1915 (on 6 September 1915, the Argus newspaper reports it still named as Snowden’s Picture Theatre however). After a renovation it reopened on 10 June 1916, but as a live theatre known as the Play-House/Playhouse Theatre- its initial season was George Bernard Shaw’s “Man and Superman”(as reported in The Triad in August 1916), then The Lone Hand. The resident company in the 1920s there were the Pioneer Players, and one of their junior actors was Roy Grounds, who later designed the National Gallery of Victoria and Arts Centre Melbourne, which also features a Playhouse Theatre, perhaps named as a nod to his old venue. The Playhouse name remained until 1932. In September 1928, architect Albion H Walkley (1882-1968) had drafted plans for the proposed alterations to the theatre, including a new “cantilevered awning/verandah attached to a terracotta facade” (source: Trove) and after the redesign was completed it reopened as the Garrick Theatre in 1932. The Garrick continue on the site until it was sold for £17,500 in 1937 (source:The Argus, 28 May 1937). State records incorrectly indicate that the theatre was then demolished in 1937, however archived photos of the site feature automobiles that weren’t built at that time, and therefore does not support the date. The building is believed to have become the corporate office of the Australian Glass Manufacturers and actually demolished in the late 1960s to make way for office buildings.

The Garrick Theatre (final name) building as it looked in 1958 as Australian Glass Manufacturers Head Office is available now to view at https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab89682