Historic theatre ‘favourite’ sold off to new buffs
The owners of an historic suburban theatre saved from developers have passed on the keys – but its new owners remain a mystery.
Goodwood Theatre and Studios owners Chris Iley and Simone Avramidis announced that their historic building had been sold to a mystery local couple.
“This has been one of the most significant and emotional decisions we have ever made, but one we know is right for the future of the venue,” Iley and Avramidis said in an email to supporters.
“Together, we transformed this beautiful heritage building into a vibrant creative hub that has supported hundreds of artists, welcomed thousands of audience members, nurtured young people through GRiT Studio collective and provided a gathering place for our community.”
Iley – who has been running the venue since 2014 – and Avramidis said that when they bought the building in 2020, a month before the COVID pandemic broke out, they had “no roadmap, no guarantees and certainly no idea what the next six years would hold”.
“What we did have was a belief that this beautiful old building could become a place where artists, audiences and community could come together,” they wrote, with the venue closed for the first eight months after they purchased it due to COVID.
You might like
“We’d never intended to buy the theatre, but in 2020, a guy came through with a clipboard, and he said, ‘I’m valuing it for the owners – we’re going to turn it into apartments’. So, I said, ‘No, no, I’ll buy it,” Iley, who is manager and producer of Goodwood Theatre & Studios, told InDaily.
The local heritage-listed building first opened in 1887 as a library, with later additions added in 1893, 1905 and 1928, while renovations were completed in the 1950s, according to Institutes of South Australia.
Avramidis said the original vision “was about really opening up and bringing people back, finding our community, finding our tribe and making people more aware of the space, and bringing in a younger demographic”.
She added it was also about “providing a space that’s safe, comfortable, nurturing, welcoming, where young artists could actually be able to create the kind of work that is the future of our industry”.
Stay informed, daily
The sale price and new owners are remaining under wraps, but Iley confirmed the new owners intended to continue running the theatre, with the new owners bound by a caveat on the sale stipulating that it must continue as a community space for the next 99 years.
Asked why they had decided to sell the venue now, Iley said while they were content with their achievements and there “comes a point where you’ve done everything you can do as a couple owning a theatre space like this”.
“We knew that our time was coming; we knew that there was only so much that we could do, and if someone with energy and a bit of vision and community connection could come in and take on this beautiful space and continue with its legacy – it was just the perfect timing,” Avramidis, who is artistic director of Goodwood Theatre and Studios, added.
The theatre has been a staple for the South Australian artistic community, with award-winning playwright, director and teacher Sean Riley recently labelling it his favourite venue in Adelaide, saying it was “the perfect venue for youth theatre because of its size and acoustics”.
“It’s a very generous theatre, and generations of young actors adore it. It must be treasured and protected,” he told InReview.
Goodwood Theatre and Studios has a 215-seat theatre and two black box theatres with 50 and 24 seats respectively, as well as a gallery, bar, foyer and outdoor laneway.
The theatre owners are going out with one last bang, with a final COMEBACK festival season running throughout August and promising to be “a night of theatre, food and connections”.
It includes Sarah Kwong and Shannen Beckett in Goddess Era and i know the end with Caroline De Wan and Fern Mines from August 13 to 16.
Avramidis said the idea of the season was about “being able to see a show that kind of resonates with another show and have a moment in between where you could connect with people and talk about these really important issues that these plays raise” so that audiences were “not just coming in and seeing a show and leaving”.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
