Pittwater Life April 2017 Issue

Times Past
Arts boosted by
open-air theatre
Times Past
Avalon Public School
opened in August
1950 with Les McGuire
as the inaugural headmaster
(and teacher of 4th to 6th
Grade classes) and his wife
Doss as the teacher of the
Kindergarten to 3rd Grade
class students.
Les McGuire had an
incredible ability to galvanise
the community, engaging
it to provide for the many
needs of the new school.
One of the primary needs
he saw was the construction
of a hall or theatre where
drama could be performed.
There were many people in the
community already involved
in drama, music and art.
Avalon Beach was 39
kilometres from Sydney with
no theatre close-by.
The Avalon Evening
College began in 1953 and
drama was one of the more
popular courses, with a keen
following early. Of course, it
too required a performance
area, although Mr McGuire
saw the theatre especially
as a “first-rate stimulus to
children’s expression”.
Parents and Citizens’ (P&C)
meetings were convened
soon after August 1950 and a
Works Committee was elected
to organise construction
of the theatre. Members of
the committee included an
architect, a master builder
and others with practical
theatre experience.
The school first operated
in a double portable building;
however, student numbers
grew so rapidly that a second
building was soon needed.
A second building was
obtained and sited parallel
to the first but a sufficient
distance apart (to the south)
to allow for an ‘auditorium’
for the future theatre
between the two buildings.
A third building (a disused
RAAF building) was then
secured and placed at the
western end of the space but
set back to allow for a 7.5
metres by 5-metres stage.
This building was to serve as
the theatre dressing room.
A grant of $130 enabled
the purchase of bricks and
timber and an enthusiastic
band of parents soon
had the floor of the stage
constructed. The P&C then
managed to obtain enough
timber on credit for the
framework of the stage
and in one weekend the
stage was erected. The roof
for some months was an
untidy collection of massive
tarpaulins draped over the
skeleton structure during a
performance and laboriously
removed afterwards.
The walls were clad with
fibro and timber donated
by a generous patron and a
roof of malthoid was then
laid. Unfortunately this roof
was wrenched off violently
during a sudden winter
storm and was later replaced
with corrugated iron.
After two years of hiring
or borrowing seating for
each performance an appeal
brought a sum of $300.
“Fifty gaily coloured garden
seats each 5 feet in length”
were purchased and by
March 1953 these provided
permanent seating for over
200 adults.
(I remember the theatre
well and playing the part of
Balthasar, one of the three
wise men, in a Christmas
Nativity performance in the
1950s!)
TIMES PAST is supplied by local
historian and President of the Avalon Beach
Historical Society GEOFF SEARL. Visit the Society’s
showroom in Bowling Green Lane, Avalon Beach.
72 APRIL 2017
Celebrating 25 Years