New space found for theatre group

AFTER decades of searching, Ballarat’s oldest theatre company now has a new permanent home.

The Ballarat National Theatre team moved into a vacant space at Barkly Square earlier this month following a reshuffling of the previous tenants, Ballarat East Neighbourhood House.

BNT members held their first rehearsal in the new space recently and president Liana Skewes said it’s wonderful for the company to have a home again.

“It’s a monumental move,” she said. “We haven’t had a home for some decades since around the 1980s.

“Previously our productions have not been in a space where we could store props and costumes or put posters on the walls.

“Having this space will give the creatives behind productions more room in their head to focus on the production itself rather than securing a venue.

“When you have a production with an incredibly small budget, you can very easily eat that up in just getting rehearsal spaces, so this is really exciting for that.”

The new space is already being used for board meetings, rehearsals, and prop and costume storage while discussions are underway to use it for acting workshops and prop and costume crafting sessions.

The company was permanently located at The Little Theatre on Camp Street until 1984 and has bounced the operations between locations like Buninyong Town Hall, Eastwood Leisure Complex, and directors’ homes since then.

Ms Skewes said the company will aim to have four rehearsals a week out of Barkly Square, with multiple productions rehearsing at once.

She said the new home base will also allow for a greater presence for the company as well as the opportunity to form new connections.

“One of the most important benefits for us is visibility,” she said.

“Many people don’t know we exist because we’re not visible anywhere. Having a space means people start seeing your name as they walk past.

“We’ll also have the proximity to work with other community groups to give us really valuable connections.

“There’s something about having a home. It gives you a place to have some wonderful incidental connections with people.

“When we were doing monologue karaoke at Volta last year, that really drove home for me the value of having that space.”

BNT currently has 185 members and a core of nine board members as well as volunteers.