Drawing Room Theatre

Constructed by Sefton Parry in 1855, it was created when a large room in the Commercial Exchange building, Cape Town, and was hurriedly changed into a theatre with 350 seats for Parry's first presentations in Cape Town, since the Garrison Theatre was deemed unsuitable. Called the Drawing Room Theatre, it was fitted up on the same model as the Reuben’s Room in Windsor Castle. The first official performance was on Wednesday, June 13, 1855 when Boucicault’s comedy Used Up, or The Peer and the Ploughboy (Boucicault) and the farce Family Jars, were performed by Parry and the "Gentlemen Amateurs". The theatre was predominately English and played an important role in English professional theatre in South Africa. [MN]

For more information

See also the Commercial Exchange

Sources Bosman, 1928;

Fletcher, 1994;

Laidler, 1926

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