fbpx

Following a hugely successful return to live performance and events at our iconic venues, we wish to update you with the following important information.

Management wish to advise that in line with the recent Victorian Government guidelines, Her Majesty’s Theatre Ballarat, Ballarat Civic Hall and the Ballarat Mining Exchange are currently closed to the public.

Her Majestys Theatre Box Office will be in contact with ticketholders for shows that have been postponed or cancelled to arrange exchange to alternate productions or refunds.

Our box office is currently open during this period for telephone enquiries on (03) 5333 5888 or email at hermaj@hermaj.com

Thank you for your continued support, we look forward to seeing you back soon.

View all events 

Keep up to date with Her Majesty’s Theatre

Her Majesty’s has been a central part of the cultural life of Ballarat since it first opened its doors in 1875. Australia’s best preserved theatre building, it has been continuously used as Ballarat’s home of live performance ever since. It has been owned and operated by the City of Ballarat since 1987 and functions as Ballarat’s premier performing arts centre.

The Theatre was first known as the Academy of Music, a name calculated to overcome religious and temperance scruples against patronising a “theatre.” The Academy had a flat floored auditorium suitable for dances and dinners, and a fully equipped stage. It was built to supersede Ballarat’s Theatre Royal (1858), which stood around the corner in Sturt Street, near where the Myer Department store sits today. While very grand, the Royal had become outdated and no longer met the technical requirements of the touring companies.

“Ballarat, as the premier city of the Victorian goldfields, should have a theatre worthy of its status”

The Academy was built by the wealthy Clarke family at the initiative of a group of local people who felt that Ballarat, as the premier city of the Victorian goldfields, should have a theatre worthy of its status. They guaranteed to rent it from the Clarkes at 10% of the construction cost, which was £13,000.

The building of Ballarat’s handsome new theatre was supervised by Clarke’s architect, George “Diamond” Browne. It was ready ahead of schedule, and opened on 7th June 1875. The first production was a comic opera by the French composer Lecocq, “La Fille de Madame Angot,” presented by the Royal Opera Bouffe Company run by W. S. Lyster, Australia’s first opera impresario.

Soon after the Academy opened, the large Supper Room above Lydiard Street was leased to William Bridges, a former miner, who ran it as an art gallery, displaying an excellent collection of European and Australian artworks, including his own tapestries. After Bridges moved his operations to Melbourne in 1883, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery was formed. The Gallery Society ran the Gallery from the Academy from 1884 until 1890, when the present Art Gallery in Lydiard Street North was opened.