Subtle but spectacular: Inside the State Theatre’s multimillion-dollar facelift

At first glance, the newly renovated State Theatre looks the same as ever. It’s still a sea of crimson and gold, brass fittings twinkling in the gentle glow of overhead lights. The cascading John Truscott-designed ceiling continues to shimmer above the stage. And the iconic hand-painted curtain hangs in all its original glory.

But upon closer inspection, much has changed. Every part of the grand venue, bar the walls, has been pulled apart and put back together.

“When it’s revealed, everyone has that moment of, ‘It feels the same’, and we go, ‘Thank you, that’s great’. It’s the weirdest compliment for a designer,” says NH Architecture director Hamish Lyon, whose company refurbished the theatre alongside Norwegian firm Snøhetta.

The renovation, which began in March 2024, marked the theatre’s first significant upgrade since it opened in 1984. About 2½ years later, it’s ready to reopen on Saturday – six months ahead of schedule, and bang on budget. However, beyond a $15 million donation from the Ian Potter Foundation, the total budget hasn’t been disclosed.

Significantly changing such a beloved venue can be risky. For this refurbishment, which was one of the first stages of the Victorian government’s Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation project, Lyon says the community response was essentially: “Don’t stuff it up.” Updating and preservation thus became top priority.

The tweaks and additions may appear minimal, but they make a big difference. “It takes a lot of work to make it look like it was,” Lyon says.

The carpet along the aisles, for instance, has been removed, replaced with rich timber flooring. This improves acoustics by increasing reverberation time, Lyon says – something performers from The Australian Ballet and Opera Australia (Arts Centre Melbourne’s resident companies) have enthusiastically welcomed.

A new custom-moulded, hand-gilded ceiling was installed above the stalls and circle for similar reasons. More than 27,000 concave and convex baubles cover the panels, helping to diffuse sound across the space while also honouring Truscott’s original ceiling design.

The original brass sphere ceiling above the stage, however, remains. Detached panel by panel, the 75,000 baubles were all painstakingly cleaned before being replaced – without proper architectural drawings, Lyon notes, since the original plans were from about the late 1970s and therefore hand-drawn and approximate.

The most significant updates related to accessibility, says Chris King, Arts Centre Melbourne’s director of the theatre “reimagining” project.

“We’ve introduced aisles in the stalls and the circle for greater accessibility and greater audience amenity. That [was] one of the key features to constantly remind ourselves of: What do modern audiences want today?”

These aisles – along with 10 new wheelchair positions, two new lifts, and new all-gender and wheelchair-accessible bathrooms – mean that patrons with mobility challenges will have access to seating on all levels for the first time in the theatre’s history.

The seats themselves look familiar – they even have the same central crease – but they’re entirely new, boasting timber panels along the pan and back to further support acoustics. Some are also removable for wheelchair and bariatric seating, and others have adjustable arms.

Following these updates, there are about 70 fewer seats inside the auditorium. Two new rows of seats were therefore installed on the balcony to reach 2000 seats, a “magical number” for presenters, according to King.

“From a design and construction point of view, this was extremely difficult. It was like open-heart surgery through a keyhole, getting in cantilevered steel, pumping concrete in. It was like major surgery while the building was actually still operating,” Lyon says of adding the two new rows.

Hidden underneath these seats is an improved heating and cooling system.

“Previously, the air-conditioning used to come from above, and around about 12 to 15 minutes into every show, there would be this cold air dump, and everybody would put their scarves and jumpers over their shoulders,” King says. Now, the air is supplied from below at low velocity, which is both more comfortable for patrons, but also better for acoustics.

“It lowers the noise floor in the auditorium. Previously, there was always this little hum, and musicians felt they needed to play louder to overcome that. Now, they don’t need to do that.”

Another new cleverly concealed element is the sound system, which consists of more than 200 speakers, 60 amplifiers and more than 12 kilometres of cabling. This has all been carefully integrated into the refurbished theatre, tucked inside wall recesses rather than bulkily hanging over aisles.

Perhaps most reassuringly to theatre regulars, the famed house curtain remains. Hand-painted with classic Victorian symbols including the lyrebird, wattle and Victoria’s crest, the curtain couldn’t be folded or rolled, meaning it had to remain inside the theatre during the refurbishment.

“We came up with a mechanism where they allowed us to keep it in the stage house,” King says. “We protected each half in its own bag. We put humidity and temperature sensors inside to monitor it for the 2½ years it was in storage. It sat there quite happily, whilst there was dust and mayhem everywhere.”

It was the first thing they brought down once the venue was ready, King says. All it needed was a quick clean and vacuum, and conservators gave it a “clean bill of health”.

Looking around the theatre, the only obvious signs of change are the lights, which seem to pop more thanks to fibre-optic cabling and LED technology, as well as a “brand-new car smell” permeating the space.

Then, of course, there’s the name, which has officially changed to the Ian Potter State Theatre following a $15 million donation from the Ian Potter Foundation – the largest single philanthropic donation to an Australian performing arts centre in history. This modification triggered some controversy, with notable figures like Eddie Perfect arguing a venue that belongs to all Victorians shouldn’t be named after one individual. Even Lady Primrose Potter, Sir Ian Potter’s wife, said it didn’t need to be named after her late husband.

However, such a large-scale refurbishment required both government and philanthropic funding, says Melanie Smith, Arts Centre Melbourne’s executive director of performing arts. Given the significance of the foundation’s donation, the name change was part of the agreement.

“People will call this theatre what they want to call it eventually. It’s the Ian Potter State Theatre, and that’s how it will be represented. But over time, people will probably come back to ‘the State’, just like the MCG with ‘the G’. We’re hoping that’s how it will end up.”

The State Theatre re-opens with Kutcha Edwards’ Gugu Dindi Gunyah (Many Rivers. One Home) on October 3, followed by a program of free events from October 9-11.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.