1971
20 October 1971
VANDALS DAMAGE HISTORIC THEATRE
Despite the support and encouragement received from Gulgong and district people, by the Musical Dramatic Society, there is a phantom at the Opera House. He has been making things very difficult for the M.A.D.S.
This phantom, a vandal, broke into the theatre at the weekend and destroyed some stage backdrops and left wall drawings and appropriate script that would have done the banned stage show, “O’ Calcutta” proud.
In the face of this an appeal for more shareholders in the Opera House Company by the Gulgong M.A.D.S. is steadily gaining support.
Shares are being sold at $1 with a bonus prize of $100 for the lucky shareholder.
The bonus will be declared to the lucky shareholder before Christmas as the Opera House is in need of capital to make rate payments and help put the place in order for the November showing of “See How They Run”.
This three-act comedy that is expected to bring the house down.
The Gulgong Bowling Club have invited the M.A.D.S. to put on a programme at the club on Saturday, October 30.
The newly formed Gold Diggers Band and many other acts will be featured at the show night at the Bowling Club.just to prove that the M.A.D.S. haven’t got all the talent, the popular Gulgong show couple Bob and Dolly Dwyer will be staging another of their profitable pick-a-box acts for the customers1
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1973
3 December 1973
The no-fuss opera house
Gulgong's Prince of Wales Opera House . . . alive once more.
HISTORIC GULGONG'S LINK WITH MINERS, MELBA AND MATILDA
By a Staff Reporter
If Sydney people are exuberant about the Bennelong Point Opera House, Gulgong people are no less vociferous about theirs.
Those who live in this historic central western township - "the town on the $10 note" - are not backward about expounding the merits of the Prince of Wales Opera House, still standing in the main street and occasionally used.
Wryly, they love to tell how it cost very little when established by John Hart Cogden about 1871 - and with no fuss!
Hailed as the biggest bark structure ever built in the world (it has since been structurally altered), it is the only one of three Gulgong opera homes to survive since the heyday of opera and the music hall.
Lit by 100 kerosene lanterns and decorated in plush velvet and lace, it undoubtedly was a magnificent venue for the 20,000 gold miners in Ihe roaring days of last century.
And unlike. Sydney's late comer, the residents chortle, the Prince of Wales has stood the test of time. Nellie Melba sang "Home Sweet Home" there before becoming a dame, and Les Darcy knocked out the local champion in 1917 during what was billed as an exhibition, match.
Darcy learned that his opponent, Tom Pethybridgehad wagered £150 he would put him on the canvas. Darcy decided to take no chances.
In the second round Darcy headlocked the unsuspecting upstart, asked the crowd where to hit him, then flattened him with a crashing blow to the forehead.
There are still people in Gulgong who tell visitors that the opera house, and not Banjo Paterson's fertile pen, was the birthplace of the legend of Waltzing Matilda.
Because of the shortage of women on the field, the miners danced carrying their swags (Matildas) in their arms while learning the waltz.
The English novelist, Anthony Trollope, saw a show in it, and the father of Australian poetry, Henry Lawson, Was a frequent visitor while the family lived there.
In the 1870s, the Prince of Wales was leased by the temperamental "world-renowned American artiste," Miss Joey Gougenheim, who migrated to Australia with her sister, Lizzie, in 1856.
G. C. Johnston, a miner-journalist ' of the time, whose memoirs of Gulgong are held in the Mitchell Library, said of her and the opera house, built on sacred Aboriginal ground.
"I saw many a .queer corroboree on the Gulgong stage. Joey could brook no rival. She must be on top or nowhere."
When the locals tried to bring her together with the touring Darrels (the great actress Fanny Cathcart married actor Robert ("George") Darrel and played in Gulgong in 1873), "Joey would not risk her laurels."
Johnston also recalled the occasion when a plump actress fainted on cue during a play, but could not be carried offstage as the script demanded, or even budged, by the tiny "bit-player," a shoe salesman.
The miners jeered at the struggling actor, calling out such advice as: "Get some high heels" . . . "Spit on your hands and have another go."
Impromptu support from a player in the wings saved the day.
During one performance an actor was accidentally shot with a gun used as a prop. He recovered a few weeks later.
Over the years the Prince of Wales became a roller skating rink, then a picture theatre. Humour has it that under its floorboards is a fortune in gold - an "untapped seam of the famous Black Lead.
Before the town's centenary celebrations three years ago, the Gulgong Musical and Dramatic Society bought the opera house for $3,000 with the intention of restoring it to its former glory, lanterns and all.
Soon afterwards the society trustees, out of funds and behind with their second instalment, received a summons to pay up or go to court.
Undaunted, they sold shares in the building to the 2,000 local* and formed the Bushwackers Band, a banjo and mouth organ group which toured the district raising money.
The money demanded was paid, Frank Halloran's and Roma Wallis's nostalgic play "More than Gold" was successfully staged, and since then the society hasn't looked back. The Gulgong opera house is alive once more2 .
2012
Prince of Wales Opera House
Next door (to the Prince of Wales Hotel) is the Prince of Wales Opera House. Built in 1871 as a large timber and bark music hall, the opera house was used to entertain the townspeople and goldminers during Gulgong’s heyday when the town was home to 20 000 people. When the gold rush ended a decade later, the townspeople continued to make good use of the theatre. In the 1880s the Gulgong Amateur Dramatic Club used it regularly, and Henry Lawson saw his first theatrical production (The Pirates of Penzance) there. Dame Nellie Melba once sang on its stage, and Les Darcy slugged it out in a boxing ring here. The theatre closed in the 1960s but by the mid-1970s it had been saved by the revived Gulgong Amateur Dramatic Society and is still going strong. Today it is the venue for performers in the annual Henry Lawson Heritage Festival and the Gulgong Eisteddfod, is used by the Gulgong Musical and Dramatic Society and hosts world-famous visiting performers such as pianist Roger Woodward and jazz musician James Morrison3
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