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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
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This theatre on the corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition streets opened in June 1855, with the Wizard Jacobs, conjurer. The site was previously home to Rowe's American Circus. Known as the Iron Pot, it was a prefabricated iron building commissioned from Manchester by George Coppin as his first Melbourne theatre. The Olympic's first drama season opened on 30 July 1855 with the great Irish actor Gustavus Vaughan Brooke in Bulwer Lytton's The Lady of Lyons. Unfortunately for Coppin, the Olympic opened one week after the Theatre Royal, which proved to be more centrally located, and cooler in summer. It lasted only five years as a theatre, before being converted into Melbourne's first Turkish baths in July 1860. Partially destroyed by fire in 1866, the building was converted into a furniture warehouse in 1870. The Comedy Theatre now occupies the site.