Reds, reformers & ratbags: New Theatre’s radical past

A presentation by Lyn Collingwood and Kim Knuckey

Saturday 24 February 10.00 for 10.30 

Marrickville Library and Pavilion, Patyegarang Place, Marrickville Road, Marrickville.

The New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown.
Image: Google Maps

A product of the Great Depression, New Theatre was founded as the Workers’ Art Club in 1932. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia kept a watchful eye on its activities, as did officers of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch. The presentation focuses on the New’s early history and its members: political activists, gifted creatives, and oddbods of varying degrees of eccentricity.

Lyn Collingwood became a professional actor in 1975, working in several formats. Lyn played resident gossip, Colleen Smart, in Home and Away spanning episodes 36 to 5,523. She left the show at her own request to concentrate on writing and directing.

Since 2009 she has organised Players in the Pub in Glebe. A former resident of Enmore, Lyn joined New Theatre in 1980 and once she became the theatre’s archivist she began researching its long history. Apart from acting and directing, she has been the theatre’s Secretary, Social Secretary, and a Playreader. A Life Member, Lyn compiled the theatre’s history, launched as a website in 2017 (https://newtheatre.org.au). She has also worked as a high school teacher, encyclopedist, book editor and short film festival organiser.

Kim Knuckey has been acting in Sydney for the past 40 years. He started at New Theatre in 1982 in The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, a play exposing the evils of apartheid. He has gone on to have a successful career in film and television both in Australia and in the United Kingdom. Kim and Lyn have collaborated on a number of New Theatre presentations and, for The Glebe Society, The Mayoral Procession, an overview of the holders of the City of Sydney’s top job since 1842 (including Joshua Josephson, mayor in 1848, nicknamed the ‘Squire of Newtown’, owner of Enmore House.) Kim has also been a core participant in Players in the Pub since its inception.