Can a church become a nightclub?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today's episode was made possible by our friends over at Revro Fitness. Ready? And good morning! This is the Daily Oz. This is the Daily Oz. This is the Daily Oz. Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Oz. It's Monday the 20th of July. I'm Elliot Laurie.
I'm Billie Fitzsimons.
Two weeks ago, one of Sydney's newest venues opened its doors in a heritage-listed former church. A few days later, it was shut down entirely, caught between a Christian backlash, a landlord's legal notice, and a fight over public arts funding. On today's podcast, we're breaking down what actually happened to Divine Playhouse, why the venue struck a nerve with some religious groups, and what happens next for the creative arts space at the center of it all.
Elliot, I have seen this controversy everywhere on my social media feeds, but I wasn't familiar with the venue prior to the controversy. Were you familiar with it?
Yeah, I'd seen it advertised online a little bit and it looks like they had a bunch of cool gigs coming up. So I thought, oh, maybe if I'm in the city, I'll go check it out at some point. But that's already been nipped in the bud because as I said in the intro, it's already been shut down.
And so tell us the name again.
It's called Divine Playhouse.
Divine Playhouse. Where in Sydney is it located or was it located?
It's right in the centre of the CBD near Town Hall. It's in this old church which was built in 1868, but it hasn't actually been a church for a very long time.
Right.
What happened when a heritage-listed Sydney church reopened as Divine Playhouse?
And that's at the core of the controversy, the fact that it was a nightclub in a church, right?
Yes, kind of.
A queer nightclub.
Well that is actually an important distinction so it was set up by a company called Heaps Gay and they do run a lot of queer events across the city and they did have queer events in its first couple of nights but It wasn't meant to be an exclusively queer space. It was actually designed to be a creative arts venue, so performances of all kinds, you know, music, immersive theatre, all that kind of thing was meant to be put on there.
Oh, cool, immersive theatre. So good. Okay, so tell us about the building. You said that it hasn't been a church for a long time, but it was once a church.
Yes, so in 1932 I went through a process called deconsecration. It was deconsecrated. It's a really tough word to say, but I've been practising it.
I'm not familiar with that word. What does that mean?
It's basically the process of the church going in and saying this is no longer a holy building. It is removing it as a place where people can go and worship. And it's basically turning it over to be another space.
Ah, so that happened in 1932. So nearly 100 years ago.
Yes. And in the time since, it's been a bunch of different things. So it was a school. It was a homeless shelter. And for 80 years of that time, it was actually a theater up until kind of semi-recently.
Right. And so then... What happened recently? It got new owners or a new company leased it out?
Yeah, so it was kind of sitting vacant in the middle of Sydney city. There's a lot of buildings like that in the center of the CBD. But as I mentioned, Heapscape came in and they decided they're going to put on this new performance space and they kind of went and renovated it and set it up so that it could be used in a bunch of different ways. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn't always called Divine Playhouse though.
Oh, is that the name Divine Playhouse that Heaps Gay gave it when they took over the venue?
Well, they actually originally called it Unholy Playhouse. And they said that was a nod to the venue's history. And I'll play a little clip from Kat Dopper. She is the person behind Heaps Gay. And I had a chat with her earlier last week. Here's what she said.
Unholy Playhouse, the name was a cheeky pun on words. It's such an iconic, beautiful venue and the space is no longer holy. We wanted to, you know, honour the history of the space in a respectful way and in a cheeky way, in an artistic way. So we called it Unholy Playhouse to talk to the church and to also talk to the space's history, which is a theatre, which has been a theatre for the last 80 years.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:35
2
What happened when a heritage-listed Sydney church reopened as Divine Playhouse?
1:35–13:44
3
Why did Heaps Gay choose a church building and call it Unholy (then Divine) Playhouse?
13:44–17:20
4
How did the landlord and Christian groups react to the venue's name and imagery?
17:20–20:28
5
What specific protests and complaints led to the venue receiving a breach notice?
20:28–22:01