The Regent Theatre’s secret ballroom

Hidden beneath the opulent Regent Theatre is a ballroom befitting of the roaring ’20s’ most glamorous soirées. 

With its dazzling Spanish Rococo architecture, the Regent Theatre is one of Melbourne’s premier theatre venues. Have you really been to Melbourne if you haven’t taken a photo standing on the balconies in the Regent’s foyer?

Though the theatre itself is iconic, what lies beneath it is lesser known.

A gated entrance just to the side of the Regent leads to a staircase, which descends into the foyer of the Plaza Ballroom, a venue originally built in 1929.

With soaring ceilings, a Rococo interior to match the theatre above, Juliet balconies, chandeliers and a large dancefloor, the Plaza was originally intended to be a ballroom.

However, liquor licences were hard to obtain during that period. 

Films, dubbed “talkies” at the time, were rapidly gaining popularity, so the Regent Theatre jumped at the idea to turn the Plaza into a cinema instead. The Regent itself was also a cinema then, thus the conversion made the venue the first duplex cinema in Australia.

The Plaza was a leader in Australian cinema – it featured the revolutionary widescreen film format Cinemascope and was one of the very few cinemas outside North America to feature the innovative Cinerama screen system.

In 1945, the Regent was ravaged by a major fire from which only the foyer and the Plaza survived.

The theatre was rebuilt and reopened in 1949 but closed in 1970 as audiences migrated to watching TV at home rather than going out to the cinema. 

After that, the theatre came under threat of demolition numerous times, but community advocacy saved the venue. 

In 1993, the Marriner Group took over the Regent and the Plaza Ballroom. The Regent was refurbished, and the Plaza was restored to its original use as a ballroom. It now hosts weddings, corporate functions and events. •