After a huge and costly glow-up, the largest stage in the southern hemisphere is ready for play

Two and a half years since closing its doors, Melbourne’s renamed Ian Potter State theatre is back. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it, kind of, looks the same We are standing on the vast, empty stage of Victoria’s newly refurbished State theatre – days before its official reopening and two and a half years since it closed its doors to the public – as we wait for the curtain to rise.

Normally we’d be facing the other direction, but this time we aren’t anticipating what’s on this enormous stage (bigger than four tennis courts, it is the largest in the southern hemisphere), but what’s in the auditorium. Actually, we’ve come to see the auditorium itself, the centrepiece of this first stage in the $1.7bn redevelopment of Arts Centre Melbourne. Curtain up, and then a kind of hushed bemusement.

Read the original report at The Guardian.