The many lives of the Cellar Theatre

From tea room to bomb shelter to jazz bar.

Image Credit: Honi Soit

Way back when, before Humanitix was even a twinkle in the eye of student theatre treasurers, what we now know as the Cellar Theatre was an entirely different space and, over the years, it’s lived many different lives. 

The Cellar was constructed amongst a series of Holme Building extensions in 1941. Upon its inception, it was known by another name: the Union Buttery. Butteries were originally large cellars underneath monasteries in which food and drink were stored and frequently served to weary travellers and famished passers-by. The Union Buttery was no different, offering tea, coffee, soft drinks, milk drinks, scones, cakes, sandwiches, sausage rolls, and ice-cream. Sadly, unlike the monastic butteries of old, students had to pay for these petite treats. Like the rest of the Holme Building’s new rooms, the Union Buttery was warmly received, with Honi Soit lauding it as a “very wise innovation.” It would certainly be thought of as innovative today, considering that the radical “let’s put a vending machine in the Cellar” project has never gotten past the blue sky thinking phase.

But it wasn’t just an underground morning tea lounge. The Union frequently made it available for evening social events — this is perhaps the first glimpse of the 21st century Cellar we know today. From its first batch of scones in 1941, it puttered along like other Union food and beverage outlets cum venue spaces — hosting informal dances to support victims of the War, faculty society end-of-year shindigs, and miscellaneous meetings (both general, annual, and extraordinary).

Yet, even the Buttery couldn’t escape the looming spectre of creeping conflict in the Pacific. As part of preparations made by the Uni’s Air Raid Precautions (ARP) committee, the Buttery was identified as a bomb shelter alongside four other charming locations. While concerns were raised about its windows, the ARP determined that sandbagging was an adequate remedy. Anyone who’s been in the Cellar today can be thankful that Professor Stout and his committee colleagues decided not to remove the panes entirely. Bunker duty was but a brief sojourn for the Buttery though, and with the conclusion of World War II in 1945, the underground luncheon room returned to its appointed routine. While briefly in the 1951 zeitgeist after the Union Board allowed women to use the Buttery — and the subsequent brouhaha that followed — the space’s next milestone would be in 1964, when, after briefly losing its name to a newly constructed room in the Holme Building in 1962 and becoming the Old Buttery, it donned the name of Cellar. 

The Cellar was a hip new jazz lounge, hosting cool cats from late afternoon to mellow midnight. Dishing out espresso and light meals, it was a haven for underground acts, both literally and figuratively, and shrugged off the stodgy and stuffy baggage that burdened the name Buttery. Graced by now forgotten acts such as King Fisher and the Riverside Jazz Group, the Dave Bentley Trio, and, who could forget, the Sydney University Jazz Stars, the Cellar was a trumpeting success. The Union Board would announce plans to cease its operation as a jazz cellar later that year — I might have been fibbing about it being a smash hit. Apparently plagued by poor decor, blinding lighting, expensive initial renovations to the tune of £6,000, administrative red tape, poor acoustics, and prohibitive entry fees, the Cellar was something of a disaster. While the music didn’t stop entirely, the Cellar mostly limped along after its glitzy launch and graceless fall: jazz and folk acts continued to perform in its cavernous depths and miscellaneous events continued to be hosted (most notably the Ski Club’s “Annual Wine Orgy”), but it was no Bal Blomet! 

What followed was the greatest indignity of all: the Cellar became USU Board campaign fodder. Every year, the huddled masses would gather around to hear how candidates planned to transform the Union white elephant into…something…anything really. The 1969 Reform the Union Movement (RUM) team, a member of which was much-beloved journalist and radical historian Rowan Cahill, proposed converting it into an “Italian-style pizza bar,” 1973 Union Presidential candidate Bob Gaussen thought it ought to be a wine bar and discotheque, and others floated the age old question: “Pub?” Of course, none of these election-induced schemes panned out, and perhaps that's for the best, as the Cellar settled into a niche as an all-purpose Union space with a predilection for the performing arts. That was cemented in 1978 when it was renovated to be a cabaret performance space and SUDS began to perform daily lunch time performances within. Therefore, 1978 marks the beginning of SUDS’ intimate and long-term relationship with the Cellar. With each passing year, SUDS made itself more and more at home: staging full shows as well as daily lunchtime performances, dropping the name Union Cellar in favour of Cellar Theatre, and occupying it more exclusively, as other groups utilised the space less and less frequently. Eventually, this would coalesce into the arrangement we see today, with SUDS being the Cellar’s sole and exclusive occupant and the Cellar operating as the Society’s home and HQ. 

That brings us to 2023. While the ceiling collapsed in 2017, not much has changed in the Buttery cum Old Buttery cum Jazz Cellar cum Union Cellar cum Cellar Theatre. The floor is still dusty, the windows still grimy, and the vending machine still absent. While it took a little over 30 years for the space to find its niche, it was well worth the wait. The Cellar is the pride and joy of SUDS, the envy of every other university theatre society, and an outstanding performance space. So next time you’re watching a reimagining of Othello set in Edo Japan or perhaps a musical about student journalism, make sure you thank the good old Buttery for sucking so very much — it’s what made it all possible.