It is Australia's longest continuously running professional theatre group,[1] having given its first performance in Cammeray Children's Library on 11 May 1958. It relocated to the current premises in the old boatshed on the shore of Careening Cove in 1960.[2]
The theatre was founded by Hayes GordonAOOBE along with the Ensemble Studios acting school, which introduced Stanislavsky-influenced method acting to Australia. Ensemble Studios was Australia's longest surviving acting school when it closed in 2009. Gordon passed on the position of Artistic Director of Ensemble Theatre to Sandra Bates in 1986, but remained Principal of the acting school until his death in 1999.[citation needed] Bates was joined by Mark Kilmurry first as her deputy and then as co-director, with Kilmurry replacing Bates upon her retirement in 2015.[3]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the Ensemble had to postpone their 2020 Season - the company allowed ticket holders to convert their ticket to a credit voucher.[4]
The Ensemble complex honours veteran stars Lorraine Bayly, incorporating Bayly's Restaurant, in recognition of her long-running commitment to the theatre (she was a founding member), to mark her retirement from the stage in June 2003; and Henri Szeps, with the Henri Szeps Room.[5]
Incoming artistic director Mark Kilmurry initiated the Sandra Bates Director's Award (SBDA) in honour of Sandra Bates, who held the position for 30 years before her retirement[6] in 2015.[3] The award is sponsored by the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation.[7]
In 2016, the company produced the Sydney premiere of Jane Cafarella's e-baby, a two-hander "quietly feminist play that asserts a heartfelt approach towards matters of infertility, adoption and motherhood."[16] Caferella's first full-length play[17] which was world premiered in 2015 at the Chapel Off Chapel theatre in Melbourne.[18] The production was directed by Nadia Tass, and starred Danielle Carter and Gabrielle Scawthorn; Carter and Scawthorn were described as bringing "such life to their roles" and being "utterly believable – in equal parts loveable and frustrating – [so that] the heartbreak, when it comes, is visceral".[19] Tass, described e-baby as "a play for today – the advances in medicine create a new world that allows new possibilities – in e-baby we enter that world and explore the raw truth, the unbridled joy and the paradox of surrogacy through a carefully woven story of love, generosity and a newborn child."[20]
