Australian Dictionary of Biography

William Hayes Orr (1920–1999), theatre producer and director, was born on 12 July 1920 at Sheddens, East Renfrewshire, Scotland, son of George Orr, slater and army pensioner, and his wife Mary-Jane, née Rodger. In 1939 Bill began his stage career as an actor with Molly S. Urquhart’s M. S. U. Theatre at Rutherglen, near Glasgow. Conscripted into the Royal Air Force in World War II, he was invalided out after a year due to a heart condition. He entered an ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) troupe, with which he toured for two years in Terence Rattigan’s popular comedy French without Tears. After the war he moved into directing and stage management around Britain, and was working at the Old Vic theatre in London when he met his partner, the actor Eric Duckworth. The English-born Duckworth had grown up in Sydney, and in 1950 the pair decided to relocate there.

Along with some voice work on radio, in 1951 Orr directed Molière’s The Miser for Sydney’s Independent Theatre. The following year his production of Christopher Fry’s verse drama A Sleep of Prisoners at Holy Trinity Church, Millers Point, was stopped by Howard Mowll, the Anglican archbishop of Sydney, after one performance, but subsequently played at other churches. Then in 1953 he directed Merry-Go-Round at the Metropolitan Theatre, based on the kind of intimate revue that had been popular in London. The main writers were John McKellar and Gerry Donovan, with the composer Lance Mulcahy, all of whom had impressed him with their work on University of Sydney student revues.

Sensing a local taste for satirical revues, in May 1954 Orr and Duckworth leased the St James’ Hall, a three-hundred-seat, church-owned auditorium, and renamed it the Phillip Street Theatre. With Orr as in-house director and Duckworth as general manager, they opened with Top of the Bill by McKellar, Donovan, and Mulcahy, and starring Gordon Chater, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, and Margot Lee. The show proved so successful that three planned performances a week soon became six, plus matinees. With contributions from others, and including popular film parodies, the writing trio created four more satirical ‘all-singing, all-dancing small shows’ (Tingwell with Wilmoth 2004, 70) before leaving for London in 1955. No eminent person or institution was beyond the barbs, such that ‘some famous people felt slighted if they were not mentioned’ (Salter 1995, 57, original emphasis). Later Phillip Street revues were written by several hands, including some of the actors and Orr himself, and also adapted from British sketches. Dot Mendoza joined the company as pianist and music director in 1956, and composed the music for several revues as well as Orr’s pantomime adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella, the latter titled A Wish Is a Dream.

When in 1961 it was announced that St James’ Hall would be demolished, the company moved to the Australian Hall in Elizabeth Street, a less intimate space, which was rechristened the Phillip Theatre. Notable productions there were a locally cast version of Beyond the Fringe in 1962, and McKellar’s A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down in 1965, which ran for a year and whose title became iconic. The theatre also staged plays, musicals, and one-person shows. It was socially well-connected through the directors of its managing company, Playgoers’ Co-Operative Theatres Ltd, who included Marcel Dekyvere, (Sir) John Kerr, and James McClelland.

Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax, along with Rupert Henderson, the then-managing director of John Fairfax Ltd, were all enthusiasts for Phillip Street revues, and hoped to transfer the format to television. The result was The Mavis Bramston Show, produced by Carol Raye, and launched on ATN-7 in 1964, which took many of its stars and writers, and much of its humour, from Phillip Street. Television would continue to weaken the audience for live theatre, so in 1966 Orr and Duckworth transformed an old cinema in suburban Kensington into the Doncaster Theatre Restaurant, banking on the growing fashion for entertainment while dining out. There they were able to present a more lavish variety program, with showgirls and a degree of Las Vegas glamour, but they relinquished it in 1971 when, having overextended their resources, they also gave up the Phillip Theatre. In 1972 they opened the Music Loft on The Corso at Manly, which also offered dinner and a show, but marked a return to intimate revue. There, along with other stars, the Toppano family were a mainstay from 1976. Orr retired in 1983.

‘A short, stocky person, with a broad and mobile face,’ Orr spoke ‘with an engaging Scots burr’ (ABC Weekly 1959, 7); in his private life he ‘was devoted to crime [fiction], cooking and cats’ (Wagstaff 1999, 29). For all his creative energy he could be abrasive, did not always respond well to criticism, and was nicknamed ‘The Black Scot’ (Brown 2005, 74). Yet at a time when most theatre was imported from overseas and featured British or American leads, he gave local performers a chance to step up from supporting roles and achieve stardom. He also offered young actors an excellent training ground, among them Noeline Brown, Ruth Cracknell, Barry Creyton, Gloria Dawn, Judi Farr, Reg Livermore, John Meillon, Jill Perryman, Jacki Weaver, and June Salter. In addition, he provided a venue for the young Barry Humphries to give Sydney audiences their first glimpse of Edna Everage, and he enabled the ageing tenor Max Oldaker to revive his career by sending up the musical comedy roles of his prime. Survived by Duckworth, Orr died on 15 June 1999 at Manly and was cremated.