Park & Dare Theatre

The external style of the building was very much influenced by the contemporary architecture of Welsh chapels. The front façade rising to four floors, is divided into three bays, the centre one pedimented. Carved on the lower, horizontal stone course of the pediment is the name of the building ‘PARK & DARE WORKMEN’S HALL’. To the right of the hall and running along the side of it is the former Parc and Dare Institute. This is now connected at various levels to the Hall and provides the rehearsal rooms, offices and public areas; spaces which are not plentiful in the main building.

The façade conceals an unexpectedly ambitious auditorium which, as with most of its kind in Wales, is at first floor level. It is a fine hall with two curved galleries, the slips of each extending to and meeting the proscenium wall. Each gallery front retains its original decorative plasterwork, but the gas brackets which occurred at intervals have been removed.

The proscenium arch is a depressed curve, supporting a baroque foliated shield at its highest point, and is attractively decorated over its entire length with plasterwork representing fruit and flowers.

The stage was originally very shallow and the demands of varying theatrical functions have led to the construction of a semi-permanent apron. There is no orchestra pit. Behind the back wall of the stage and built as a lean-to structure is a corridor giving cross-over access between the wings. There is no sub-stage machinery.

A scheme by Roderick Ham was put forward in 1989 for the up grading of the main auditorium to the standard needed to receive first class opera productions. The necessary extension of the stage was to have been achieved by the removal of an adjoining chapel vestry, the chapel itself being incorporated as a cinema. This project did not proceed but further proposals are under review (2003).