It is not often I am angered and disillusioned by the eventual gentrification and development of my little city. Over the last few years, I have seen some of my regular drinking holes replaced by shiny cocktail lounges, the local Toowong Sizzler be vacated, and Blockbuster video stores disappear from the streets. Usually, I understand the complexities of development – my fond memories of the Sizzler salad station didn’t keep me paying high prices for low-quality steaks into my adulthood. Only recently have I felt a deep upset over the loss of a building near me, and that is when I learned the University of Queensland was in plans to knock down my beloved Schonell Theatre, with no plans to replace it.
Spending my adolescence in a small town, being the true ‘alternative teen’, I would sit in my room wearing a Radiohead t-shirt, and bemoan the lack of culture around me. I moved to Brisbane when I was but a naive teenager, hoping to ‘find myself’ among a stack of dusty books in a sandstone university. I began my tertiary tenure in a writing and literature degree, all the while, finding my writing courses incredibly dull. For the first time in my life, I was entirely alone – navigating a big, scary city with nothing but a Go Card and Youth Allowance to tide me over. My first few months in Brisbane was difficult, but right near me, was a small theatre that allowed me to experience all the cultural things I missed out on.
Over time, as people do, I collected some friends and we began to frequent this little theatre together. We saw Rocky Horror Floor Shows, screenings of some cult classics such as ‘The Room’ and ‘Birdemic’. I sat in the audience of a friend’s amateur production there, and I discovered my love for ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ after a small production of the rare musical hit its modest stage. By frequenting screenings at the Schonell, I realised that my interests lay in film, not in the mechanics of writing, and I changed majors. Yes, the Schonell was outdated, but it was my local, and it allowed me to attend the cult film screenings and small shows that made my early years alone in the city a lot more palatable.
I’m not saying that the Schonell should be saved just for the sake of my fond memories, but because I believe that a particular subset of University-goers need a cultural centre. Sure, not everyone will use or appreciate it – but for the small community of people who want to see a limited release film, to dress up as Tommy Wiseau and throw spoons at a big screen, or even host a small play with an amateur theatre crew to get a taste of being a ‘real actor’, having access to a cultural hub is important. Coming from someone who chose to study the Arts – if we are unable to use our hard-earned degree in the modern job market, we at least want to value our experiences while we were at Univerisity.
While I am under no illusion in thinking that the Chancellor of the Unversity of Queensland is reading this, cancelling the demolition plans as a single tear falls down his cheek, I felt like I should at least try to save the local theatre. A small, local site like FilmBunker owes its existence to the institutions that came before it, and without our little cultural haven, I would not have studied media, or have been given the opportunity to review films, and eventually concoct an idea for this website. I owe a lot to the Schonell theatre, and hopefully, here I can return the favour.
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