The first theatre known of in Newcastle was opened by James Croft, owner of the Commercial Hotel. The Commercial hotel stood on the corner of Watt and Hunter streets and Croft there converted a vacant wooden building into a small theatre. In Historical Records of Newcastle, 1797-1897, J. Windross, a journalist with the Newcastle Morning Herald, quotes the recollections of first impressions from an unnamed resident who arrived in Newcastle in 1857:

I stopped at Mr Croft’s hotel, which stood on a site now occupied by the A.J.S. Bank at the corner of Watt and Hunter-streets. At the back of the hotel there was a theatre (the first one, I believe, opened in Newcastle), where I was present at an entertainment in which Mr Clarence Hannell took the part of Hamlet, and other local men also appeared.”[1]