Brett Macdonald, the Chief Executive Officer of Royal South Street, cannot disguise his delight at the prospect of people treading the boards once again at Her Majesty's Theatre.
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"It looks amazing, absolutely amazing," he said, with little over two weeks to go until the city's landmark theatre reopens.
Having recently surveyed the venue after the finish of the building works, he said he was hugely impressed by "the new lighting, the amazing plasterworks and heritage colours, the new curtains."
Local builders Nicholsons finished the work on schedule; now the final technical touches by South Street staff are being put in place for the official reopening scheduled for September 13.
The aria competition will be the first show to take place at the new venue. Sections of the Royal South Street Society's annual eisteddfod had to be held in a different location due to the ongoing works - it had been hoped that all of the South Street events would be able to take place there this year.
However, that second Friday in September will raise the curtain on the venue for the first time after almost two years of restoration work.
It will continue a long line of performances, which have been held at the theatre since 1875. The building has been a key part of Ballarat's cultural offering ever since.
Once owned by the Royal South Street Society, it passed into the hands of the City of Ballarat in the 1980s.
This latest restoration is only the fourth major overhaul in its history, with much of the work designed to bring the building back to the way it looked during the 1890s.
The City of Ballarat invested $5.3 million as part of the 2018/19 budget.
As an election promise last year, the Daniel Andrews government also made a commitment of $10 million for the next stage of works.
Advocates for the theatre are still campaigning for an additional $5 million of federal funding for further safety and accessibility works.
Richard Nicholson of Nicholson Construction, the local company that carried out the restoration, said he was "very proud" to have been able to contribute to the project.
"It's a special building for Ballarat. It sells the wonderful history that we have.
"So many people have been on that stage," he told The Courier. "To think that it's back to its former glory is a wonderful thing."
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