Patch Theatre

Patch Theatre Company is an Australian theatre company performing works for young audiences, based in Adelaide.

In its 45-year history, Patch Theatre Company has produced 105 new works and performed to 1.8 million children and their families nationally and internationally.

Over the last five years, Patch has performed at fourteen international children's festivals in Korea, Japan, Singapore, USA, New Zealand and Canada and been featured regularly at the Sydney Opera House and Victorian Arts Centre. In 2008, the company’s work was presented in New York City at the prestigious New Victory Theater on 42nd Street, again in 2010 and 2015.

The company has presented six consecutive national Playing Australia tours in six years, and has been awarded for the second time National Touring Status by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Patch Theatre Company was founded in 1972 by Morna Jones, a performer and television producer who had worked extensively with children during her career. Morna established Little Patch Theatre in an old farmhouse in High Street, Brighton and its theatrical mainstay was puppetry. Over the years, the company's name changed from New Patch Theatre to Patch Theatre Company.

In 1977 Patch became a general grant company of the Australia Council for the Arts. Later, the company received regular assistance from the State Government through the Youth Performing Arts Council.

Following the appointment of Christine Anketell in 1986, Patch's repertoire diversified and its audience base was extended. For the first time the company toured extensively throughout South Australia and Victoria. The company also undertook its first international tour performing in Japan as part of the Okinawa Festival. During her seven years as Artistic Director, Christine developed a relationship with the Adelaide Festival Trust, which saw the realisation of large-scale adaptations of children's literature as well as developing its extensive non-metropolitan tours to schools and community centres. Highlights included Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge which had seasons at Expo'88 in Brisbane and the Malthouse in Melbourne, The Secret Garden which headlined the Canberra Festival and Gillian Rubinstein's Space Demons.

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