Preah Suramarit National Theatre

The Preah Suramarit Theatre or the Bassac Theatre is the former national theatre of Cambodia in the capital Phnom Penh.

Designed by chief national architect Vann Molyvann in 1966, it opened in 1968 as the Grand Théâtre Preah Bat Norodom Suramarit (aka Mohorsrop Theatre). Built to resemble a ship on the banks of the Bassac River, the venue was known for its wide stage and excellent acoustics for Cambodian drama and musicals. The theatre building became a landmark structure in modern Phnom Penh. It was demolished in 2008.

Before Pol Pot, at least 300 artists were professionally engaged at the Bassac theatre to give fairly regular performances of classical and folk dance, bassac opera, yike, spoken theatre, acrobatics and live music. About 80 percent never returned. During the 1980s, the Ministry of Culture made a concerted effort to identify and lure all surviving musicians back to Phnom Penh, triggering the beginnings of a cultural revival punctuated with a 1988 festival inside a Bassac Theatre which had been little affected by the wars.

However, in February 1994, during renovation efforts, there was disastrous fire that gutted the entire auditorium and the venue has remained a burned-out shell ever since.

At the time of the fire, the building was not insured and the culture minister at the time, Nouth Narang, who had not signed any contract with the French company carrying out the renovation work, immediately launched an appeal for $12 million to rebuild the theatre. The minister reportedly offended the International Technological Committee overseeing the renovation and with it the French Embassy that had put up the money by inferring that arson was involved, or at the very least incompetence of the welders. The arson claim was perhaps given credence by one man's claim that he had been paid 500 Thai baht to set the fire.

Despite the devastating consequences of the fire, the lobby continued to be used on a daily basis for Khmer classical dance practice by the National Theatre Company of Cambodia, which was based at the Directorate of Performing Arts to the rear of the building.

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Wikipedia