Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace
A 1925 pipe organ still gets played live before the movies start, in a cinema that's been running since 1935.
Overview
The Hayden Orpheum opened in Cremorne in October 1935, seating 1,700 people across two levels in what was considered one of the finest Art Deco cinemas in Sydney. After decades of use and a stretch with the stalls removed, entrepreneur Mike Walsh restored the building and reopened it as the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace in 1987.
It's now a six-screen complex, with each cinema styled individually in period detail — the main auditorium keeps the Orpheum name, while others carry Golden Age names like The Arcadia and The Rex.
The building's centrepiece is a 1925 Wurlitzer Hope-Jones pipe organ, 13 ranks and 1000 pipes strong, originally built to accompany silent films. Resident organist Neil Jensen has maintained and played it since the 1987 restoration, performing at select weekend screenings, movie luncheons and the Orpheum Classics silent film series.
Beyond the organ, the cinema runs a full program of new releases, retro screenings, live music, comedy and premieres — one of the last suburban Art Deco theatres in Australia still operating as a working cinema.
Images: Supplied.
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