In 1958, the Ghana Arts Council and the Rockefeller Foundation provided the necessary funding to set up ‘the Experimental Theatre Players’ spearheaded by Efua Sutherland and Joe Degraft. Architects Gerlach and Gillies-Reyburn were commissioned to design the structure which was based around two performance stages – one ‘in the round’ and the other a proscenium arch theatre. It was Sutherland who generated the design strategy,

“Conceptualized by Sutherland, the dominance of traditional motifs in the architectural design of this theatre edifice was a statement of cultural renaissance, independence, and nationalism because she believed “political independence suggested cultural autonomy”

(Anku, S. S. (2022). (Post) Colonial Ghanaian Attitudes Towards Ibsen: An Overview of Ibsen Reception in Ghana Between 1930 and 1966. Ibsen Studies, 22(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021866.2022.2063977).

The stages are enclosed by a series of interlocked rooms built from sandcrete and providing changing, offices, and other ancillary functions. The project received a full write up in the West African Builder and Architect journal in 1962.

“It was a small structure, unpretentious but handsome, traditional in inspiration yet modern in design. The dazzling whitewashed walls with their dark trim resembled a village compound and were meant to. Inside, at one end, a platform stage was covered by an overhanging roof; but the auditorium, with its seats of carved Ghanaian stools, was open to the night sky. It stood in a rough, weedy place approached by dusty footpaths, its simplicity contrasting sharply with the gaudy grandeur of Accra’s nearby Ambassador Hotel. The crowds were gathering at the entrance that was shaped like a huge traditional stool and flanked by two massive Akuaba dolls, sculpted male and female symbols of fertility”

(Anku, S. S. (2022). (Post) Colonial Ghanaian Attitudes Towards Ibsen: An Overview of Ibsen Reception in Ghana Between 1930 and 1966. Ibsen Studies, 22(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/15021866.2022.2063977)

Anku further notes that the theatre was “replicated and relocated to the School of Performing Arts premises at the University of Ghana” – it’s unusual for a building to be entirely remade in a new location. The old site, as Anku notes, was near the Ambassador Hotel – this is now where the Mövenpick Hotel is located. Was the structure physically demolished, moved, and rebuilt? Perhaps the old site is where the National Theatre is located today?