The truly remarkable theatre in Yass was built by the two most important cinema and theatre designers of the era.

Guy Crick and Bruce Furse were the architects of choice in the Australian theatre building scene in the 1930s. They were responsible for designing about 30 new theatres in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, and remodelled a further 50 existing buildings. The Liberty in Yass is one of only a few remaining today, including the Civic Theatre in Scone, and their collaborations with others on the Metro Theatre in Potts Point and the Piccadilly Theatre in North Adelaide.

Both halves of the renowned partnership were Australian born and educated.

Guy Crick was a Tasmanian who studied between Melbourne and Hobart, first working on large concrete industrial buildings. In 1924, at 23 years old, he moved to Sydney to begin working on theatre construction and design, establishing relationships with the major theatre companies which me maintained up until the early 1960s.

Gerald William Bruce Furse was born in Strathfield, NSW in 1906. He passed the registration examination of the Board of Architects NSW in 1933 and only one year later, in 1934, he went into partnership with Guy Crick.

It was during the next six years that Australian theatre architecture was to be dominated by the name of ‘Crick and Furse’ and their practice “enjoyed a spectacular success , as one trade journal expressed it in 1940.

Each cinema was designed to give an atmosphere of intimacy and congenial comfort. The futuristic features of the exterior are highlighted by the balanced use of tube neon lighting. But Guy Crick especially was also interested in the interior design of his works. He stressed the need for good organisation of the building progress, that good acoustics could be provided without great quantities of sound absorbent material.

Crick and Furse dominated the Australian theatre architecture until the partnership was terminated in 1940 during WWII.

During the War, Guy Crick served in the Australian Imperial Force in New Guinea as an architect and engineer before returning to private practice afterwards. He worked in both Sydney and Brisbane and he spent his last decade in Brisbane, passing away in 2007.

Meanwhile Bruce Furse was co-opted to wartime construction jobs in Bathurst and Lithgow, before supervising the construction of US Army bases in Brisbane and Sydney. After an accident in 1954 he was unable to continue his architectural career. He died in 1967.

No complete count has ever been done of Crick and Furse's theatre buildings, however, many were demolished between 1970-1980. Yass’ own Liberty Theatre is a special rarity, with original exterior and interior features surviving.