Wellington's Hannah Playhouse opens to rave reviews - 150 years of news
This article was originally published by Stuff as part of the Dominion Post’s 150 Years of News celebrations.
The traditional theatre good-luck wish, "break a leg", had the opposite effect ahead of the inaugural performance at Hannah Playhouse in 1973.
Two days before the opening night of Shakespeare's As You Like It, leading lady Janice Finn was mown down by a motorcycle and had to drop out of her role as heroine Rosalind.
Finn was struck as she left the final dress rehearsal at midnight on October 13, right outside the brand new playhouse on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace. She broke her wrist and teeth and injured her hips, The Evening Post reported.
The theatre had a cabaret-style seating arrangement that complemented Downstage Theatre's intimate style.
"After weeks of rehearsals it must have been a shock and disappointment," the paper said.
Actress Catherine Wilkin, who had been playing a shepherdess, stepped into the role "book in hand" and gave a fine performance on opening night, the Post said.
It was the only mishap during the launch of Hannah Playhouse, the permanent home of Wellington's first professional theatre company, Downstage. The company had formed in 1964 and staged many of their plays at the Walkabout coffee bar on the same site.
Arts benefactor Sheilah Winn gave the troupe $300,000 in 1968 to build a new theatre, and with another $100,000 raised from the community, its distinctive brutalist roof-line was built. Inside, the seating was in cabaret style, allowing audiences to enjoy a meal at tables while they watched the show.
The Post was effusive in its praise.
"The curtain has gone up on a venture which has been marked by imagination, enthusiasm and an involvement of the community which has been quite extraordinary. Wellington's Courtenay Place can boast a theatre which can be justifiably described as one of the capital's prime attractions."
The theatre was named Hannah Playhouse after benefactor Winn's maternal family, who founded the Hannahs shoe company. Shakespeare devotee Winn was thrilled on opening night.
"The theatre measures up to all my expectations. It is intimate in its atmosphere and it is cosy. I feel I have something to live for," she said.
Despite Winn's hopes the theatre would be a permanent home for the company, Downstage suffered falling audience numbers in the 1990s. Its debt was compounded when Creative New Zealand chose not to fund the theatre in the mid-1990s and severely cut its grants from 2008 onward.
In 2013, Downstage – by then New Zealand's oldest professional theatre company – folded at the prospect of another year of shaky finances, and Hannah Playhouse became a theatre for hire.
"Something is rotten in the state of arts funding," The Dominion Post wrote in September 2013.
"Downstage has been a hothouse of performing arts creativity. Its sudden closure is a tragedy for the professional performing arts."
An Auckland resident wrote to the newspaper chastising Wellingtonians for allowing the demise of Downstage, the "50-year-old jewel in the city's crown".
"Without theatre to reflect, to entice, to enchant, we're a poor nation."
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