Hannah Playhouse

Last updated
Hannah Playhouse
Hannah Playhouse.jpg
Cambridge Terrace frontage, Courtenay Place to the left
Hannah Playhouse
General information
Location12 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand
Completed1973
OwnerHannah Playhouse Trust
Design and construction
Architect(s) James Beard
Awards and prizes1978 New Zealand Architecture Award; 2006 Award for Enduring Architecture

The Hannah Playhouse is a theatre venue situated on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace in central Wellington, New Zealand. [1] The Hannah Playhouse was given by Sheilah Winn (first cousin of Edith Campion, mother of Jane Campion) and named after her grandfather, Robert Hannah, a very successful businessman. [2] It was carefully designed and built to house Downstage Theatre. [3]

Contents

Background

Sheilah Winn (born Sheila Maureen Hannah, 1917–2001) announced in 1965 she would make a gift of NZ£150,000 (equivalent to NZ$6,370,000in 2021). [4] available to build a substantial theatre venue, named in honour of her Hannah family. Her grandfather Robert Hannah founded the R. Hannah & Co. shoemaking and retailing nationwide chain. The design for the Hannah Playhouse took place in the mid 1960s, initially designed by Ron Parker. He was followed by architect James Beard. [3]

In 1968 the Hannah Playhouse Trust was formed to use Winn's gift to build the theatre venue on the site of the building containing Downstage Theatre at the tip of Mount Victoria on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace. [5] There were many delays in starting the project and galloping inflation meant additional funds had to be raised [6] and, under the circumstances, Sheila Winn announced she was unwilling to provide them. Ultimately the Arts Council managed to cover the gap.

Location and design

The theatre was in the end built in 1973 and replaced the Downstage Theatre company's earlier premises upstairs on the same site. It diagonally faces and is within metres of Wellington's Embassy Theatre made famous by the world premiere of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, in Majoribanks Street the Campion family business and over at the end of Roxburgh Street, for many years, "Monde Marie" the bijou coffee house of Mary Seddon, only daughter of Tom Seddon. BATS Theatre is on the opposing side of the main thoroughfare. The Hannah Playhouse building was home to Downstage until 2013 when Downstage closed. The building itself is still often referred to as Downstage Theatre.

Raymond Boyce MBE, London-trained at The Old Vic and brought to New Zealand by Richard Campion was a leading New Zealand theatre set and costume designer. He was on the board of Downstage when the playhouse was built. Boyce became design consultant to the architects influencing the design of the flexible stage area and auditorium. [7] [8] It was designed to be a dinner theatre with a flexible space that could accommodate an audience seated for dining, with options for the staging of the performance that could change for each show. [9]

The Hannah Playhouse with the roof lit up in the foreground of this night time aerial shot of Wellington's Courtenay Place. Courtenay Place at night.jpg
The Hannah Playhouse with the roof lit up in the foreground of this night time aerial shot of Wellington's Courtenay Place.

It currently seats approximately 250 people in the auditorium, when it opened it had a capacity for 170 people at dining tables. [5] [6] Coordinates: 41°17′37″S174°47′01″E / 41.2937°S 174.7836°E / -41.2937; 174.7836

Ownership

The Hannah Playhouse Trust has been obliged to sell almost a half share of the building to the Wellington City Council. The Council has taken full ownership of the nearby Embassy Theatre.

Architectural significance

The design of the Hannah Playhouse is a building which sits in the 1960s 'brutalist' category which refers to the raw, undoctored concrete that features in both the exterior and interior of the building. [10]

The building is part of a small group of unique performance spaces because of its asymmetric design, they include the Heinrich Tessenow's Hellerau Festpielhaus (1911) in Dresden, Germany, Manchester Royal Exchange (1976) in England, and São Paulo's Teatro Oficina (1984) in Brazil. [11]

It featured in an exhibition about modern architecture in 2010 called Long Live the Modern at the Dowse Art Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. [12] In the book that accompanied the exhibition the building is described thus:

"It asserts itself ... by adopting a sculptural, asymmetric roof form that addresses the corner site; and by taking its lead from brutalism's uncompromising, anti-bourgeois spirit, typified by the enthusiasm for unpainted off-form concrete." (Christine McCarthy) [3]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtenay Place, Wellington</span>

Courtenay Place is the main street of the Courtenay Quarter in the Wellington inner-city district of Te Aro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Toomath</span>

Stanley William Toomath was a New Zealand architect who practised mainly in Wellington. He was a founding member of the Architectural Group in Auckland in 1946, a life member of the Wellington Architectural Centre and a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. Both the founding of the Group and the Architectural Centre were important factors in New Zealand's modernist architectural history.

James Albert Beard was a New Zealand architect, town planner, and landscape architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Selwyn</span> New Zealand actor and filmmaker

Don Charles Selwyn was a Māori actor and filmmaker from New Zealand. He was a founding member of the New Zealand Māori Theatre Trust and directed the 2002 film Te tangata whai rawa o Weneti , the first Māori language feature film with English subtitles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downstage Theatre</span> Former theatre company in Wellington, New Zealand

Downstage Theatre was a professional theatre company in Wellington, New Zealand, that ran from 1964 to 2013. For many years it occupied the purpose-built Hannah Playhouse building. Former directors include Sunny Amey, Mervyn Thompson, and Colin McColl.

Philippa Campbell is a New Zealand film and television producer and the Literary Manager at the Auckland Theatre Company.

Brian Sergent is an actor born and based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Martyn Sanderson was a New Zealand actor, director, producer, writer and poet.

Joseph Musaphia is a New Zealand writer and actor who was born in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Delahunty</span> New Zealand writer and director

Sarah Delahunty is a New Zealand writer and director who was born in Wellington. An award-winning playwright, Delahunty has written over 30 plays, often focussing on works for youth.

Richard Meckiff Campion was a New Zealand actor, theatre director, and producer.

Taki Rua is a theatre organisation based in Wellington, Aotearoa / New Zealand that has produced many contemporary Māori theatre productions. Taki Rua has been going since 1983 and has had several name changes over that time including The New Depot, Depot Theatre and Taki Rua / The Depot. The full current name is Taki Rua Productions. Since inception the mission of Taki Rua has been to showcase work from Aotearoa. Because of this and the longevity of Taki Rua many significant New Zealand actors, directors, writers, designers and producers have part of the history including Riwia Brown, Nathaniel Lees, Rachel House and Taika Waititi.

Raymond Stanley Boyce was a British-New Zealand stage designer, costume designer and puppeteer and puppet designer. Boyce was part of the start professional theatre movement in New Zealand influencing the artistic landscape with his design knowledge. Boyce designed hundreds of theatre shows and was named an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circa Theatre</span> Wellington theatre company

Circa Theatre is a professional theatre company in Wellington, New Zealand, that was established in 1976. They present a number of plays each year in their two auditoriums, and have a unique partnership and funding model with incoming shows underpinned with a cooperative principle.

Sunny Amey is a theatre director and educator born in New Zealand. She worked at the National Theatre of England during its formative years alongside Laurence Olivier, as artistic director of Downstage Theatre in the 1970s and the director of New Zealand's national drama school Toi Whakaari in the late 1980s.

Diane Prince is a painter, weaver, installation art practitioner and set designer and affiliates to the Maori iwi Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Whātua from the north of New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Haigh</span> New Zealand actor, narrator and teacher

Michael Haigh was a New Zealand actor, narrator and teacher.

Jenny Wake is a New Zealand actor and theatre director. In 1991 she founded Calico Young People's Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Campion (actress)</span> New Zealand actor, writer and poet (1923–2007)

Edith Campion was a New Zealand actor, writer, and a co-founder of the New Zealand Players theatre company.

Sheilah Maureen Winn was a New Zealand arts patron and philanthropist. Having received a large inheritance, she used her money to support her love of the arts and particularly the theatre. Notably, she was the founding donor of the Hannah Playhouse in 1966, co-founder of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in 1970, and principal sponsor of the National SGCNZ Sheilah Winn Festivals of Shakespeare in Schools in 1992.

References

  1. ↑ Thomson, Rebecca (7 January 2010). "Downstage – a Wellington fixture". The Dominion Post . Fairfax Media . Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  2. ↑ Taonga, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. "Hannahs factories and shops". teara.govt.nz. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  3. 1 2 3 4 McCarthy, Christine (2008). "Hannah Playhouse (also known as Downstage)". Long live the modern : New Zealand's new architecture, 1904-1984. Gatley, Julia. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press. p. 189. ISBN   978-1-86940-415-4. OCLC   228368046.
  4. ↑ 1850-2017: "Consumer Price Index, Annual Growth". Data1850. New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.2018-2021: "Consumers Price Index". Infoshare. StatsNZ.
  5. 1 2 "The Hannah's History Hannah Playhouse - What's on". Hannah Playhouse. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  6. 1 2 Smythe, John (2004). Downstage upfront : the first 40 years of New Zealand's longest-running professional theatre. Wellington, N.Z.: Victoria University Press. ISBN   0-86473-489-1. OCLC   60386677.
  7. ↑ Macdonald, Nikki (2019-07-10). "Obituary: Raymond Boyce: a life designed by serendipity". Stuff. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  8. ↑ "In memory of Raymond Boyce". Creative New Zealand. 2019-07-02.
  9. ↑ Brisbane, Katherine, ed. (2001). The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Volume 5: Asia/Pacific, Volume 5. Editors: Ravi Chaturvedi, Ramendu Majumdar, Chua Soo Pong, Minoru Tanokura. London: Routledge. ISBN   0-203-98247-9. OCLC   648150215.
  10. ↑ Martin, Olivia (2018). "Hannah Playhouse: The Home of Downstage". Stqry. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  11. ↑ Filmer, Andrew; Rufford, Juliet, eds. (2018). Performing architectures : projects, practices, pedagogies. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN   978-1-4742-4798-6. OCLC   1041897163.
  12. ↑ Edwards, Simon (2010-03-09). "Hutt's striking modern skyline". Stuff. Retrieved 2020-05-09.

Further references can be found in

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.