Though The Mercury, built in 1910, is Auckland’s oldest surviving theatre, the city’s very first theatre was established in the back of a city hotel in 1841.
Wellington hosted the nation’s first purpose-built theatre, The Royal Victoria – later The Royal Olympic Theatre – in 1843, where New Zealand’s first original play, Marcilina, was performed. Auckland’s first theatre proper, The Fitzroy, opened on Shortland Street the following year.
Alas, these early entertainment venues are no longer with us, but Verve takes a look at some of the historic ones that still stand.
The Mercury, Auckland
Tāmaki Makaurau’s oldest surviving theatre, The Mercury, first opened as King’s Theatre, on Mercury Lane, off Karangahape Road, in 1910, the 1,800 capacity making it the largest building of its class”, according to the NZ Mail at the time. The venue was the brainchild of architect Edward Bartley, built in English baroque style as a setting for silent movies and the vaudeville shows of the famous Fuller family who went on to also lease theatres in Wellington and Dunedin, taking over the latter’s Princes Theatre in 1905. Having briefly served as a full-time cinema, the establishment reopened as a professional theatre renamed The Mercury in 1968. Its first production was JM Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton.
The Civic Theatre, Auckland
Among the world’s only remaining atmospheric theatres, The Civic is an Auckland icon. Built in 1929 on the site of an old colonial marketplace, it was the first purpose-built cinema of its kind in the country, imagined as a “movie palace” for the talkies. Living up to its palace moniker, its regal interior incorporates the likes of Moorish and Hindu arches, minarets and balconies, but, like so many other near-abandoned establishments on the list, its elegant architecture very nearly didn’t make it and the building was rescued in the late 80s by the Historic Places Trust. Facelifts followed to restore the magnificent building to its 1920s glory with sweeping staircases and decorative bars complemented by high-tech gadgetry.
The Victoria Theatre, Auckland
Devonport’s iconic auditorium The Victoria Theatre, is the earliest purpose-built cinema in the southern hemisphere. Constructed in 1912, by the American John Leon Benwell, to show silent movies, the theatre boasted a capacity of 1,000. The following decade, the theatre, under new ownership, received an art deco makeover to coincide with the arrival of the talkies. Ownership changed hands again the 1940s, until it closed down in the late 1980s, to be reopened and renovated by Bruce Palmer, who divided up the space. Following more changes in the 90s, the theatre almost became an apartment block in 2001 before being saved by current guardians, the Victoria Trust.
St James Theatre, Wellington
It took just nine months to construct Wellington’s impressive St James Theatre, which opened on Boxing Day 1912, and was one of the world’s first fully steel-framed reinforced concrete venues. Though officially then called His Majesty’s Theatre, it was often referred to as ‘Fullers’ in honour of vaudeville and variety theatre group John Fuller and Sons, for whom it was built. It took its present name in the 1930s when it reopened as a movie theatre, it’s first movie being The Gold Diggers of Broadway. More live performances followed in the post-war period, before closing its doors with threats of demolition in the late 80s. Purchased by the city council in 1993, it has since hosted the likes of The Royal New Zealand Ballet and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Now listed as a Category 1 building by Heritage New Zealand, the historic venue is said to be haunted by a wailing woman, a choir, and, most famously, Yuri, a Russian performer who fell to his death there.
Royal Whanganui Opera House, Whanganui
One of the most striking venues on the list, the Royal Whanganui Opera House is famed for its bright white exterior and gold columns and known as much for its acoustics as its aesthetics. Designed by Wellington architect George Stevenson and built by the local council to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, the classical revival venue was opened by Premier Richard Seddon in 1900. Aotearoa’s last remaining Victorian theatre, it has survived three fires and continues to host local and international shows and musical performances and can even be hired for weddings.
Theatre Royal, Nelson
The southern hemisphere’s oldest operational wooden theatre, the Theatre Royal was built by a company of Oddfellows in 1878. One thousand people showed up for its opening night, an astonishing number considering the local population at the time was only 6,000. But its fortunes soon dwindled and by the 1930s there was talk of converting the theatre into a joinery shop until the Nelson Repertory stepped in to save the day. By the turn of the century, its fortunes had faded once more, the theatre falling into such a state disrepair that it was refused an operating licence. Following a campaign by the Nelson Historic Theatre Trust, the theatre was restored to its Victorian splendour even down to recreating the original wallpaper – with plenty of extra mod cons like computerised air conditioning – and reopened in 2010.
The Mayfair, Dunedin
Dunedin’s original theatre, the Princess Theatre, was built in the late 1840s, but burnt down to be replaced by a grander offering that was to become known as the St James. The site of the city’s first film screening (in 1867), it closed down in 1951 and was later demolished, leaving The Mayfair as Dunedin’s oldest surviving purpose-built theatre. Opened in 1914, the venue, which was then known as King Edward Theatre, was designed by local architect Edward Walter Walden. Renamed The Mayfair in the 1930s, the two-storey brick structure was gifted to The Mayfair Charitable Trust by the Dunedin Opera Company in 2014.
