The Hannah Playhouse is a

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

venue situated on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace in central

Wellington, New Zealand Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

. The Hannah Playhouse was given by

Sheilah Winn Sheilah Maureen Winn (; 10 June 1917 – 27 June 2001) 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 th ...

(first cousin of Edith Campion, mother of

Jane Campion Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films ''The Piano'' (1993) and '' The Power of the Dog'' (2021), for which she has received a tot ...

) and named after her grandfather, Robert Hannah, a very successful businessman. It was carefully designed and built to house

Downstage Theatre 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 ...

Background

Sheilah Winn (born Sheila Maureen Hannah, 1917–2001) announced in 1965 she would make a gift of

NZ£ The pound (symbol £, £NZ. for distinction) was the currency of New Zealand from 1840 until 1967, when it was replaced by the New Zealand dollar. Like the pound sterling, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (abbreviation s or /) each of 12 pen ...

150,000 (). 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 James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 23, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, ...

. 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

at the tip of Mount Victoria on the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge Terrace. There were many delays in starting the project and galloping inflation meant additional funds had to be raised 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

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 BATS Theatre is a theatre venue in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially founded as the Bats Theatre Company in 1976, then established in its current form in 1989. BATS Theatre has seen the development of many performing arts talents of New Zeala ...

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 The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, not-for-profit producing theatre in Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Theatre. In 1871 it was rebuilt and reopened as the Royal ...

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. 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. Courtenay Place at night

It currently seats approximately 250 people in the auditorium, when it opened it had a capacity for 170 people at dining tables.

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. The building is part of a small group of unique performance spaces because of its asymmetric design, they include the

Heinrich Tessenow Heinrich Tessenow (7 April 1876 – 1 November 1950) was a German architect, professor, and urban planner active in the Weimar era. Biography Tessenow is considered together with Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut, Peter Behrens, Fritz Höger, Ernst ...

's Hellerau Festpielhaus (1911) in Dresden, Germany,

Manchester Royal Exchange The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal ...

(1976) in England, and São Paulo's Teatro Oficina (1984) in Brazil. It featured in an exhibition about modern architecture in 2010 called ''Long Live the Modern'' at the

Dowse Art Museum The Dowse Art Museum is a municipal art gallery in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Opening in 1971 in the Lower Hutt CBD, The Dowse occupies a stand-alone building adjacent to other municipal facilities. The building was completely remodelled in 20 ...

in Wellington, New Zealand. 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)

Awards

*1977 Tourism Design Award for meritorious design *1978 NZIA New Zealand Architecture Award *2006 NZIA Award for Enduring Architecture

References

Further references can be found in * Smythe, John (2004) ''Downstage Upfront – A 40th Anniversary Biography'',

External links

Downstage Theatre's official website
(archived)
Downstage Theatre online picture gallery

Hannah Playhouse website
{{authority control Theatres in Wellington City 1970s architecture in New Zealand Brutalist architecture in New Zealand