The demise of a theatre: From flagship venue to a 'pile of broken bones'

Thursday, 26 May 2022

There was always a sense of occasion at Founders Theatre in its day, Denise Irvine recalls.

Denise Irvine is a Hamilton freelance journalist and food writer, and a regular Waikato Times contributor.

I walked around Founders Theatre the other day, Hamilton’s once-was-flagship venue for the performing arts and many other events.

The bulky building at 221 Tristram St is decidedly unkempt: the exterior is shabby, the gardens are riddled with weeds and there are broken beer bottles near the foundation stone laid in March 1961 by The Viscount Cobham, then Governor-General of New Zealand.

The darkened glass on the front doors makes it difficult to see into the foyer but I could make out a sign with the drinks list for the theatre’s Showtime restaurant, a hangover from the days when the crowds surged through this place.

Founders Theatre is now “decidedly unkempt”, with a shabby exterior, weedy gardens and broken beer bottles about.

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Hamilton architect Aubrey de Lisle with the 1961 sketch outlining the Founders Theatre, which was completed a year later. This photo was published 14 November 1987.

No more. Poor old Founders, closed in 2016 due safety issues, is finally for the chop, its fate sealed this month by owners Hamilton City Council, in a 9-4 vote. In its current state, the building is a monument to neglect and to a lack of courage, commitment and investment by a succession of councils, with the current one finally pushing go on demolition. Consigning a vast pile of broken bones to wherever you bury or recycle a dead theatre.

This is not written to re-litigate Founders’ demise. Or as a plea to save it, there has already been significant work by Theatre of The Impossible Trust (TOTI) and a handful of councillors on this.

A ballet show at Founders Theatre didn’t enchant Denise Irvine’s young sons in the way she’d hoped (file photo).

It’s more that it’s simply hard to believe that it’s come to pass. It is a waste of a decent building, even if it does have some issues. I’d always thought that it could be modestly refurbished, that it could function as a useful adjunct to the new Waikato Regional Theatre, the splendid facility in the making on Victoria St. I’d envisaged there would be support for both. Clearly I was dreaming.

Founders began with so much community goodwill, and the Hamilton women and men who dug in their pockets 60 years ago to fund it were delighted with what they’d achieved.

The donors were recorded for posterity in a flash blue book entitled Founders of Hamilton Association, memorial volume of subscribers, 1962. The sums given were politely not noted. I was shown the book 10 years ago when I wrote a Waikato Times feature to mark Founders’ 50th anniversary. There are hundreds of names listed, many of them with descendants still in the city. Among them were my parents-in-law.

A new, riverside theatre is planned for downtown Hamilton, on the site of the old Hamilton Hotel.

Founders Theatre was opened, on November 17, 1962, by the late Dr Denis Rogers, then Hamilton mayor, and a strong backer of the project. It was the first theatre (for live performance) to be built in New Zealand for about 50 years.

Rogers said in a Waikato Times interview for its 25th anniversary that Founders was a significant achievement. “Till then, Hamilton was just a bloody cow town. It really marked a change. People began to think Hamilton had some sort of future.”

He said the theatre’s architect, Aubrey de Lisle, of city firm Leigh, de Lisle and Fraser, was “given an impossible brief that tried to satisfy everybody’s needs”. Rogers believed the result was “absolutely magnificent”.

My first experience of Founders was in the late 1960s, at a concert by Australian hit folk music group, The Seekers, with the golden voice of lead singer Judith Durham. The theatre was fresh and sparkling, the fan-shaped auditorium was considered innovative, and there was always a sense of occasion at Founders.

Not so much one night, when I ambitiously took my two young sons to a performance by the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company, to introduce them to the magic of dance. This was before the company bypassed Founders because of its inability to accommodate its more complex productions.

My boys didn’t feel the love; they were quickly bored and to demonstrate this they began kicking the backs of the seats in front of them. There were frosty glares from the occupants, two beautifully dressed and coiffed women. We went home at half time.

Such personal failures aside, Founders has hosted countless successful events in its long history. There have been international stars and shows, local stars and shows, politicians, orchestras, choirs, bands, magicians, boxers, ballets, Waikato University and Wintec graduations, Indian Diwali festivals, and much more.

Opera singer Malvina Major won the prestigious New Zealand Mobil Song Quest at the newly built Founders in 1963; the runner-up was her friend and fellow opera star Kiri Te Kanawa. The two young women – later Dame Malvina and Dame Kiri – played to a packed house and were clearly destined for bigger stages than Founders.

Looking to the future, I’m hoping the Waikato Regional Theatre will shine its lights on fresh talent, and generously host the big names and small events that are part of the Founders’ legacy. While I regret that there is no reprieve for the Tristram St theatre, I’m hugely impressed with the plans for the new riverside performing arts centre. It will be a bold and beautiful space.

There is some irony, though, in the recently launched (and deserving) Share the Stage campaign aimed at raising $5 million from the Waikato community towards the $80 million total cost. I can hear the echoes of the big public push for money for Founders in the early 1960s. And when the theatre opens, I’m betting that amid the accolades someone will spin Denis Rogers’ old line that Hamilton is no longer a bloody cow town.

One of the last events I went to at Founders was the Peppa Pig Live Treasure Hunt, in late 2014, with an excited little grand-daughter and her dad. The dad was one of the reluctant seat-kicking ballet-goers in his youth. At Peppa Pig, we were three generations enjoying a place that had entertained Waikato families for decades.

Thanks for the memories, Founders.