‘The best theatre space in Aotearoa’ - Court Theatre launches new era
Wednesday, 25 September 2024
The doors of the long-awaited new Court Theatre building, heralded as “the best theatre space in Aotearoa” will open next year on May 3.
At a celebratory event to announce the 2025 season of shows for New Zealand’s biggest theatre company, executive director Gretchen La Roche confirmed for the first time when their $56 million Gloucester St home would welcome audience members.
The play chosen to launch a new era for the company - which has spent 13 years at its temporary Addington home, The Shed, is the Kiwi classic - Bruce Mason’s The End of Golden Weather.
Adapted by Raymond Hawthorne and directed by Court Theatre favourite Lara Macgregor, artistic director Alison Walls said the choice “had to be something meaningful”.
Mason’s work “is perhaps the first Aotearoa theatre classic,” she said.
Macgregor, who attended the launch event at the Tūranga library, directly opposite the company’s new home, said the play, with it’s “sense of home, a sense of summer, a sense of coming of age” was an apt choice.
“I do feel honored,” Macgregor added of her role as inaugural director.
“It's a real privilege, but you know also emotionally and sentimentally, because I've been part of the Court Theatre for 15 years or more.”
An offering from the classics will also feature, with a reworked version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night making up part of the Court’s new Signature Series - productions on the large stage of the 379-seat Stewart Family Theatre.
Other highlights from the Signature Series included an adaptation of the hit film The King’s Speech in August, and an offering for youngsters - The SpongeBob Musical: Youth Edition - taking to the stage in September.
Tim Bain, associate artistic director at The Court, revealed The Stewart Family Theatre will round off the year with Dolly Parton’s 9-5 musical.
“We're not going to break from tradition,” Bain said, “We're doing a musical. We're going big. The woman said the bigger the hair the closer to God.”
A separate and complimentary programme of work - the City Series - will take place in the smaller 120-150 seat theatre - named The Front Room, with a range of plays from both New Zealand and international authors and smaller cast sizes.
Victor Rodger’s provocatively titled Black Faggot and Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play will be included.
Court Theatre artistic adviser and lead director Ross Gumbley - who had also overseen the development of the company’s new building - will return to the boards to play retired cow-cockie Dickie Hart in Sir Roger Hall’s End of Summer Time.
Speaking in a video message during the launch, Gumbley said, “If you’re going to put on a play, why wouldn’t you put it on in the best theatre space in Aotearoa?
“Because that’s what the new Court Theatre will be.”
Walls said she had chosen works that honoured the Court’s legacy as a professional, producing company, “works that we trust our long-standing audiences will appreciate, as well as those that will speak to and foster the next generation of theatre-lovers”.
The popular Court Jesters will “be given their own space in our new building,” Bain confirmed, in The Front Room theatre.
Executive director Gretchen La Roche told those gathered in the library’s TSB space, “one of the greatest things you can do for us is to tell everybody about the wonderful things we've got in store for next year”.
Once open, about 2700 people per week - including audience members, theatre professionals, and emerging talent - are expected to make use of its facilities.
The new building also features a glass-fronted rehearsal room, giving passers-by the opportunity to watch performers working on plays and musicals.
La Roche told The Press the company had signed a lease for its Addington base until 2026, but would potentially look to “sub-lease” it.
She also acknowledged previous Court Theatre chief executive Philip Aldridge, “for having that vision to establish The Court Theatre in The Shed”.