Regent to fill gap left by Playhouse
ARTS Festival Dunedin has again had to scramble to find a new venue after a theatre that offered its space could not be used for a production.
The festival will use the stage of the Regent Theatre for both a comedy show and its audience, after the Playhouse Theatre became unavailable for the show.
Festival director Nicholas McBryde has again raised the issue of a lack of theatre space in the city after the demise of the Fortune Theatre.
But the Playhouse says it is still operating and its building is safe.
The problem lay in a need to strip abovestage rigging that was going to be replaced, meaning it was not suitable for the festival show.
Mr McBryde said comedy show My Best Dead Friend was to have been held at the Playhouse Theatre.
The Playhouse had ‘‘moved heaven and earth’’ to help after the Fortune building could not be used.
But recently he had been told technical or building challenges meant that could not happen.
The festival had to find somewhere else for the show ‘‘in a scramble’’.
‘It’s just part of the fabric of the city as far as venues is concerned.’’
Mr McBryde has said finding venues had been a major issue this year, and the festival had struggled after the closure of the Fortune.
Dunedin was crying out for more theatre space, and needed ‘‘proactive policy or investment’’.
The festival had managed to come up with a space at the Regent Theatre, using the stage for both the show and the audience for ‘‘an intimate little piece’’.
Jemma Adams, vicepresident of the Dunedin Repertory Society that owns the Playhouse Theatre, said coincidental to the festival’s use of the theatre, the society had been looking at the rigging above the stage.
It had made a decision to replace all the ropes and cables and pulleys that held features like curtains and lights.
It had decided to go ahead with that, and had been waiting for an engineer’s report on whether the roof could hold the weight of the equipment.
The report had come back and confirmed it could, but the society’s plans to take down the existing rigging had been ‘‘sped up by the report’’.
There was no issue with the building, and it was not closed, but the society had to go back to Mr McBryde to say it would no longer meet the festival’s technical requirements, as lights and curtains could not be hung.
‘‘We would have loved to have had them, we really would have.’’
A children’s theatre event the week after the festival’s planned dates would still go ahead, and other hirers who did not need the rigging could still also use it.
Ms Adams said she expected the society would have to raise funds to replace the gear.