A view of the Waikato Regional Theatre site from the KPMG Building on Alexandra St the day before yesterday, Monday 19 August 2024. Note the roof is now on above the heritage façade, reestablishing the original pitched roofline of the Hamilton Hotel.
Kia Ora from the Theatre Manager
As you will have seen if you’ve been in Hamilton’s CBD lately, the construction of the Waikato Regional Theatre is progressing rapidly, with its overall shape and form steadily becoming apparent.
We now have the interior basically sketched out, and glass in the foyer’s gigantically tall windows, which are going to make it a truly stunning space with an awesome view of the river.
Attention is now turning to the ‘finishes’ – I was lucky enough to be in the room as experts debated exactly which shade of wood stain would be appropriate for the seats’ coverings, profile and battens.
One of the things that struck me during that conversation was the care being put into the details, each of which by themselves seem inconsequential, but seen together add up to the overall ‘feel’ of the auditorium and the other spaces.
For instance, one of the pieces of this puzzle is the balcony frontages – they are made from solid walnut and the craft involved is remarkable. A high level of expertise, of sincerity, of ‘weight’, permeates all the decisions made in the design of the Theatre.
As I declared in the recent Waikato Times story (see below), we are focused on the future. What this Theatre achieves in the first year is important, but what it does for our community, businesses and region over the next 60 years is what really inspires me, and I hope it does you too.
Naming a seat for late husband in Theatre built by nephew
VIEWING: Maggie Swain with her nephew David Middlemiss, the Theatre's Site Manager.
A wish to create a tribute to her late husband, combined with a direct family connection to the construction of the Waikato Regional Theatre, has led Maggie Swain to ‘Take a Seat’ in its auditorium, two of them in fact.
Dr David Swain, Maggie’s late husband, died last year. A respected long-time University of Waikato academic described as a lecturer who “made the drudgery of study fade away”, his life story was told in a touching Waikato Times obituary by Richard Swainson.
As Maggie explains, she wanted to honour both David and an inheritance he had received.
“David’s estate included a small legacy from his late aunt Dr Ruth Swain-Roberts who, for most of her life, was a medical missionary in Kalene in Zambia.
“I wanted to honour the memory of both of them, and when I saw Momentum’s ‘Take a Seat’ offer I thought making a donation to put their names on two seats in the new Theatre was the perfect way to do it.”
Maggie has been following the Theatre’s build with close interest because her nephew David Middlemiss is its Site Manager.
Waikato Times: What’s happening with the regional theatre? Our questions get some Sharp answers
By Mike Mather, Saturday 3 August 2024.
Waikato Regional Theatre general manager Gus Sharp says he is thrilled with progress on the construction of the new facility. Photo: Mark Jephson / WAIKATO TIMES.
Like some glorious, well-rehearsed production of the kind that will soon be staged within its walls, the Waikato Regional Theatre is coming together.
“Theatre watching” has, over the past few years, become an activity peculiar to the denizens of downtown Hamilton. The currently-mushrooming building is a unique spectacle: The literal transformation of the very heart of the city.
Among those watching most closely as the $80 million facility on Victoria St rapidly takes shape is Gus Sharp, the theatre’s general manager.
Sharp is a guiding hand for everything that is happening in the project led by Fosters Construction. The man with the plan.
A common question he is often asked is: When can we all make a circle in our calendars around a certain date to mark opening night?
‘Council of Six’ plotted Frankton mutiny at Hamilton Hotel
PLOTTERS: Hamilton Hotel as it appears in The Ruapehu Affair, a 1970s doco about the army furlough mutiny in 1943.
The Hamilton Hotel’s Victoria Street façade and many of its internal fittings are being preserved in the new Waikato Regional Theatre complex because it is a listed heritage building, a status bestowed in part because it has been the scene of some key moments and stories in the city’s history.
Some of those tales are told in the timeline mural along the site fence currently in front of the heritage façade, including “The Greatest Day in Hamilton History”, as it was then dubbed, when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip appeared on the Hotel’s balcony to greet the local crowd on her Coronation Tour in December 1953.
A little-known Hamilton Hotel story has recently been bought to our attention, in the form of a moment in a video on the NZ on Screen archival website – ‘The Ruapehu Affair’ from the ‘Encounter’ documentary series made by the newly launched TV2 in 1976.
The 45-minute film tells the story of the ‘mutiny’ by thousands of New Zealand troops who had returned to the country in 1943 from fighting in the Second World War in the Middle East. They were back for a temporary ‘furlough’, but after returning from three years of fighting, the battle-scarred soldiers became resentful of the men who had stayed home to work in vital industries, demanding that any such men who were capable should replace them on the ships back to the war, while plotting to refuse to return themselves regardless.
You can still 'Take a Seat' in the new Theatre!
You can still 'Take a Seat' in the new Waikato Regional Theatre.
Tangibly show your support for this exciting new performing arts centre being built in the South End of Hamilton’s CBD.
Donate $1500 to the Theatre, either in one go or over several scheduled payments, and you or your family’s name, or your business or group’s title, will be displayed on a seat in the auditorium.
To donate or just find out more, either visit sharethestage.co.nz/takeaseat or contact Momentum via momentumwaikato.nz/contact.