Civic Theatre

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Uploaded on: April 26, 2025

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Photo - Civic Theatre show, Arabian theme

It was only a matter of time that the mismatch between the scale of the Civic and the population (2,750 seats in a city of less than 200,000) became obvious. Large parts of the theatre sat empty and very quickly the enormous stage productions finished. The man behind the building of the Civic, Thomas O’Brien, went bankrupt 10 months after the sensational, chaotic opening.

The six stage settings you see here are the record of the complete number of productions ever put on at this most ambitious moment in the life of the Civic. The sunrise was swift, brilliant, and then went into complete eclipse.

Yet the fact an enormous cinema complete with its own cabaret had been built in Auckland gave the Civic a half-life until it came alive again, spectacularly, with the arrival of American troops in 1943. Suddenly the Civic had an inbuilt audience hungry for entertainment. The Civic became “Warner Brothers’ Showcase of the Pacific” and the Wintergarden became a hugely popular cabaret with American servicemen and their New Zealand dates.

There was a saucy corps de ballet including the scandalous semi-naked Freda Stark, along with a lively band. Reg Maddams became musical director at the Civic and was allegedly the highest paid musician in New Zealand at the time. It was also at this time that American music legend Artie Shaw played twice at the Wintergarden - Notes Peter Wells

Contributed by Greg Lynch -