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Civic Theatre 267 Queen Street, Auckland NZ

Chips Healy leading the Civic Theatre Auckland Band on the Civic stage

The Wintergarden had its own separate band, The Civic Theatre Band, led by Chips Healy with Ossie Cheesman on piano. The shows as seen here in photographs give some sense of the high professionalism aimed for at the Civic, even if the dancers had to climb a steep ladder just to get to the stage – the Civic actually had a very small stage area as it was conceived primarily as a cinema.

On opening night the floorboards on the stage were being nailed down while people pounded on the door. One of the doors finally burst open and people walked in without paying. Money was thrown into the safe, not counted. Instead they mounted a wild party with so much champagne the carpet of the manager’s office became soaked. It was a fittingly riotous endnote for the roaring twenties.

Everything about the Civic Theatre was slightly slapdash, almost as if they knew they were running out of time. The stock market on Wall Street had already collapsed on 29 October 1929 - Notes Peter Wells

Contributed by Greg Lynch -