St. James Theatre (Wellington)
Encyclopedia
The St. James Theatre, (shortened to "St. James" by locals) is a stage theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 located in the heart of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's capital city, Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

. The present theatre was designed in 1912 by Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n theatre designer Henry Eli White. The theatre currently faces on to Courtenay Place
Courtenay Place, Wellington
Courtenay Place is the main street of the Courtenay Quarter in the Wellington, New Zealand inner-city district of Te Aro.Courtenay Place is known for its entertainment and nightlife. Many restaurants are open late and most of the bars stay open until dawn...

, the main street of Wellington's entertainment district, opposite the Reading Cinema complex. The building is number 83.

The building is classified as a "Category I" ("places of special or outstanding historical or cultural heritage significance or value") historic place by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust
New Zealand Historic Places Trust
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust is a non-profit trust that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage buildings in New Zealand...

.

History

The St. James has had a long history, with its success in its early years, a near demolition in the 1980s and to its return to the city's cultural light in the late 1990s.

The theatre's land had been used as a church and volunteer hall prior to it being bought by the famous entertainer John Fuller
John Fuller
John Fuller may refer to:* John Fuller , Master of Jesus College, Cambridge* John Fuller , British Member of Parliament for Sussex, 1713–1715...

 on 23 December 1899. The St. James was made famous by Fuller, who had also built over 60 other theatres in New Zealand. He revamped the hall in 1903 and named it "His Majesty's Theatre", or nicknamed "Fuller's". During its use, the hall was host to pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

s and a Cleopatra act, which involved the first and last import of snakes into New Zealand. However, opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 of any kind was seldom allowed by Fuller, who usually directed any opera show to Wellington's Opera House
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...

 down the road. Fuller used the old hall until November 1911, when it was eventually declared a fire hazard and demolished.

After this demolition, Fuller vowed the new theatre he was going to build would be the best in New Zealand. Fuller enlisted the help of Henry Eli White, who had already designed other theatres around the country for Fuller. White, fresh from building theatres in Timaru
Timaru
TimaruUrban AreaPopulation:27,200Extent:Former Timaru City CouncilTerritorial AuthorityName:Timaru District CouncilPopulation:42,867 Land area:2,736.54 km² Mayor:Janie AnnearWebsite:...

 and Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, set out to plan the St. James. The St. James was the first entirely steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 frame and reinforced concrete theatre in the world and plans made sure over 650 people could escape the auditorium in the event of a fire. Pillars in the auditorium were also kept at a minimum to allow perfect viewing, and seating was arranged in the arc of a circle to view the stage. The St. James was then adorned with marble pieces, carved face masks and cherubs to be placed on the ceiling and coloured glass. The plaster work was made by William Leslie Morrison, who reinforced the lime plaster with cow hair. Morrison used his grandson as a model for the plaster cherubs and modelled the full figured seen near the stage after Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

 and Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

. The wooden floors of the St. James were made of rimu
Rimu
Rimu can mean the following:*Dacrydium cupressinum, also rimu, a tree endemic to New Zealand*Rimu, Southland, a locality in Southland, New Zealand*Rimu, West Coast, a locality in the West Coast region of New Zealand...

 and jarrah
Jarrah
Eucalyptus marginata is one of the most common species of Eucalyptus tree in the southwest of Western Australia. The tree and the wood are usually referred to by the Aboriginal name Jarrah...

, along with totara for window frames and deal
Deal
Deal may refer to:Places* Deal, Kent, a town in Kent, England* Deal, New Jersey, a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States* Deal Island * Deal, a village in Câlnic Commune, Alba County, RomaniaAs a surname...

for doors. After the plans had been set, construction began on the theatre in March 1912. To speed progress, White himself designed two electric cranes to lift the in excess of 500 tonnes of steel. In all, the St. James cost £32,000 to build and took 9 months to build.

The theatre officially opened 8pm on Boxing Day, 1912 by the Wellington Mayor, David McLaren. During the new theatre's first months, it was used primarily to play silent movies. The St. James was changed nine months later to present live performances. However in 1930, after 17 years, it was again converted back to playing both movies and occasional live performances. This was after the St. James's life long opposition, the Opera House
Opera House (Wellington)
The Opera House is a proscenium theatre in Wellington, New Zealand located on Manners Street opposite Te Aro Park. William Pitt, the architect, was based in Melbourne, Australia, and much of the work was overseen by local architect Albert Liddy....

, began screening movies. After this change to the "talking films" or "flicks", on 3 May 1930, His Majesty's was closed and reopened as the St. James Theatre. Over the years, the St. James was slowly brought back to showing live performances. Many shows were performed at the venue; everything from Shakespeare, to minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...

 acts to ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

. After Fuller died, the St. James passed through numerous owners.

Decline and restoration

After its enormous success over the past decades, in the 1970s, the St. James fell into decline and was effectively closed down. Shows began performing at the Opera House and newer venues such as the Michael Fowler Centre
Michael Fowler Centre
The Michael Fowler Centre is a concert hall and convention centre in Wellington, New Zealand. It was constructed on reclaimed land next to Civic Square, and is the pre-eminent concert site in central Wellington....

, Downstage and the restored town hall. Rumours of ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

s haunting upper seat levels didn't help the theatre's reputation either and soon the theatre was forgotten. On 7 May 1987, the St. James played its last movie, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive
Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987 film)
Wanted: Dead or Alive is a 1987 film directed by Gary Sherman and starring Rutger Hauer as Nick Randall, the descendant of the character Josh Randall, played by Steve McQueen in the 1958 television series of the same name....

', to a small group. The site was then declared unpractical and was abandoned.

The theatre was nearly demolished in the 1980s and '90s after the owners placed a destruction order on the plot. However, due to the efforts of an objecting group, the St. James was eventually spared and restored to its former glory. The alarm had been risen after a photographer, Grant Sheehan, was told by the theatre's curator that the St. James was set to be demolished by the Chase Corporation
Chase Corporation
Chase Corporation was a property development company in New Zealand that flourished in the 1980s, became devalued in the 1987 New Zealand stock market collapse, and is now defunct.-History:...

. For nearly a decade, a wrecking ball sat poised above the theatre, but it was never used after the owners were finally persuaded to save the property. The company looking to build on the site, Chase, were still angered by the result, so a trade off was made by the committee vouching for the St. James; Chase would be allowed to build a tower in Wellington exceeding current height restrictions if the committee could save the theatre. The offer was highly contested, with some companies near the new tower protesting at its aimed size. The Opera House objected to the St. James's restoration, saying that the city would not be able to sustain two theatres.

In any case, the council rejected the committee's proposal to allow Chase to build higher. Chase retaliated and immediately asked the council for a demolition permit. However, the council slowed progress on getting the report so the Historic Places Trust could add the St. James to its list. The plan succeeded and a limited protection order was placed over the St. James. Now Chase could only demolish the site with consent from the Trust. Knowing that the protection order would only last for a limited time (in fact only until 31 March 1988), there was a frantic rush to get Chase to sell the building to the council so they could restore it. Fundraising events were commonplace during this time, most asking for donations towards the "Save the St. James fund". Eventually, after hard negotiations the plan to sell and restore the theatre went ahead, due to the theatre's good aspects and proximity to the city's hot-spots. Due to the increasing amount of theatre-going public, the Opera House would not be able to support the demand, especially when the Wellington Festival of the Arts arrived. The council finally agreed to allow Chase to plan its tower in Willis Street in return for $7 million to refurbish the theatre; the other option that was not taken was for the government to raise $18 million to purchase and restore the building.

However, once again bad luck fell upon the deal, when the financial crash of 1987 struck most companies in New Zealand, including Chase. The building and deal was abandoned once again and time passed with no results. Chase hadn't secured a tenant for its new tower and the council began to doubt whether it should spend millions on a single theatre. After the finish line for the protection order over the St. James ended, Chase gave their word that the theatre would not be demolished. Eventually, Chase went into liquidation and all its properties were put up for sale. The St. James was put on the market for $7 million, double what Chase had paid for it. The council declined and over the months, the price fell dramatically as Chase saw an absence of offers. The price fell to below what even Chase had paid for the theatre.

The council still declined and a massive campaign to save the theatre arose. Eventually on 22 September 1993, the council sought to buy the property and succeeded with their offer of $550,000. The council handed the St. James over to a new St. James Theatre Charitable Trust. Soon it was booked out and live performances were shown frequently. An $18.5 million restoration plan was set out in 1995. However, this was considered worth the risk, as it was estimated the theatre would bring over $3.6 million into the local economy. In 1996, the council gave a $10.7 million contribution towards the restoration plan, in addition to $2.4 million from a Wellington Community Trust grant, $3.5 million from the Lottery Board and over $1 million in donation from the public. The total of around $17.7 million allowed the St. James Trust to confirm they would start restoring the theatre.

Current situation

Restoration work finished in late 1997. Most of the theatre's aspects were modified, including the addition of "The Jimmy" a café on the theatre's ground floor. "The Jimmy" was the nickname given to the St. James Theatre by technicians, thus the name was utilised. The St. James currently holds many shows and a large portion of the New Zealand International Arts Festival. The building also hosts the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Art shows are often held on its second floor, as well as conferences. The theatre was also fitted with an orchestra pit, which is located many stories below the stage's level. The bank operating in Australia and New Zealand, Westpac until 2007 held the naming rights to St. James, as well as other stadiums, including the Westpac Stadium
Westpac Stadium
Westpac Stadium, is a major sporting venue in Wellington, New Zealand. Due to its shape and silver coloured external walls, it is colloquially known as The Cake-Tin to the locals and other New Zealanders...

, also in Wellington.
A face-lift of the facade in 2007 included removing the Westpac name from the Brickwork frontage.

Paranormal happenings

There have been numerous reports of several spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

s or ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

s in the St. James Theatre. One of the most seen ghosts is that of Yuri, a Russian performer who supposedly fell to his death from the flies several metres above the stage. Another account, more widely accepted, says he was pushed by a female named Pasha, also a Russian performer. Yuri has been encountered playing with the lights, especially turning them all back on again once cleaners have left for the night. One projectionist says Yuri saved his life twice. While on stage, the lights went out in the auditorium. While searching for the light switch, he was pushed backwards by what he believed was Yuri. The lights turned back on and the projectionist realised he was only inches from the orchestra pit and if he had not been pushed back, would have fallen in. The second time he says Yuri saved him was when he was on stage with his infant son. He suddenly heard a beam collapse above him. The projectionist insists he was pushed back by Yuri and that his son was "carried" through the air for about 3 metres.

Other than Yuri, many other ghosts have been reported in the theatre. The "Wailing Woman" is a frequent apparition who is said to wail throughout the theatre. According to accounts, she was an actress trying to make a comeback. However, she was booed off stage. She later slit her wrists, either at home or in her dressing room. She is also said to be the cause of many of the odd occurrences surrounding lead actresses in plays performed at the St. James; many actresses performing on stage have sprained their ankle, one fell from a ladder, one suddenly caught a cold and was hoarse for her opera part.

Another ghost is that of Stan Andrews. He is often heard wheezing around the backstage corridors at night, checking on his ushers. Also, a boy's choir is said to haunt the auditorium. The choir played their last song at the St. James during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 before sailing off on tour. Their ship was never seen again and workers at the theatre often hear their music in the stands. However, when they investigate the sound, it moves to a separate part of the seats.

The reason why there is so much paranormal activity at the theatre is disputed, although there have been claims that the old choral hall was built on a cemetery or burial ground. This claim however, has never been proved. The paranormal activity of the St. James was investigated in 2005 on the New Zealand television show Ghost Hunt. The three investigators captured paranormal photographs and numerous orbs
Orb (paranormal)
The term orb describes unexpected, typically circular artifacts that occur in flash photography — sometimes with trails indicating motion — especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras....

inside the building and the elevator used suddenly began to malfunction which is a common among workers moving instruments from the orchestra pit to the loading bay. The programme also featured other haunted locations around New Zealand.

External links

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