Circa Theatre

Wellington’s professional live theatre, Circa, was started in1976 by a group of actors and theatre practitioners. The venue hosts two stages - Circa One and Circa Two - as well as an on-site restaurant/café that caters for pre-theatre dining and post-show coffee and desserts.

The successful and long-lived theatre is run through a co-operative system. Every play at Circa is run by a Single Venture Partnership of actors, the director, designers and other theatre personnel. This way of operating has been influential in keeping theatre alive in New Zealand. Circa Council programmes each annual season and administers the building, Box Office, and finances on behalf of each Co-operative. The theatre is supported by TACT, Theatre Artists Charitable Trust, established in 1987 to assist the financial feasibility of keeping a full-time, six day a week theatre in operation.

Founded with the assistance of others who worked outside of theatre, the original group created a pared-back theatre space in the previous Ilott advertising building. In November 1994 Circa moved to its new home next door to Te Papa.

The doubtful virtues of facadism are well illustrated in this building. "The front of Westport Chambers on the opposite corner was moved across the road to serve as to the entrance of this theatre, the style of which is mainly inspired by one of the theatre's previous homes, the Star boating Club." Westport Chambers had been the office of the Westport Coal Company a big exporter within the British Empire.

On a plaque outside the theatre as part of the writers' walk you will find inscribed words by Bruce Mason, one of New Zealand’s foremost post-World War Two playwrights: “I ask not only that my city, but all, give themselves to the essence of our cult – the ritual assembly of an interested coterie in a space where magic can be made and miracles occur”.