Playhouse Theatre

About this place

The Playhouse Theatre is at 31 Albany Street, Dunedin, and is the home of the Dunedin Repertory Society. It is a small proscenium theatre that operates both as a producing house and as a venue for hire by local and visiting companies and festival performances.

History

The building dates from 1876 and originally served as the Foresters' Lodge Hall. It was converted into a theatre in 1962 by William Menlove and Bernard Esquilant for the theatre company Southern Comedy Players. On opening, the converted lodge provided 100 seats, along with the "Stage Set" café and a craft exhibition space on the top floor.

Since the late 1960s the Playhouse has been home to the Dunedin Repertory Society, which regularly stages youth productions for children alongside its main programme.

The space

The auditorium currently has 129 available seats, excluding ushers' seats and seats with restricted views. Some listings quote a higher figure of 136, which appears to include those seats.

The theatre is a popular hire venue for local and visiting productions and for festival performances. Hire pricing is not published as a fixed tariff — rates are set for each individual hire based on what that hire requires — so organisers need to approach the theatre with their specific technical and staffing needs to obtain a quote.

Suitability for MICE

At roughly 130 seats, the Playhouse suits small conferences, seminars, AGMs, panel sessions, launches, screenings and award evenings, as well as its core performance use. The raked theatre format works well for presentation-led programmes but not for banquet or cabaret layouts, and catering would need to be arranged separately or hosted nearby. The Albany Street address sits between the central city and the University precinct, close to North Dunedin accommodation and to other Dunedin venues that could handle catering or breakouts. Its long theatrical history and 1876 building give it more character than a standard meeting room of similar size.