Theatre and trust celebrate their decades

Ask Kevin Moseley about performing arts in Marlborough or the centre that showcases them, and you’ll need to pull up a chair. Has he got stories to tell!

The longtime chair of the Marlborough Civic Theatre Trust and a longer-time musician in Blenheim, Kevin has had the best seat in the house – technically, houses plural – for milestone achievements from 1966 onward.

He played for the Blenheim Municipal Band (now the Marlborough District Brass Band) and the Operatic Society (now the trust) in the final years of His Majesty’s Theatre. He took the stage at its successor, the Floor Pride Civic Theatre. When that venue gave way to ASB Theatre (now Whitehaven Theatre), he had a hand in each step along the way.

On 22 March 2016, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa officially opened the venue with a concert which opera lovers still remember and Kevin rhapsodises in vivid detail.

On 29 May 2026, a show titled Curtain Up! – sold out since last week – celebrates 10 years of the theatre and 50 years of the trust.

“By the time we got to opening day of this theatre,” Kevin recalled, seated on a lobby chair, “we were all pretty exhausted, and a bit battered and bruised – and also, we had no money because every penny we had as trust had gone into this building.

“So, we never really thanked all the people responsible for making this happen. So, the concert on the 29th is really a thank you to all who helped make it happen and all the performing arts people who have used it.”

Building to purpose
The 444-seat Civic Theatre served Marlborough for three decades, though it wasn’t ideal, as contractors had retrofitted the old Farmers building to create an arts house.

Toward the end of its run, Kevin said, the trust had to mitigate health and safety issues such roof leaks dripping fetid water into the performance area. Backstage lacked ample space for large local troupes – Kevin retold seeing 300 kids forced to mill around a car park, sometimes in pouring rain and sometimes in pitch dark, during their shows.

A feasibility study indicated the trust would spend $9 million to bring Civic Theatre “up to standard” and $12 million for a new, purpose-built facility. Long story short, the riverside venue next to Marlborough Events Centre cost $27 million … “but if we tried to build it today,” Kevin said, “it would be at least $80 million.”

Whitehaven Theatre seats 700 and can accommodate towering set pieces, as it did this month for Blenheim Musical Theatre’s production of “Matilda” with nationally procured staging for a cast and crew of 160.

Joseph Casalme, the trust’s CEO since 2022, appreciates how the organisation “has done a fantastic job in rallying the community and working with Marlborough District Council” to create “one of the best, if not the best, recently built theatres in regional New Zealand – full stop.”

“Curtain Up!”
Where: Whitehaven Theatre
When: 29 May, 7:30pm
Box office: 03 520 8558