Brett Carter and Raewyn Greig bring smaller touring professional acts to New Plymouth. Photo / RNZ / Robin Martin
After raising its curtain for the first time a decade ago, the 4th Wall Theatre in New Plymouth has gone from touting for business to hosting luminaries of the stage and screen, and an array of international touring musicians.
Michael Hurst - of Hercules fame - has tread the boards at the converted church and this month 80s hit-maker with the Commotions, Lloyd Cole, brought his solo show to the venue for a second time.
Brett Carter and Raewyn Greig spent about $1 million buying the former Park City Church in Strandon in 2011 and turning it into a cabaret-style venue with a cosy capacity of just 130.
Greig said the couple - who had a theatre and musical background - felt there was a market for an intimate venue for smaller, touring professional acts which often bypassed New Plymouth.
“It was always going to be both, right from the beginning. We had that planned when we set this design up because you could see it could be used for both and because there’s enough rep theatre here in New Plymouth now, but touring theatre was what we were after and touring music.”
She said only about 18 months after the curtain went up for the first time in 2013, promoters began calling wanting their acts to appear at the 4th Wall - which is named after a theatre term for the invisible barrier between the performers and the audience.
Greig said for many musicians, playing the theatre was a unique experience.
“We’re very different from the pubs because people who come in here and play, if they’ve been playing in pubs, are used to people getting up and moving around. This is a captive audience in this room. They don’t get up and wander around; they stay and this is a thing that the artists appreciate.”
It was a point Carter reinforced.
“Our difference is that we are a theatre with a bar, not a bar with a stage, so the emphasis for us is the acts on stage. We’ve put a lot of money into the tech, so it’s basically walk in and everything is there, play and walk out.”
Carter said it was also handy that New Plymouth was roughly halfway between Auckland and Wellington.
He said of the musicians who had appeared at the venue, American blues artist Kelly Joe Phelps - who had just prior played a stadium gig overseas - stood out.
“He’d jumped on a plane, flown here and then played in front of 130 people at our theatre and I was chatting to him afterwards and I said ‘Well this was obviously a big change from your last show’ and he was raving about it.
“He said he loved the intimate venue and he was watching people and watching people’s expressions and he said he just couldn’t do that in a big venue and it was magic, so he had a ball.”
UK artist Lloyd Cole - who won fame in the 80s for singles such as Rattlesnakes, Perfect Skin and Brand New Friend - was a fan too.
“I would say this is quite quirky as a husband and wife team, but they’ve done a great job. It feels like a proper cabaret and once the show is going the lighting is beautiful, and the atmosphere is lovely.
“Yeah, it’s small but sometimes intimate is a nice break from, you know, the bigger shows.”
Now in his 60s and domiciled in the US, he was returning to the 4th Wall for a second time, playing back-to-back sold out shows to wrap up his New Zealand tour.
It helped that on his previous visit to New Plymouth the city was living up to its Lifestyle Capital marketing pitch.
“I had probably the most fun day off I’ve ever had here last time. It was just beautiful weather and I rented a bicycle and cycled along the ocean, played golf in the afternoon and had lovely food in the evening. It’s a lovely little town.”
Cole thought it was critical for artists to get out to regional venues.
“I think it’s important that these places exist not only in New Zealand but around the world because if the culture is only in the big cities then the backwaters, the back woods, they’re not going to breed more culture. They’re just going to fall into a sort of malaise, so it’s very important that it is everywhere.”
As if to illustrate the venue’s versatility, next up at the 4th Wall Theatre is a pre-Christmas run of New Zealand playwright Carl Nixon’s slap-stick adaptation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.