Fortune Theatre

The Fortune Theatre company was co-founded by David Carnegie, Alex Gilchrist, Murray Hutchinson and Huntly Elliot in 1973. The company was initially located in the 105-seat Otago Cine Club theatrette at the rear of the Athenaeum building in the Octagon. However, after hiring full-time acting staff in 1977, it was decided that the venue was too small to continue to be viable and in 1978 the company moved to the former Trinity Methodist Church where it remained until its closure in 2018. This provided room for two auditoria, Upstairs initially seating 230, and the Downstairs Studio opened in 1979 initially seating 120. Following a fire in late 1979 the Company moved for two months to the Playhouse (originally the home of the Fortune's predecessors as a Dunedin-based professional repertory theatre company, the Southern [Comedy] Players / Southern Theatre Trust). For some years in the 1990s the Company also leased the Manhattan night club as an occasional third performance space and from time to time it also presented productions at the Regent and Mayfair Theatres, Allen Hall Theatre on the University of Otago campus, and the Dunedin College of Education's auditorium. From 1976 onwards it aimed to make an annual tour of Otago and Southland regional centres and in the late 1970s and also mid-1980s made schools' tours in those regions.

Productions by year

In 2006 Geraldine Brophy, who had acted at the Fortune in Tony Taylor's 1984 company, directed the world premiere of her play The Paradise Package.

The 2007 Fortune season included a co-production with the Wellington-based company, the Bacchanals, of Shakespeare's King Lear. The production was to have featured famous English actor Edward Petherbridge in the title role but he became ill shortly after arriving in New Zealand for rehearsals and had to withdraw. The title role was then taken at short notice by Mick Rose. The 2007 season also saw the New Zealand premiere of Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House.

In 2009 the Fortune staged its most successful ever single season of a play. This was Roger Hall's hit, Four Flat Whites in Italy, which was seen by 6,606 spectators in its month-long season (around 7% of Dunedin's permanent resident population).

The 2010 season included the New Zealand premiere of Marc Camoletti's farce, Ding Dong. The Fortune also staged a revival of Camoletti's best-known piece, Boeing Boeing, in 2013.