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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 13. October 4, 1951

Am Odified Lecture-Room

Am Odified Lecture-Room

No authority was ever given to V.U.C. or W.T.C. for the provision of a theatre. But it was agreed that the largest lecture-room in the new building (whose ground-plan could not be altered) should be equipped with a stage, and something was done to provide a basement workshop and dressing-rooms. It must be obvious to anyone who explores from U 1 that, for a relatively small additional cost, a genuine little theatre might have been obtained, with adequate stage height and wings with a raked auditorium. But the plans and those who must approve them said firmly, lecture room.

This is the simple explanation of most of the theatrical inconsistencies of our Little Theatre—it even accounts for those substantial plywood screens (which, I believe, few students have ever seen in their proper place) intended to make a sound-board behind the solitary lecturer on the stage, and to keep the draught—often formidable enough—off his neck. It accounts for the elaborate cyclorama and switchboard, and the inadequacy of almost everything else. Yet thin very inadequacy should be a challenge.