Almost seven years of fundraising and $580,000 later, the Otago Daily Times Theatre in Alexandra represents a ''heroic effort'' by the community, those at the official opening were told last night.
About 50 people gathered to celebrate the opening of the multipurpose theatre, which is part of the Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery complex. The former Pioneer Park sports pavilion was remodelled to create the new facility as a joint venture between Central Cinema, the Central Cultural Centre Trust and the Central Stories board.
The 40-seat theatre will be used for film screenings, lectures and music and drama performances.
Centre trust chairman Bert Kemp said there was a long list of people to thank who had helped along the way. It was a challenging exercise to convert a sport pavilion to a multipurpose theatre and demolition and reconstruction work had to be carried out next to a building housing art and artefacts, he said.
Museum board chairman Malcolm Macpherson said it was a heroic enterprise. Fundraising was ''relatively easy'' for health and social welfare projects, but it was harder to raise funds for projects like the theatre.
''No-one dies through the lack of a theatre,'' he said. The facility would transform the social life of the wider community and it was another tool to use to ''tell the stories'' of the district.''
The Otago Daily Times is one of the businesses that have provided sponsorship and managing director Sir Julian Smith said the company received loyal support from Central Otago, so it wanted to return the favour by investing in projects such as this, which would benefit the community.
The newspaper had historic links to the district and in the early gold-mining days, it probably took two or three days to deliver the paper to the district, using pack horses, he said.
''Now it takes two or three hours, hopefully, but the essence of the paper hasn't changed since those days.''
Vincent Community Board chairwoman Clair Higginson said the theatre was the culmination of a heroic effort by a lot of different people.
''It's awesome we've finally got this thing we've been dreaming of for such a long time.''
Central Cinema chairwoman Karin Bowen said the multipurpose theatre was a far better idea than the boutique cinema originally planned.
''And we all know good things take time ... cheese, wine and theatre developments.''
