Regent Theatre

The Regent Theatre opened in 1928. Built under the guidance of supervising architect James Hodge White in the revival-Baroque style, it was a 1,845-seat cinema with its own 18-piece orchestra to accompany the original silent movie screenings.  Sound facilities were installed in 1929 and Cinema-Scope in 1955. The Regent operated as a cinema until 1968, for most of that time as part of the Kerridge-Odeon chain of nationwide cinemas.

In the '60's, when Kerridge-Odeon opened a smaller cinema for its main screenings, and with the advent of television, the Regent started to decline as a cinema and closed in 1972.

His Majesty's and the Otago Theatre Trust began fundraising to purchase the Regent in 1972 and then gifted ownership of the building to the Dunedin City Council in 1979. The theatre was refurbished under the management of the Trust during 1980-1981, who enlarged the stage and added state-of-the-art projection equipment.