NEPTUNE THEATRE
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

The Neptune Theatre dates from 1962, but the original theatre building dates from 1915, and was designed as a vaudeville house by Andrew Cobb, Nova Scotia’s fi rst professionally trained architect. The Strand Theatre, as it was known, suffered a serious fire in 1926, was rebuilt and closed after the stock market crash in 1929. It reopened a year later as a cinema. and, after three decades, was acquired by the Neptune Theatre Foundation.

The inaugural season was in 1963, and Neptune Theatre soon acquired an excellent reputation throughout Canada, despite limitations of space and amenities resulting from a complex cobbled together from the original Strand Theatre and adjoining buildings. It became increasingly obvious to succeeding artistic directors that a new theatre complex was needed, including a second stage and a theatre school.

The designers faced numerous challenges, which included incorporating an existing heritage building, the Halifax City Club, the shell of the existing theatre, a site with frontages on three streets, with substantial differences of elevation and slopes, and a highly ambitious program which included the main theatre, a studio theatre, associated shared support spaces and administrative offices, two large rehearsal rooms and the Neptune Theatre School. The major strength of the design is the internal planning which deftly solves the complex problem of the relationships of the multitude of spaces and floor levels.