👻 HAUNTED PLACE · EXP. Nº9475
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St. James Theatre, Wellington
St. James Theatre, Wellington is a location reputed to be haunted in Wellington, NZ. Its reputation comes from reported apparitions, unexplained phenomena and eyewitness accounts gathered over time.
Where is St. James Theatre, Wellington?
- Location
- Wellington, NZ
- Type
- Theater
- Coordinates
- -41.293, 174.78
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
Why is St. James Theatre, Wellington said to be haunted?
Wellington's St James opened on Boxing Day 1912 as His Majesty's Theatre, built in nine months for the vaudeville firm John Fuller and Sons to a steel-framed design by Henry Eli White, and seating 2,300. Everyone who tells the ghost story tells the same one: Yuri, a Russian dancer who fell from the flies above the stage, or who was pushed there by a fellow performer named Pasha. What he is credited with is small and domestic — switching the house lights back on after the cleaners have gone, swinging doors open, and twice shoving a projectionist out of harm's way. Three other ghosts share the building: a Wailing Woman said to be an actress booed off the stage, a former manager named Stan Andrews, and a boys' choir lost at sea. No recorded death matches any of them. In the theatre's whole working life the Wellington press never once calls it haunted, and the oldest printed account anyone cites is from 1998, the year after the ruined house reopened. The owner is the city council, which publishes the stories and sells the tour.
What is the history of St. James Theatre, Wellington?
A smaller theatre had stood on this stretch of Courtenay Place since the late 1870s. What replaced it in 1912 was, for a while, the largest theatre in New Zealand.
It was built for Messrs John Fuller and Sons, the vaudeville and variety firm whose bills ran to slapstick comedians, balladeers, jugglers, acrobats, tumblers and dancers, and it opened under the name His Majesty's Theatre — or, to Wellingtonians, simply "Fullers". The architect was Henry Eli White (1876–1952), son of a Dunedin building contractor, who had learned bricklaying, plumbing, carpentry, joinery and painting before teaching himself theatre design at art-school night classes. He went on to design more than 130 theatres across Australasia, ending with the State Theatre in Sydney. His own rule for the job had three clauses, and he wrote them down: "…a clear vision line from every seat; perfect acoustics; and a scheme of ventilation that will ventilate."
At the St James he abandoned the deep horseshoe then in fashion and gave the circle and grand circle a shallow curve, which brought a large audience closer to the stage. The frame was steel, fireproofed with concrete and brickwork; Wellington City Council's heritage assessment records the belief — stated as a belief, not a fact — that this was the first theatre in the world built that way and the first fully steel-framed reinforced concrete building in Australasia. It took nine months and £32,000, and it seated 2,300.
The opening was fixed for Boxing Day. Two days before, the Dominion told readers that "Messrs. Fuller's fine new theatre in Courtenay Place will be one of the principal attractions in the city on the evening of Boxing Day", that the doors would open at 6.45 p.m., and that a few minutes before eight the Mayor, D. McLaren, would formally declare it open. The principal item on the bill was "Sweet Nell of Old Drury", with Nellie Stewart in the lead.
For its first nine months the house ran mainly on silent films; from 1913 to 1930 it was predominantly a vaudeville theatre. In 1926 three floors of offices for John Fuller and Sons were built into the top of the eastern end of the fly tower, to designs by S and A Luttrell of Christchurch — permit issued 8 September 1926, builder William Husband. In 1930 the theatre closed to be rewired for sound and reopened almost immediately under a new name, the St James, with Warner Brothers' The Gold Diggers of Broadway.
Ownership passed to the Kerridge Rank Corporation in 1942, then, as Kerridge Odeon, to the Chase Corporation in 1986. The last film screened on 7 May 1987 — Wanted: Dead or Alive — and the building went dark. What followed was one of New Zealand's largest heritage battles, with the owner seeking demolition consent for a tower and the city, the Historic Places Trust and the public resisting. Wellington City Council bought the theatre in 1993, an $18.5 million restoration plan was set out in 1995, and the restored house reopened in 1997. In 2000 it was strengthened to 100 per cent of the building code of the day.
That was not the end of it. In 2015 the St James was found to be earthquake-prone. Strengthening to a minimum of 67 per cent of the New Building Standard began in April 2019 and the theatre stayed shut for three years; the work, led by Maycroft Construction, came to $42 million all told. It reopened on 23 June 2022 with TEEKS and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and a public open day followed on 2 July.
Timeline: the documented record of St. James Theatre, Wellington
- 24 December 1912 The Dominion announces that Messrs Fuller's new theatre in Courtenay Place will open on Boxing Day night, that the doors will open at 6.45 p.m., that the Mayor D. McLaren will declare it open a few minutes before eight, and that it will seat "no fewer than 2300 people". The opening bill is "Sweet Nell of Old Drury" with Nellie Stewart.
- 8 September 1926 A building permit is issued for three floors of offices for John Fuller and Sons inside the top of the eastern end of the fly tower, designed by S and A Luttrell of Christchurch, built by William Husband.
- 1930 The theatre closes to be rewired for sound and reopens almost immediately as the St James. The change of name can be watched happening in the Evening Post: "St. James Theatre" alongside "Courtenay Place" gives 0 hits in 1926–28, 1 in 1929, 138 in 1930 and 233 in 1931, while "His Majesty's Theatre" with the same phrase runs 27, 53 and 39 in 1928–30 and drops to 0 from 1931.
- 1942 Ownership passes from John Fuller and Sons to the Kerridge Rank Corporation, which hosts touring revues, dance troupes and theatre companies through the 1950s and 1960s.
- 27 June 1985 The building is registered as a Category 1 historic place, entry 3639 on the New Zealand Heritage List, at 77–81 Courtenay Place.
- 7 May 1987 The last film is screened — Wanted: Dead or Alive — and the theatre closes its doors. The account most often repeated dates the first rumours of ghosts on the upper seating levels to this period of decline, not to the theatre's working years.
- 1993 After years of failed deals and one of New Zealand's largest heritage battles, Wellington City Council buys the theatre. An $18.5 million restoration plan follows in 1995 and the house reopens in 1997.
- 2000 The building is earthquake-strengthened to 100 per cent of the building code then in force. Fifteen years later it will be declared earthquake-prone anyway.
- 2005 The New Zealand television programme Ghost Hunt films at the theatre; the investigators report photographs and "orbs", and the lift malfunctions during filming. Wellington City Council's own two accounts, both published in June 2022, date the episode to 2005 in one and 2006 in the other.
- 2003–2007 The theatre carries a bank's name. Wellington City Council Archives hold 51 programmes and posters whose venue is given as the "Westpac St James Theatre"; the dated ones run from 2003 to 2007. The photograph on this file was taken on 7 November 2007, the year the sponsorship ended.
- 19 December 2011 An editor adds the line "Category:Reportedly haunted locations in New Zealand" to the theatre's Wikipedia article. The edit is 58 bytes, carries no edit summary and adds no source; it is the reason this building appears on lists of haunted places, although the article had described its ghosts, citing a 1998 book, since the day it was created in August 2006.
- 2015 The St James is found to be earthquake-prone. Strengthening to a minimum of 67 per cent of the New Building Standard begins in April 2019 and the theatre stays shut for three years.
- 17 and 23 June 2022 Six days before the theatre reopens from a $42 million closure, its owner, Wellington City Council, publishes "The Ghosts of St James Theatre", a news feature setting out Yuri, the Wailing Woman, Stan Andrews and the boys' choir. The theatre reopens on 23 June with TEEKS and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
- 23 July 2022 A month after the reopening, Lindsay Shelton reports that the council's own statutory notices at the entrance still declare the strengthened building earthquake-prone, and that the strengthening budget had gone from $14.9 million to $31.6 million.
Is there a rational explanation for St. James Theatre, Wellington?
The St James does have a ghost story, it is old, and it belongs to the building. What it does not have is anything resembling a record.
Start with who Yuri is supposed to be. Every published account calls him a Russian dancer or ballet performer who fell — or was pushed — from the flies above the stage: the city council's heritage inventory says "a Russian Ballet performer", the council's own 2022 feature says "a Russian dancer", and the paranormal researcher Mark Wallbank, writing in 2016, gives the same. In several versions he was pushed by another Russian performer named Pasha. And what he is credited with doing is specific and domestic: switching the house lights back on after the cleaners have gone, swinging doors open, and — twice, according to one projectionist — shoving the man out of harm's way, once away from the orchestra pit and once when a beam came down.
None of this can be checked against a death. A full-text search of Papers Past, the National Library's newspaper archive, returns no report of a fatal fall at the theatre. Anchoring on the building itself gives 1,307 articles for "His Majesty's Theatre" together with "Courtenay Place" and 2,042 for "St. James Theatre" with the same phrase; the controls run high ("Courtenay Place" 137,345, "Nellie Stewart" 6,094) and a nonsense phrase returns zero, so the corpus and the query both work. Within those articles the word "haunted" appears eleven times, and every one of them is an advertisement for a film or play with the word in its title. In the whole working life of the theatre up to 1945, the Wellington press does not once describe it as haunted.
The stories arrive later, and they arrive with the empty building. The account most often repeated dates the ghost rumours to the 1970s decline, when the house was losing its audiences to newer venues; the oldest printed source everybody cites is David McGill's book on the theatre, published in 1998, the year after it reopened. The city council's own heritage assessment is candid about how thin the paper trail is: its paragraph on the ghosts rests on a single footnote, a feature by Duncan McKinlay in the Victoria University student magazine Salient — and that link is now dead.
The supporting cast does not survive scrutiny either. "Stan Andrews" is a former theatre manager who died in 1965 in one telling and a "deceased American actor" in the council's; the only well-known American actor of that name, Stanley Andrews, died in Los Angeles in 1969 and has no recorded connection to Wellington. The boys' choir said to have played the St James during the Second World War and been lost at sea leaves nothing behind: "boys' choir" appears 614 times in Papers Past, and not once beside "lost at sea". The Peter Jackson sighting, which the council quotes at length from Britain's Channel 4, is placed by the council itself in an apartment across the road from the theatre, not inside it.
And there is a plain commercial interest. The owner is Wellington City Council, which published the ghost stories as a news feature on 17 June 2022, six days before the theatre reopened from a $42 million closure, and which sells a paid backstage tour advertised with the line "There might even be a ghost story or two to keep you on your toes". By contrast the council's statutory heritage assessment treats the whole thing as report, not record — and its own two 2022 articles cannot agree on whether the television programme Ghost Hunt filmed there in 2005 or 2006.
Can you visit St. James Theatre, Wellington?
The St James is a working theatre, open and busy, and the usual way in is to buy a ticket for a show.
The address is 77–87 Courtenay Place, Te Aro, Wellington. The 1912 auditorium is only half of what the name covers: the entrance, foyer and box office are in the adjoining building at 83–87 Courtenay Place, the former A. & T. Burt premises, converted during the 1990s restoration — which is why the street number is sometimes given as 83. The auditorium seats 1,543. The venue is run by Venues Wellington and the box office opens sixty minutes before ticketed events. It is the home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the city's main house for large-scale theatre, opera and ballet.
Access for the performance spaces is reasonable: eight wheelchair spaces, accessible seating on the levels, hearing assistance through an audio loop, companion tickets and provision for guide dogs.
If you want to see the building rather than a show, there is a guided tour of the St James and the Opera House together, run by the venue operator. It lasts about two to two and a half hours, runs at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. depending on availability, is capped at fifteen people and is booked through Ticketmaster, with dates released about six weeks ahead. It starts in the foyer of the Opera House, and you are asked to be there fifteen minutes early. Two warnings matter: the tour is not wheelchair accessible and needs a good level of mobility on stairs, closed-toe flat shoes are required, and the steep seating levels can be uncomfortable for anyone prone to vertigo. Under-14s must be accompanied by an adult. The tour material promises "a ghost story or two"; there is no separate ghost tour of the theatre.
The building is a Category 1 historic place on the New Zealand Heritage List, entry number 3639, registered on 27 June 1985. It reopened in June 2022 after three years closed for earthquake strengthening, so any guide, review or photograph dated between 2019 and 2022 describes a building nobody could enter.
Sources consulted
- Unsigned, «Entertainments — His Majesty's Theatre» — Dominion, vol. 6, issue 1631, p. 8, 1912 newspaper archive
- Wellington City Council, «St James Theatre, 77–81 Courtenay Place — heritage building inventory report (history based on Chris Cochran, 'St James Theatre: Cultural Heritage Assessment', NZHPT, 1998)» — Wellington Heritage Building Inventory, 2015 report
- Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, «St James Theatre — List entry 3639, Historic Place Category 1, listed 27 June 1985» — New Zealand Heritage List / Rārangi Kōrero, 1985 archive
- Wellington City Council, «The history of St James Theatre» — Tō Tātou Pōneke — Our Wellington, 2022 archive
- Wellington City Council, «The Ghosts of St James Theatre» — Tō Tātou Pōneke — Our Wellington, 2022 archive
- Wellington City Council (press release), «St James Theatre reopens with 3 shows by Teeks and NZSO» — Wellington.Scoop, 2022 newspaper archive
- Lindsay Shelton, «They spent $31m, and it's quake prone?» — Wellington.Scoop, 2022 newspaper archive
- Mark Wallbank, «St James Theatre, Wellington» — Paranormal New Zealand, 2016 web
- Venues Wellington, «St James Theatre — venue information and St James Theatre & The Opera House Guided Tour» — WellingtonNZ, 2026 archive
- National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, «Papers Past — Evening Post, Dominion and NZ Truth, full-text search (measurements taken 20 August 2026)» — Papers Past, 2026 archive
- Wellington City Council Archives, «Programmes and posters catalogued under the venue 'Westpac St James Theatre' (51 records)» — Archives Online, 2026 archive
- Wikipedia contributors, «Revision history of the article 'St. James Theatre, Wellington'» — English Wikipedia, 2011 web
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-20 · How we verify our content
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