Our Mission

  • To provide theatrical opportunities for the expression of local community lifestyles, whether contemporary or historical.

  • To stage locally written plays set in Hawaiʻi or dealing with some aspect of the Hawaiian experience of residents.

  • To provide training and theatrical experiences for local playwrights, directors, performers and other theatrical artists.

  • To develop an increasingly large audience sensitive to plays and theatre pieces dealing specifically and truthfully with local subject matter.

 

Our History

Kumu Kahua Theatre was founded in 1971 by a group of graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi, with the original goal of producing locally-written experimental works. The Hawaiian language words kumu and kahua translate to "original stage." At the time, there was no local theatre devoted to telling stories of these islands and its various cultures. In 1982, Kumu Kahua was granted not-for-profit status and in 1994, the Hawai‘i State Legislature awarded the group its current 100-seat playhouse, a former Post Office, in downtown Honolulu at 46 Merchant Street. Kumu Kahua is still the only theatre we know of solely dedicated year-around to creating, supporting, and showcasing original works of theatre specifically related to our geographical region and the cultures represented here.

In this time, Kumu Kahua has helped develop more than 250 original works that has influenced hundreds of actors, playwrights, directors, technicians, and community members.

Plays about life in Hawaiʻi

The theater educates and trains new generations of aspiring theater professionals through its "living laboratory" of productions and public play readings, and by holding classes and workshops in acting, improvisation and playwriting. Top Hawaiʻi actors, such as Jason Scott Lee, alongside a core of Kumu stage veterans, such as Dann Seki and Wil Kahele, have performed at Kumu Kahua.

Plays by Hawaiʻi playwrights

Since the 1970s, the theater has co-sponsored the University of Hawaiʻi’s annual historic play competition started in the 1930s. And the theater has produced the first stagings of work by locally renowned island playwrights such as Lee Cataluna, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Darrell Lum, Edward Sakamoto and Lee A. Tonouchi.

Plays for people of Hawaiʻi

Kumu Kahua productions — such as James Grant Benton's Shakespeare adaptation Twelf Night O Wateva! in 1974, Edward Sakamoto's Aloha Las Vegas in 1992 and Lee Cataluna's Folks You Meet in Longs in 2003 — have become cultural touchstones for island residents.

 

Our Home

Kumu Kahua Theatre is located in downtown Honolulu, on the corner of Bethel and Merchant Streets, in the King Kamehameha V Post Office. Built in 1871 by J.G. Osborne, this building was the first in the Pacific to be constructed entirely of precast concrete blocks reinforced with iron bars. (The pre-cast concrete construction method was so successful, Osborne applied the same technique in building nearby Aliʻiolani Hale.) The building was named in honor of Hawaiʻi's fifth king, who ordered the construction of the building in 1870.

In the 19th century, when Honolulu was burgeoning with life as a key trading point in the Pacific Ocean, one big thing was missing: postal service. In 1850, Mr. H. M. Whitney became Honolulu's first-ever postmaster. It was a new era; Hawaiʻi now had greater access to the world. In 1922, the post office moved to another building on Merchant and Richards Streets, undergoing several changes over the years. In its place, the King Kamehameha V Post Office became a district court. Today, this building is on the National Register of Historic Places.