Diamond Head Theatre officials are hoping a new venue will offer a stage experience worthy of the group’s long and storied history. 

"We’re here to talk about the future, and our children, and the theater for the next hundred years," Deena Dray, DHT’s executive director, said during a public meeting Monday at the theater. DHT will launch its 100th anniversary season in the fall.

Plans for the new theater, which resulted from strategic planning the organization initiated in 2004, call for a building to be erected adjacent to the current theater on Makapuu Avenue. The building site, now vacant except for a small lawn and cactus garden, is on land DHT leased from the state through 2073. 

The proposed theater would seat the same number of people as the existing one — about 500 — but its productions would be considerably enhanced by the presence of a fly loft, a structure above the stage that enables sets to be lifted up overhead, theater representatives said. Now sets must be moved to the side, creating a crowded maze that actors must negotiate as they head on and off stage.

A fly loft "is not a new invention; it’s been in theater for the last several hundred years," said John Rampage, DHT artistic director. "It makes the show run faster. It’s considerably safer."

A fly loft also will enable DHT to borrow sets from other theaters, he said. "The fly loft is what has been missing in this theater for 80 years. Designers … have learned to work around it, but now it is holding us back."

The new building would offer also theater patrons a more attractive place to gather for shows. Under the proposal, the old building, which dates to 1933, would be demolished and replaced by a garden that references the area’s past as the site of Fort Ruger, the first U.S. military reservation in territorial Hawaii. Theater patrons would have a view of Waikiki as they enter or leave a show, whereas now they mostly see the Kapiolani Community College parking lot.

Preliminary renderings, created by the architectural firm Urban Works Inc., show a rectangular building that, except for the tall fly loft, is set low to the ground, with much of it tucked into the hillside that slopes up toward Leahi Hospital. A grilled "wrapping" around the perimeter would create a "layered" effect, said Kevin Miyamura, an architect with Urban Works. The building would be set about 10 feet farther off Makapuu Avenue than the existing theater.

Designers said the design is intended to blend into the terrain and the surroundings rather than stand out, with the use of an earth-tone color scheme and the blue volcanic rock common to the islands. Other than the fly loft, which will require a height variance of 24 to 28 feet, the proposed structure conforms to building codes for the site, designers said. 

The new building would include facilities for costume design and set construction and more classroom space, and would locate the orchestra pit in front of and underneath the stage. The current setup has the musicians off to the right side of the stage.

Diamond Head Theatre representatives unveiled the preliminary proposal for the new building before a small, receptive audience Monday. The reaction was mostly positive, although some questioned whether the building, which lacked a marquee in the renderings, would draw the attention expected for a theater.

"Where is the front of the building?" asked one person. 

"It looks like a mausoleum," said another. 

Leonard Tam, a member of the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board, said he thought the building should be "more visible." He wanted to "keep the frontage on the Makapuu (Avenue) side so that people driving by can see it. People walking by can see it and remember it."

In an interview last week, DHT’s Dray stressed that planning is in the early stages, using the words "proposed, draft, potential, possible" to describe how far along the project is. 

"I would not want someone to get fixed on a design or a look or anything that might not come to pass," she said. Fundraising for the estimated $15 million project has not begun yet, and groundbreaking is at least three years off, she said. Stage productions will continue in the old theater while construction is underway, she said.  

DHT representatives plan to make presentations to local community boards and city officials in the near future.

"It’s exciting and terrifying," Dray said. "The idea of having something that will last and is in such better shape than what we currently have is exciting. It’s just terrifying to think about how much work goes into raising the money and building a new facility."