“I keep musing about what must have been happening in Hilo 100 years ago,” said local performing arts director Jackie Pualani Johnson.
Johnson’s query is inspired by the many historic buildings celebrating their 100th anniversary this year, including the Palace Theater, the Royal Society of Hilo, and the Ancient Order of Foresters Building on Keawe Street.
The A.O.F. Building has served many individuals and organizations over its 100 years, but the newly christened and versatile Keawe Theater on the building’s second floor is generating new opportunities for performing arts, social gatherings and educational opportunities. The Hilo Community Players are working to perfect the space through the Keawe Theater Improvement Fund.
“What we’re trying to create here is a space for everyone,” said Rachel Klein, the Players’ executive director, who call the Keawe Theater home and also rent the space to others. “Just being completely inclusive and accessible is what we want.”
So far this year, the second floor has hosted plays, monthly bingo games, a tattoo workshop, weekly drag shows, acting classes, speed dating, Pilates classes, karaoke, a murder mystery party, and two live performances by the Kona band Fuego. Klein said about 100 people joined Fuego for the most recent Latin music dance party at the Keawe Theater.
“Having something to do on a random Wednesday or on a Saturday, just having some things going on in Hilo, is so exciting,” Klein said.
Easier additions through the Keawe Improvement Fund are already installed or soon to arrive, like air conditioning in June and forthcoming curtains to match the vintage windows. A developing renovation would improve the building’s accessibility, making it easier for visitors to tackle its steep, towering staircase.
“We’ve had a number of patrons who have just needed to take their time on the stairs. The landing … has a couple of benches intentionally, so people can rest halfway up the thing. But we’ve also had people who we’ve physically carried up and down the stairs because we don’t want people to not be able to access the events we’re doing here,” Klein said.
“We want, of course, a better solution for them, so this is one of the things that is most important to us with the Fund.”
Klein and Karen Moore, vice president of the Players, said they are looking into adding a motorized chair to assist people up the stairs, though the early 20th century architecture presents challenges its installation or to adding an elevator. It is the most costly of the goals of the fund, which has raised almost $10,000 of its initial $50,000 goal since May.
The Hilo Community Players began renting the theater in January from real estate investment firm Sakoda Rock Holdings, and Moore and Klein commend Sakoda Rock for “rescuing and repopulating downtown” by undertaking the care of local vintage buildings. Klein said the players first realized the potential of the A.O.F. Building’s second floor as a theater in winter of 2024, when they rented the then-general event space for a production of “A Christmas Carol.”
Though Klein was born and raised in Hilo, she only knew the A.O.F. Building for the Army Surplus store it once housed on the first floor. However, the expansive second floor’s high ceilings, large windows and classic details bring director Johnson back to her childhood.
Johnson said her father was a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters, and memories from the 1960s include “sweeping the floors, running up and down the stairs, and playing with the large pool table that still remains in the building.”
Johnson said, as a child, she counted the building among Hilo’s “mysterious places” that housed deeply private organizations, like the Masonic Lodge in the Bishop Trust Building or the Elk’s Club on Kinoole Street. She said today’s energy of the Keawe Theater has shed the building’s previous “dark and mysterious pallor” without losing its vintage elegance.
“The space has a duality: it seems majestic and welcoming at the same time,” she said. “There’s just enough architectural uniqueness — door and window trim, for example — that gives the space a sense of importance and dignity.”
Johnson said the “proximity of the audience is a major highlight of directing at the Keawe,” particularly for the living history performance art about Hawaii that she said “stir our connections to times past.” Johnson directed such a show, the story of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole Pi‘ikoi written by Victoria Kneubuhl, in the Keawe Theater in May. She said the intimate theater “stirs the performers to maintain a visceral contact with the audience, who, in turn, respond with empathy.”
Moore said that “Hilo has a couple big theaters that seat 400 people or so … like the Palace, and bigger at UH Hilo (Performing Arts Center) …,” but “we needed a smaller, more intimate space in this town, so this provides that to a greater extent.”
To keep up with performances and events occurring in the Keawe Theater, follow the Hilo Community Players on social media or subscribe to their weekly email newsletter at www.hilocommunityplayers.org.
Donations can be made to the Keawe Theater Improvement Fund by visiting https://tinyurl.com/3y44kx68. Checks made out to the Hilo Community Players with “Improvement Fund” indicated in the memo can be mailed to P.O. Box 46, Hilo, HI 96721.
Email Kyveli Diener at kdiener@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
