The next round of theatre and per­form­ance cour­tesy of the REAL NZ Fest­iv­al starts this week. BATS Theatre has two shows start­ing – Death by cheer­lead­er on Tues­day, and The first Asi­an AB on Thursday. Both have a good buzz from their Auck­land sea­sons. Until 24 Septem­ber and 1 Octo­ber respect­ively. Circa Theatre hosts He reo aroha from Wed­nes­day. It’s a love story with wai­ata star­ring the ori­gin­al per­formers Kali Kopae, and Jam­ie McCaskill. I missed it at the Fest­iv­al last year so I’m really look­ing for­ward to catch­ing up with it. Until 30 Septem­ber. Four flat whites in Italy con­tin­ues play­ing, also at Circa, until 7 Octo­ber. Down­stage con­tin­ues with Te Radar’s Eat­ing the dog until 1 Octo­ber. (You may have heard that Down­stage has post­poned their Present­ing Part­ner­ships pro­gramme. They’ve released fur­ther inform­a­tion on their web­site. Per­form­ances by Stroma and Car­ni­val Hound  are unaf­fected by this decision. Their fin­an­cial situ­ation is not the reas­on to go and see Te Radar – go and see him because he is funny and it’s a great show.) In Flag­rante con­tin­ues at the St James Theatre until 24 Septem­ber. Foot­note Dance Com­pany present Made in New Zea­l­and on Wed­nes­day and Thursday. TheNew Zea­l­and Sym­phony Orches­tra and guests per­form Beeth­oven’s 9th Sym­phony and a new work from Gareth Farr on Thursday. Start­ing on Fri­day is Illuma from by Inside Out Pro­duc­tions. (I know it’s not strictly theatre or per­form­ance but it prom­ises to be pretty cool.)