On Sunday 6th Septem­ber at San Fran, in a one night only per­form­ance to raise money and aware­ness for the Men­tal Health Found­a­tion, Wellington’s per­form­ing arts fra­tern­ity band togeth­er to hon­our a beloved friend and col­league. This trib­ute is their way of hon­our­ing a tal­en­ted mem­ber of the per­form­ing com­munity, who left us after los­ing his battle with the Black Dog.

Act­or Rob­bie Tripe, 41, was known for his roles in top-rat­ing soap Short­land Street, where he played oppos­ite street stal­wart Michael Galv­in as defence law­yer Lawrence Cun­ning­ham in 2012, as well as in the hit Amer­ic­an chil­drens’ series Power Rangers.  Tripe’s oth­er TV and film cred­its include The Strip as well as The Truth about Demons and Radio Hauraki docu-drama The 3 Mile Lim­it.  He acted extens­ively in theatre and was nom­in­ated for best sup­port­ing act­or in the Chap­man Tripp Theatre Awards for his role as Bern­ard in Death of a Sales­man.  He gained a second nom­in­a­tion por­tray­ing Tro­fimov in The Cherry Orch­ard.

Led by Music­al Dir­ect­or Fiona McCabe, the stel­lar ensemble cast for Black Dog Relief will com­prise cel­eb­rated per­formers includ­ing Soph­ie Hamb­leton (West­side), Car­rie McLaugh­lan (Beat Girls), Jane Keller (Boomers Behav­ing Badly) and Car­mel McGlone (Reser­voir Hill). The song list for Black Dog Relief has Tripe’s per­son­al touch, which he ori­gin­ally inten­ded to per­form in col­lab­or­a­tion with Jen­nifer Ward-Lea­l­and, Paul Bar­rett and Sharu Delilkan over two years ago.  This show has since been per­formed in an Auck­land ver­sion and included songs by luminar­ies such as Fred Astaire, Cole Port­er, Bobby Dar­in, Chet Baker, The Ger­sh­wins and Bil­lie Hol­i­day.

Majestic­ally presid­ing over the event will be Emcee Gareth Farr, who has decided to give his stage per­sona Lilith LaCroix an out­ing…”I thought that Rob­bie would get a kick out of it.  It’s very import­ant for me to show how much I adore him as an artist and as a gay man – this is my way of giv­ing Rob­bie a befit­ting trib­ute and this is how I want to express it in my own way. We basic­ally want this show to be a cel­eb­ra­tion – not a memori­al of Robbie’s life and we want to acknow­ledge the joy that he brought to all of us, whose lives he touched along the way. We sin­cerely hope that this will be an unfor­get­table even­ing of music and song to give our dear friend a fit­ting send-off.  We also hope that it’s the first of many events that raise the aware­ness of men­tal health and well­being with­in the per­form­ing arts com­munity. We’d like to think Rob­bie would approve.”

 

  • Sharu Loves Hats in col­lab­or­a­tion with Cuba Cre­at­ive presents Black Dog Relief – A Cab­aret for Rob­bie Tripe
  • San Fran, 171 Cuba Street, Wel­ling­ton
  • Sunday 6th Septem­ber, 7 pm (approx. 90+ minutes)
  • TICKETS: $25
  •  All pro­ceeds raised will be donated to the Men­tal Health Found­a­tion NZ