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.)