Review: A Bit Dramatic

This show was incred­i­bly pop­u­lar and got reviewed mul­ti­ple times dur­ing the Improv Fest! Check out a vari­ety of those reviews below. — Reviewed by Thalia Kehoe Row­den In an intense, mov­ing 60-minute show, the cast of four take inspi­ra­tion from real-life jour­nal entries – unseen until the per­for­mance – and invent and explore the […]

Review: NO SLEEP

Reviewed by Rebec­ca Stub­bing. Fri­day the 13th was the per­fect occa­sion for NO SLEEP, a joy­ful­ly chaot­ic improv show pre­sent­ed at this year’s New Zealand Improv Fes­ti­val. The show began at 9:30pm on the won­der­ful Stage at BATS The­atre, and the slight­ly sleepy audi­ence were imme­di­ate­ly reas­sured by the per­form­ers not to wor­ry, we were […]

Nelson Designer Takes Out WOW’s Top Award for Second Time

Nel­son Design­er Gill Saun­ders was award­ed The World of Wear­able Art’s Supreme Award this Fri­day for her design, Earth­ling (pic­tured). Tak­ing its inspi­ra­tion from the ris­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of adult colour­ing books and pro­mot­ing mind­ful­ness in a “world under increas­ing stress”, Earth­ling cel­e­brates earth’s nat­ur­al won­ders in a beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed gar­ment made from EVA foam, acrylic […]

Review: Mamma Mia!

Te Aua­ha’s Musi­cal The­atre cohort for 2023 is bring­ing Mam­ma Mia! to our shores this Sep­tem­ber, and we are all bet­ter for it. A spell­bind­ing, fab­u­lous ver­sion of Cather­ine Johnson/ABBA’s juke­box musi­cal knocked my absolute socks off last night, and I’m seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing going back to see it again. You might have seen the 2008 […]

Review: Music To Die For

Not­ed Welling­ton improv troupe Best on Tap is back per­form­ing this month with a new iter­a­tion of their ground­ed and clever improv in a show using your music sug­ges­tions! Music To Die For takes six songs that you (the audi­ence) would play at your funer­al and uses them to inspire lay­ered, com­plex scenes about the […]

Review: Dirty Work

By Talia Carlisle An ode to joy! For the first time recent­ly I joined a choir, and as we joined togeth­er as strangers to sing, hold­ing our music and rais­ing our voic­es in har­mo­ny, I could feel such joy and togeth­er­ness lift­ing every­one up, and con­nect­ing us togeth­er while also cre­at­ing a melod­ic sto­ry told […]

Review: Lightscapes

Imagery by Stephen A’Court. The Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let is back with anoth­er series of four bal­lets to warm you up this win­ter. Cel­e­brat­ing the pow­er and pos­si­bil­i­ty of dance, these four bal­lets range from the clas­sic to the exper­i­men­tal, a won­der­ful tableau that accu­rate­ly sums up the RZN­B’s 70th anniver­sary. Open­ing the show is […]

Review: 35mm

By Talia Carlisle Every­one is talk­ing about 35mm, and it’s not a mea­sure­ment, but a move­ment it seems, from the sound of new fans I’ve talked to. 35mm is a musi­cal writ­ten by Ryan Scott Oliv­er on at Gryphon The­atre until Sat­ur­day, which incor­po­rates music, orig­i­nal chore­og­ra­phy and a live band led by musi­cal direc­tor […]

Review: Female Lady Women Comedians

Review by Talia Carlisle Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it’s Saman­tha Han­nah lead­ing a super all-female all-fun­ny line-up of come­di­ans that share a strik­ing resem­blance… but def­i­nite­ly aren’t all the same per­son… *wink!* Hav­ing been nom­i­nat­ed for both Best Come­di­an, and Best MC at last year’s Welling­ton Com­e­dy Awards, it makes […]

Review: The Coven on Grey Street

The first thing that grips me as soon as I walk into Cir­ca Two is Lucas Neal’s gor­geous set design for this show — a huge pohutakawa that stretch­es up and across the entire stage, a white pick­et fence, and the out­side edge of a tra­di­tion­al weath­er­board kiwi house. Cicadas chirp (beau­ti­ful sound design by […]