Black Dog Relief – A Cabaret for Robbie Tripe

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, […]

Review: Stutterpop: the Queen’s speech

Stut­ter­pop writ­ten and per­formed by Sam Brooks is enter­tain­ing mix­ture of lip­syncing and storytelling which explores Brooks’ love life, and his love for life. He walks onto the stage look­ing fab­ulous in a long hooded cape. It’s whipped off to reveal a glit­tery top and spark­ling heels leav­ing him look­ing a little like clas­sic Eddie Izzard. […]

Review: Young & Hungry 2015 season

The Young & Hungry fest­iv­al of new theatre provides young people with the oppor­tun­ity to gain prac­tic­al exper­i­ence work­ing in a theatre under pres­sured time­frames. Act­ors, tech­ni­cians, design­ers, & dir­ect­ors have all been ment­ored through the pro­gramme. The three shows in the 2015 sea­son are quite dif­fer­ent in style but uni­formly enter­tain­ing. How to catch a […]

Review: the beautiful ones

Hana (Awhi­mai Fraser) was sent away from the club in dis­grace by own­er Mr Sir (Tanemahuta Gray). She prom­ises boy­friend, Ihia (Manuel Solomon), that she will return on a par­tic­u­lar night if he dances from dawn to dusk. But she is frightened by his fath­er Sir Sir, (Nath­an Gray) and unsure as to how she […]

Review : Long ago, long ago

Ella (Susie Berry) has a new job work­ing on a psych­ic hot­line. Audrey (Iso­bel MacKin­non), her sis­ter, is a post­gradu­ate stu­dent invest­ig­at­ing the links between fairytales from dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Their broth­er Ben (Jack Buchanan) is inter­ested in mak­ing machines; in tan­gible objects rather than com­puters. Audrey comes to live with Ella while her flat is […]

Two shows in Wellington

Reviews of Second after­life by Ral­ph McCub­bin How­ell, and Not in our neigh­bour­hood by Jam­ie McCaskill.

Ahi Kaa Festival

Cel­eb­rat­ing Matariki with the best of Maori theatre and dance, the inaug­ur­al Ahi Kaa Fest­iv­al offi­cially opens tonight. In a city where some theatre prac­ti­tion­ers think it’s okay to use black­face on stage because ‘it’s what the audi­ence of the theatre form would have expec­ted’ it is wel­come. This fest­iv­al will show off truly innov­at­ive work […]

Review: Lysistrata

War has been going on forever. Lys­istrata con­vinces the women of Greece and the known world to with­hold sex from their hus­bands (and lov­ers, occa­sion­al shags, one-night-stands etc) in order to force the men to broker world peace. The women agree and des­pite being temp­ted hold true to their prom­ise. Will the men come togeth­er […]

Review: Wings

Quinn (Vic­tor­ia Sey­mour) and her young­er sis­ter Bambi (Han­nah Botha) are on a road trip to their mother’s funer­al. They haven’t seen each oth­er since Quinn left home sud­denly 10 years ago. On the way they stop in a remote part of the Waikato to pick up their oth­er sis­ter Mo (Lydia Buckley-Gor­­man). Quinn doesn’t […]

Review: Don Juan: an adaptation of the play by Moliere

Before we’re in the theatre the per­formers come to us. “Allo” they cry in their French accents “You are look­ing gor­geous tonight!” They sweep us before them into their seedy world. It’s part cab­aret, part shabby theatre, part soph­ist­ic­ated storytelling, part improv. It feels like a troupe of trav­el­ling act­ors has arrived in town and […]