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 […]