It’s Festivals time!

It’s almost that glor­i­ous point in Wellington’s cal­en­dar when the New Zea­l­and Fest­iv­al  (23 Feb­ru­ary – 18 March), the Per­form­ance Arcade (23–25 Feb, 1–4 March) the Pride Fest­iv­al (24 Feb­ru­ary – 10 March) and the NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al Wel­ling­ton  (2–24 March) are all on at the same time. I love it for the excit­ing mix […]

Review: The Father

André lives in his flat where Anne, his daugh­ter, vis­its him. He’d rather his daugh­ter Elise vis­ited but she’s busy with her art work. Or is she? And who is Pierre? And why does Laura keep com­ing around? This show explores real­ity and per­cep­tion in a fam­ily situ­ation which is famil­i­ar to many people. What […]

What’s on this week?

Here’s a round up of what shows are on this week. At Circa Theatre… Ana­hera, on at Circa Theatre to 7 Octo­ber 2017 A con­tem­por­ary domest­ic thrill­er (in the style of Broad­church) about a strug­gling kiwi fam­ily. Liz and Peter Hunter have it all. A great mar­riage, suc­cess­ful careers, a beau­ti­ful house and two won­der­ful chil­dren. Until […]

Review: That Bloody Woman

Kate Shep­pard, “the lead­ing light of the New Zea­l­and women’s suf­frage move­ment” tells her story in this rock music­al by Luke Di Somma and Gregory Cooper. Dir­ec­ted by Kip Chap­man, (with Jen­nifer Ward-Lea­l­and this season’s Rehears­al Dir­ect­or) the show is ter­rif­ic.  All the ele­ments of the best music­als are here – a well con­struc­ted dra­mat­ic […]

Preview: Anahera

Ana­hera is the new play from Emma Kin­ane. Described as an “enthralling mix of an intense miss­ing child drama and a behind-closed-doors look at New Zealand’s social ser­vices” it’s a con­tem­por­ary domest­ic thrill­er about a strug­gling Kiwi fam­ily and how one woman mak­ing a stand could make all the dif­fer­ence. A final­ist in last year’s Adam […]

Preview: The Wholehearted

Massive Com­pany is bring­ing The Whole­hearted to Wel­ling­ton in Septem­ber. An hon­est por­tray­al of the extreme power of love, it was developed through con­ver­sa­tions with their loc­al com­munity, ask­ing them to share their per­son­al stor­ies of affec­tion and ded­ic­a­tion. The res­ult is a heart-warm­ing devised theatre work that spans gen­er­a­tions, genders and cul­tures. Massive Company’s […]

Preview: Caging skies

Open­ing tomor­row night at Circa Theatre is the world premiere of Caging Skies. It’s a “haunt­ing story of love and obses­sion that explores truth and lies at both polit­ic­al and per­son­al levels.” “Johannes, a zeal­ous mem­ber of the Vienna Hitler Youth, dis­cov­ers a fate­ful secret – his fam­ily is hid­ing a young Jew­ish woman, Elsa, […]

Preview: The Swimmer

“The Swim­mer” is a story of love between two young women who are both pro­fes­sion­al swim­mers. Des­pite their love for each oth­er their story is not simple. Anna’s moth­er is deeply involved in her life and she works tire­lessly to shape her daugh­ter to be the suc­cess­ful swim­mer she nev­er was. She will do any­thing to make sure […]

Review: One Night Only

“The world’s most fam­ous boy band, FourE­ver, is nearly ready to take the stage for their only New Zea­l­and show. All that stands in their way is each oth­er, their fans, the media, and the ghosts of their dodgy past.” Stella Reid dir­ects this Young & Hungry play by Finni­us Tep­pett. In her Director’s note she describes […]

Preview: Young & Hungry

For 24 years Young & Hungry and BATS Theatre have been provid­ing young people with a plat­form to per­form, pro­duce and cre­ate great theatre. With the Play­wrights’ Ini­ti­at­ive pro­du­cing three new kiwi plays a year and the annu­al Fest­iv­al of New Theatre at BATS – Y&H feeds the the­at­ric­al hun­ger and quenches the cre­at­ive thirst […]