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 […]