Naked girls. Reading. In Wellington.

In advance of Naked Girls Read­ing; the moth­er­hood edi­tion this Sat­urday at the Fringe Bar, I put a few ques­tions to its pro­du­cer, Hugo Grrrl. Okay, first off. Naked girls read­ing – what in the heck is this? And who are you? Naked Girls Read­ing is exactly what it sounds like – it’s com­pletely naked […]

Review: Welcome to the Murder House

Indi­an Ink has done it again. Wel­come to the Murder House is dark, deadly, a little bit sexy, and some­thing you def­in­itely should read the press release for before you see because it does not pull any punches. Our five main char­ac­ters; death-row con­victs who have a par­tic­u­lar pen­chant for theatre, take us on a […]

Preview: Kia Mau Festival

The fourth Kia Mau Fest­iv­al is on from 1–16 June 2018. A con­tem­por­ary Indi­gen­ous theatre and dance exper­i­ence, the fest­iv­al cel­eb­rates Māori, Pasi­fika, First Nations artists and their com­pan­ies. Kia Mau Fest­iv­al is an innov­at­ive exper­i­ence for whānau and com­munit­ies through­out the Wel­ling­ton region to engage with Tangata When­ua and First Nations artists from across […]

Preview: Welcome to the Murder House

Indi­an Ink Theatre Com­pany present their latest show writ­ten by Jac­ob Rajan and Justin Lewis  and com­mis­sioned by Amer­ic­an theatre com­pany South Coast Rep­er­tory Theatre. Wel­come to the Murder House is a deli­ciously dark tragedy of com­ic pro­por­tions. The dawn­ing of the elec­tric age in 1890’s Amer­ica brought about massive tech­no­lo­gic­al and social change cre­at­ing […]

Review: Romeo and Juliet at Victoria University

Vic­tor­ia Uni­versity’s Romeo and Juliet is an utter tri­umph of stage­craft. The mood with­in Stu­dio 77, the cam­pus’ main black­box theatre, seems fit­tingly Shakespearean as thun­der rolls over­head and rain pours down out­side. We’re all here to see Romeo and Juliet, argu­ably one of theatre’s most played-out stor­ies, but I’ve nev­er seen it quite like this. Our cast, mem­bers […]

Preview: I am not Margaret Mahy

Witch, jungle child, bewildered stu­dent, detect­ive, lib­rar­i­an, shark: icon­ic writer Mar­garet Mahy defied the norm at every turn, embody­ing aspects of her char­ac­ters in the many lives she lived. Jane Waddell’s stage adapt­a­tion of Mahy’s essay ‘Notes of a Bag Lady‘ reveals the woman behind the stor­ies: her witchy ways, her bag-lady tend­en­cies and her […]

Review: Problems

Bor­is and Stephan are guard­ing their Great Lead­er as he takes his cus­tom­ary mid-morn­ing nap. He’s over­slept and is due at a brief­ing. Should they wake him up? The Great Leader’s Wife says yes. The Great Leader’s Gen­er­al says no. As time ticks on some­thing has to give… From a simple premise the new play […]

Review: Still life with chickens

Mama is at home with a bedrid­den Papa, tick­ing through life with con­stant rounds of wash­ing, garden­ing, and meal mak­ing. Her fam­ily doesn’t vis­it as often as she’d like so she spends a lot of time in her garden.  When a cheeky chick­en starts scratch­ing around Mama is quite upset. The chick­en gradu­ally wins her […]

Preview: My fat/sad

My Accom­plice present Uth­er Dean in My fat/sad as part of the 2018 New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Com­edy Fest­iv­al. A 2017 Raw Com­edy Quest nation­al final­ist, crit­ic­ally acclaimed play­wright, and dia­gnosed depress­ive, Uth­er has writ­ten for Power Rangers, Short­land Street and Radio New Zea­l­and. This time, he’s turn­ing his sim­ul­tan­eously ana­lyt­ic­al and hil­ari­ous eye inwards. From […]

Preview: Still life with chickens

Still Life with Chick­ens is com­ing to Wel­ling­ton this month after sea­sons in Auck­land and Palmer­ston North. A simple story about an older woman dis­cov­er­ing a naughty chick­en invad­ing her garden it becomes a beau­ti­ful and funny play about loneli­ness and the resi­li­ence of com­munit­ies. Act­or & pup­pet­eer Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson answered some ques­tions about the show. […]