Review: The Pickle King

The Pickle King is on now at the Han­nah Play­house and is a col­our­ful, quirky and unique tale of love, death and what is worth pre­serving. Once the finest hotel in town, the Empire is now as faded as the dreams of the piano play­er who haunts the lobby. Ammachy runs the Empire with an […]

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, […]

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 […]

Theatre Review: Destination Beehive: 2017

You pos­sibly couldn’t get more Wel­ling­ton than head­ing to the theatre, regard­less of the weath­er, to watch a music­al about polit­ics. Last week, I went along to Des­tin­a­tion Bee­hive: 2017, writ­ten by the clev­er and witty duo of Lor­ae Parry and Pinky Agnew. The seat of Tinakori Heights is highly con­ten­ded this elec­tion as every […]

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 […]

Preview: The Mooncake and the Kūmara

Layered with myth and fable, The Moon­cake and the Kūmara is a mov­ing story about a mixed-up, Māori-Chinese love affair that sprouts among rows of pota­toes. Told in a mix­ture of Eng­lish, Māori and Cantonese, the play is show­ing in Wel­ling­ton as part of the Kia Mau Fest­iv­al. Māori-Chinese play­wright Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen talked […]

Preview: Fire in the water, fire in the sky

Told through move­ment, dance and text, this is a mod­ern state­ment on cli­mate change, col­on­isa­tion and Chris­tian­ity across the Pacific Rim. It’s an untangling of the greatest col­li­sion to have affected the Pacific – west­ern imper­i­al­ism. Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky has vari­ous per­form­ance times dur­ing the morn­ings. It shows in Tangata Le […]

Preview: The Purple Onion

The Purple Onion  peeps into the world of Wellington’s infam­ous bur­lesque par­lour as part of the Kia Mau Fest­iv­al. Estab­lished in the mid 1960s, the Purple Onion was Wellington’s premiere strip club which attrac­ted some of New Zealand’s social elite as well as its fair share of dubi­ous char­ac­ters. Com­bin­ing text, dance and a live funk […]

Preview: Riverside Kings

River­side Kings opens in Upper Hutt today and plays in BATS Theatre next week as part of the Kia Mau Fest­iv­al. The cre­at­ors Sar­ita So and Natano Keni, describe it as “a phys­ic­al weav­ing of broth­er­hood, nos­tal­gia and change.” Their new com­pany, I Ken So Pro­duc­tions, aims to cre­ate, diverse works of a high qual­ity.  They […]