Review: Three days in the country

Set against the back­drop of 1850’s Rus­sia. Serfs (aka slaves) still work the land under the estate holder’s con­trol.  Reform is com­ing and the coun­try is rest­less. Rak­itin is vis­it­ing his friend Arkady at his coun­try estate.  Arkady’s wife Natalya is recov­er­ing from her ill­ness. Their son Kolya, and their ward Vera, are spend­ing time […]

Preview: Kia Mau Festival

New Zealand’s only con­tem­po­rary indige­nous the­atre and dance event Kia Mau Fes­ti­val returns to Welling­ton from Fri­day 2 – Sat­ur­day 24 June. It’s a unique and inno­v­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ty for whā­nau and com­mu­ni­ties across the Welling­ton region to engage with today’s tan­ga­ta when­ua and First Nations artists from across the globe. Led by Wellington’s own Māori and Pasi­fi­ka the­atre […]

BATS fundraiser preview ‑White Rabbit Red Rabbit

BATS is bring­ing the “auda­cious the­atri­cal exper­i­ment“ White Rab­bit Red Rab­bit to Welling­ton for a fundrais­ing sea­son.  Writ­ten by Iran­ian play­wright Nas­sim Soleiman­pour, the play pre­miered in 2011 and has since been trans­lat­ed into 20 dif­fer­ent lan­guages. There are no rehearsals, no direc­tor, a dif­fer­ent actor each per­for­mance, and a script wait­ing in a sealed […]

Review: Olive Copperbottom

Pen­ny Ash­ton presents a new musi­cal inspired by the writ­ings of Charles Dick­ens as part of Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val 2017. Olive, a beau­ti­ful vir­tu­ous orphan, teach­es the younger orphans at Mrs Sour­tart’s squalid orphan­age in exchange for a place to live. Her suit­or, Edward Good­sort, was reclaimed from the same estab­lish­ment by his mon­eyed fam­i­ly and now lives […]

Review: Onstage Dating

In the age of ‘swip­ing right’ and ‘real­i­ty’ dat­ing shows, the con­cept of live onstage dat­ing by far pro­vides more enter­tain­ment. Bron Bat­ten so bril­liant­ly proved this on her open­ing night of Onstage Dat­ing. In this show, there’s no oppor­tu­ni­ty to accept or reject based on appear­ances and no pro­duc­ers or edi­tors decid­ing on the […]

Shows on this week

At BATS The­atre: Start­ing this week is an encore sea­son of Onstage Dat­ing by per­for­mance artist Bron Bat­ten. Watch as she goes on first dates on stage. (These are actu­al first dates with a stranger, not with a per­form­ing audi­ence plant.) Wit­ness the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, thrills and heart­break of the dat­ing expe­ri­ence up close, as Bron […]

Preview: I am Tasha Fierce

From the mind of Welling­ton based artist Rose Kirkup, the recip­i­ent of the 2016 Fringe Fes­ti­vals’ NZ Pacif­ic Artist Res­i­den­cy award, comes I Am Tasha Fierce. We’re intro­duced to Kirkup’s alter ego Tasha: your typ­i­cal Kiwi chick.  Her time at poly­tech, as well as fol­low­ing the teach­ings of Bey­on­cé, has helped her get out of […]

Review: The First Time — on at BATS theatre

I often look at awk­ward, self-con­s­cious teens and want to tell them that life is going to be OK. Those years of expe­ri­enc­ing things for the first time can strike you down with a pletho­ra of feel­ings from ecsta­sy to mis­ery. ‘The First Time’ explores all of those feel­ings as five tal­ent­ed women take to […]

Review: Dank Comedy: The National Average

Dank Presents is a series of exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy shows cre­at­ed by Welling­ton come­di­ans and pro­duc­ers. Host­ed by Fringe Bar this Fringe, every show is dif­fer­ent. I saw The Nation­al Aver­age, based on an award win­ning rou­tine in BATS The­atre’s Late Night Knife Fight. Jon­ny Potts and Matt Pow­ell are broth­ers Cos­mo and Carl, left a whisky/whiskey […]

On now: Pūtahi Festival

Tawa­ta Pro­duc­tions in asso­ci­a­tion with Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty of Welling­ton and Welling­ton City Coun­cil proud­ly presents Pūtahi Fes­ti­val, 2017. The Fes­ti­val is a pre­sen­ta­tion of works in devel­op­ment (and is a darn good time). Every­thing is show­ing at Stu­dio 77, 77 Fair­lie Ter­race, Kel­burn, Welling­ton. Most shows are koha but it pays to book a tick­et so […]