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 […]