Celebrating Matariki with the best of Maori theatre and dance, the inaugural Ahi Kaa Festival officially opens tonight. In a city where some theatre practitioners think it’s okay to use blackface on stage because ‘it’s what the audience of the theatre form would have expected’ it is welcome. This festival will show off truly innovative work […]
War has been going on forever. Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece and the known world to withhold sex from their husbands (and lovers, occasional shags, one-night-stands etc) in order to force the men to broker world peace. The women agree and despite being tempted hold true to their promise. Will the men come together […]
Quinn (Victoria Seymour) and her younger sister Bambi (Hannah Botha) are on a road trip to their mother’s funeral. They haven’t seen each other since Quinn left home suddenly 10 years ago. On the way they stop in a remote part of the Waikato to pick up their other sister Mo (Lydia Buckley-Gorman). Quinn doesn’t […]
Before we’re in the theatre the performers come to us. “Allo” they cry in their French accents “You are looking gorgeous tonight!” They sweep us before them into their seedy world. It’s part cabaret, part shabby theatre, part sophisticated storytelling, part improv. It feels like a troupe of travelling actors has arrived in town and […]
My Accomplice tackles the spy film in their latest production which is part of the Comedy Festival. We follow globetrotting Agent Spyman Finger (Alex Greig) around the globe in his efforts to bring the bad guy to justice. He is accompanied by various (in)appropriately named team members (played by Hannah Banks and Paul Waggott). The […]
The lights go up on a mostly bare stage. In the back half of the stage there is a sheet of plastic being used as a curtain. It’s snagged on a table. As it rises a figure becomes visible over a miniature cityscape. The light brightens to reveal not a cityscape but a mess of […]
A NZ written disco noir set in Harlem, 1979. Dancer Fontella Pendavis (Deborah Eve Rea) has been murdered at Studio Soul and Detective Gonzales (Jordan Rivers) has been sent to investigate. There are plenty of possible suspects – Luz Cruz (Brittany Goss), who has inherited Fontella’s job; Ari Sugarman (Ed Blunden), the owner of the […]
A series of 11 monologues about love and sex written by Uther Dean. It’s performed by 6 women — Alice May Connolly, Brianne Kerr, Hannah Banks, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Hilary Penwarden, and Kegan Carr Fransch. From the start we’re invited into a surreal world where the object of love and/or sex might not be human. […]
One of the few shows on in Wellington that are not part of the Fringe Festival, The Brave is showing at the Hannah Playhouse until the end of February. Auckland-based Massive Company have devised a show which explores the question “What is it to be a man in 2015?” Using the same cast that looked at […]
Dad is visiting China. He leaves older sister Stella in charge of the farm. This is a mistake as she promptly sells it, then scarpers off to Paris to spend the proceeds, leaving little sister Daisy the almost useless blackberry patch. However Daisy is very resourceful and hardworking. She is determined to buy the farm […]