It’s WOW time again, and this year’s show is the most amazing and extravagant yet. But was it too extravagant this year? I’ll get to that later. Please note that this post will contain spoilers about the show, so if you’re going, don’t read it until afterwards okay? The Wellingtonista has a little pre-WOW game. […]
Monologues have always struck me as exciting things to watch. There is only the performer and the audience. If the audience doesn’t like the performer then it can seem like a very long time sitting in the dark waiting to get back to the bar. If it works then it’s magical. In Eight, there are […]
Strike are completing their Downstage Residency with a revisit of Elemental. It’s a “percussive based theatrical stage show” which is funny, breathtaking, and intricate. Murray Hickman, Tim Whitta, Leni Sulusi, and Takumi Motokawa, are joined by newbie Tom Broome. Their team work is so good that it’s difficult to tell that he’s new. The pieces […]
‘When the rain stops falling‘ has a challenging narrative and structure – one actor (x2) plays two characters, two actors (x2) play one character, three characters have the same name, and the timeline spans 80 years. There’s a family tree in the programme to help keep the characters sorted but even then it can be […]
‘Awhi Tapu’ and ‘An Oak Tree’ are on until the end of the week. I found both fascinating for the way the story was told as much as for the narrative. Awhi Tapu at Downstage is set in a small ex-timber town. Wendyl is the leader holding Raj, Casper, and Girl Girl, together. He’s hoping […]
So, you want to see some breasts. Nothing wrong with that. Where in Wellington should you go to see them? For the purposes of scientific research, we headed to Dream Girls and Mermaids to find out what you can expect. We also had a chat to a girl who’s worked in both places for the […]
At the Wellingtonista, we love us some live theatre and comedy. About the only things we love more are bars and hard liquor, so when a PR company offered us some vodka to give away as a promotion for a comedy show staged in a bar, how could we resist? As it turns out, quite […]
For the last few weeks, a group of bright young actors have been hard at work at the Long Cloud Youth Theatre’s summer school workshop. The summer school attendees – aged from 16 to 21 – were split into two groups that produced Daughters of Heaven and The Picture of Dorian Gray. And these two […]
Baby, it’s cold outside. “Heat”, by New Zealand playwright Linda Chanwai-Earle, returns to Wellington after its 2008 debut at Bats. I didn’t quite know what to expect of this icy Antarctic tale, but I ended up really enjoying it, and found it surprisingly moving. Set in an isolated research hut in Antarctica, it focuses on […]
A man and a woman sit across a table from one another at a Wellington cafe. He’s making something from a ball of Blu-tack, she’s drawing something with chalk. The latest production from Downstage, Etiquette, does things a little differently. Gone is the familiar location of the Hannah Playhouse. Instead the action takes place at […]