Preview: Ecology in Fifths

Award-win­n­ing dir­ect­or and per­form­ance design­er Sam Trub­ridge is bring­ing a bold new per­form­ance to Te Whaea this August. Tak­ing inspir­a­tion from H Guthrie Smith’s ‘Tutira: The Story of an NZ Sheep Sta­tion’ (1921), Eco­logy in Fifths enacts this obsess­ive account of NZ eco­logy — now a recog­nised clas­sic in envir­on­ment­al sci­ence world­wide. Piece by piece, the […]

That’s All She Wrote – Review

I’ve  found myself in a very lovely, very priv­ileged, and deeply uncom­fort­able space.  I’ve seen three pre­vi­ous Red Scare Theatre Com­pany shows, and I’ve genu­inely loved them all.  I will have to enlist one of my ‘Ista com­rades to review their shows in future, to pre­clude claims of bias and shame­less fangirl­ing. Each of those […]

Review: Dungeoning and Dragoning

The show is exactly thus – four great act­ors play­ing Dun­geons and Dragons on stage, led by an emin­ently like­able DM. I must admit I had my qualms when com­ing to this show, as I’ve always found play­ing D&D to be more fun than watch­ing it, but the cast is excel­lent, the mood appro­pri­ate, and the […]

Review: It’s Behind You!

We’ve all had ter­rible Zoom calls over lock­down. Night­mar­ish ones, per­haps. How­ever, they’ve nev­er been quite as deadly as this. Trick of the Light Theatre’s (via Circa Theatre) work It’s Behind You! is a piece of digit­al theatre born out of the COVID-19 lock­down. First per­formed live online on 28 May, and avail­able until 30 […]

Review: Bay’s Anatomy

I once again embarked on the odys­sey that seems to be one of Kickin’ Rad/Soap Fact­ory’s Fringe schticks these days – an impro­vised soap opera, set in Wel­ling­ton, with a cast of ten and new epis­odes on the hour every hour from 1–11pm. Hav­ing stumbled exhaustedly but also with a great sense of excite­ment from […]

Review – Oddacity

Odda­city prom­ised an “award-win­n­ing, best-of spec­tac­u­lar with a cast of inter­na­tion­al luminar­ies per­form­ing styl­ish acts”, under the beau­ti­ful sky­light in Bats’ Hey­day Dome.   I was­n’t sure what to expect, know­ing the theatre would­n’t suit aer­i­als or acro­bat­ics, but I hoped  for clowns.  I was not dis­ap­poin­ted in that sense. Odda­city is usu­ally Sach­ie Mikawa, Trent […]

Review: DND Live at the Fringe: When Dwarves Cry

I would­n’t neces­sar­ily say that Dun­geons and Dragons has gone main­stream, but it’s become a lot more pop­u­lar in the last twenty years.  It prob­ably helps that there are so many TV shows these days with a fantasy ele­ment, as well as movies like the Lord of the Rings series mak­ing sword-and-sor­cery stuff cool­er. DnD […]

Review: Dr Drama Makes a Show

It was weird for me to go to a show at 93 Kel­burn Parade, hav­ing com­pleted my own humble BA at Vic almost 20 years ago.  In fact, #93 was the site of at least one audi­tion and more than a few rehears­als for me.  It’s had a bit of a facelift, now being an […]

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream was the per­fect pick for Sum­mer Shakespeare, tra­di­tion­ally held in the Dell in Wel­ling­ton’s Botan­ic­al Gar­dens at night in the middle of sum­mer, but then the pro­duc­tion moved to the base­ment theatre at Te Whaea in New­town, and things pivoted from the usu­al. It was odd not to be sit­ting on […]

Review: STUPID BITCH wants a puppy

This is a ‘tune up’ of 2018’s STUPID BITCH which played in a dance stu­dio above Cuba Street in the Fringe Fest­iv­al. As a work in devel­op­ment it garnered actor/writer Claire Waldron nom­in­a­tions for Out­stand­ing Per­former in the Wel­ling­ton and Duned­in Fringe Fest­ivals. This time around it’s at BATS Theatre in The Hey­day Dome. Waldron […]