Just before my Wellingtonista privileges are removed due to, erm, non-compliance with acceptable posting chronometry (or something) here’s an update on everyone’s favourite professional theatre, Downstage.
Last week they launched their new Season brochure, "Life in High Definition", which lists all the shows between now and Christmas. Highlights are many, but include new plays by Jo Randerson (Good Night – The End) and Stuart McKenzie (Biography of My Skin, starring his wife Miranda Harcourt), Collapsing Creation (by the team that brought you On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as her Young Lover last year) and the return of beloved circus-theatre show Adagio with extra, added, Christmassy bits.
Also on the menu between now and November is Soundstage, Downstage’s new venture into the world of popular music: Once a month Sunday evening shows featuring favourite local bands in a relaxed, theatrical setting, the first act is The Woolshed Sessions on Sunday night shortly followed by Little Bushman on 2 August. The Woolsheds are so popular that the Sunday evening show has almost sold out and an extra 3pm matinee has just been added. Seats are limited and going fast.
Tonight the "Life in High Definition" season gets under way with the return of two of Downstage’s best friends: Strike Percussion always raise the roof with their high energy, high precision performance. This time they are joined by the virtuoso Australian improvisor Adam Page who wowed Wellington audiences with his solo show during the Fringe. They have been collaborating on new work, combining Strike’s hitting things with Adam’s blowing into things and the results are explosive.
Adam will also be doing his usual multi-instrumental improvisations (with Strike support) so no two shows will be the same.
You can download a pdf of the "Life in High Definition" brochure here, or contact theatre@downstage.co.nz and ask for a paper one to be sent out to you. Interestingly 90% of Woolshed bookings have been over the web at www.downstage.co.nz which is pretty remarkable. Also, today, Downstage have launched TradeMe Tuesday – a chance to get Downstage tickets for as low as $1 reserve. It’s a bit like Grabaseat – check in to the TradeMe Downstage Store every Tuesday for more specials.
It’s Comedy festival time in the Capital.
Personally I think the timing is always quite impeccable as winter has just hit and with it comes the winter blues. There are loads of amazing local acts and also some brilliant internationals.
Now normally the international acts like to include a little local content to make the crowd love them more. Often it’s limited to jokes about wind, jaffas and Australians. Sammy J is clearly the exception to the rule, and to prove it he’s even been making some extremly cute videos.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQG1pRpTF-c]You can catch him at Downstage from tonight.
My hot local tip is the The Comediettes. Emma, Jim and Sarah were amazing at the fringe festival with their stand up show. Sarah’s been winning a few comedy competitions lately, so you now she’s going to bring the giggles.
The Fringe is over for another year, nicely polished off with an awards ceremony at The Paramount tonight. A full post will be on its way, but for now here’s the list of winners:
Best Comedy: Improv – The Secondary School Musical
Best Dance: Perforum – Footnote Dance
Best Music: Adam Page Solo
Best Outdoor: Frogs under the Waterfront
Best Theatre: The Intricate Art of Actually Caring
Best Visual Art: This is Where I Live – Fleur Wickes
Best Newcomers: Binge Culture Collective – Drowning Bird, Plummeting Fish
Marketing Award: A Most Outrageous Humbug
Best ‘One man band’/solo show: Adam Page Solo
Best production design: Faust Chroma
Most orginal concept: This is Where I Live – Fleur Wickes
Stand-out performer: Julia Milsom – Self Portrait
Open Studios People’s Choice: Alex Rodriguez
…and finally, the big and special awards after the jump…
Fuse Circus have joined The Fringe with The Navigators, a new outdoor show under the sails at Queens Wharf.
If you haven’t seen their previous shows, Heavenly Burlesque or Gravity and Other Myths, then get down there right now! If you have, then while a few of the moves may be familiar, it’s still wonderful entertainment. The "narrative" may be little more than an flimsy framework from which to suspend yet more biophysical impossibilities, and there’s a touch of pantomime goofiness that detracts slightly from the inherent hotness, but there will still be plenty to make you gasp, laugh and wonder.
As someone who sometimes struggles to stand upright in the morning, let alone balance several people on one’s limbs while doing so, these guys will always be a source of amazement. They perform most evenings until Saturday the 7th of March, so you have no excuse for missing them.
So you can’t sleep right? If the Fringe festival has left you all over stimulated and you are in need of night time novelty may I suggest that you head to the Watsui tonight for the start of a frenetic 24 hour art gumball rally around Wellington. Welsh artist Bedwyr Williams is going to give us his spin on the ONE DAY SCULPTURE series by taking a used station wagon around 24 locations in 24 hours, aiming to stack up 24 works on the roof rack by midnight tomorrow.
Planned itinerary after the jump
Downstage opens its doors for the first time this summer with three new shows opening in less than a week!
This time last year Tim Spite’s SEEyD Company thrilled audiences with the paua poaching action adventure Paua (netting Spite the Chapman Tripp Director of the Year Award in the process). Now they’re back with a re-working of earlier success Turbine, which blew people away at BATS in 2006: An environmentally conscious family have their principles tested when a power company wants to build a wind farm in their ‘back yard’.
Turbine opens officially on Friday but early birds (or the price sensitive) can see previews on Wednesday or Thursday night for only $20.
Percussion-monsters Strike are back for one night only on Sunday, playing favourites and showcasing tracks from their forthcoming CD. Guests Lisa Tomlins (The Eggs) and Mana (Rhombus) collaborate and DJ Samu adds breaks. Strike Soundsystem is on Sunday at 8.00pm.
Superhero comics fans should press their best unitards this week in preparation for Armageddon, and likewise indie and underground comics fans should pull out their copies of Hicksville for signing, as the NZ Comix Weekend is setting up shop on the 19th-20th April at the Southern Cross, Graphic and Spacething.
There are talks, jams, stalls, seminars and exhibitions – providing a homegrown counterpoint to the big budget pulp culture-fest over at the TSB Arena (although some of the Comix Weekend artists are also represented at Armageddon)
Details and links after the jump…
Opening tomorrow night at the Film Archive – Wellington multi-media artist Sarah Jane Parton presents her wacky take on the future…
Well known for her beguiling video and installation work (and love of lycra leotards) Parton has assembled a cast and crew of Wellington’s finest to create a sci-fi musical odyssey starring Toi Whakaari graduates Antonia Bale, Anja Tate-Manning (Chapman-Tripp award winner), and Jade Daniels, alongside theatre veteran Rose Beauchamp, dancer Sam Lahood and a bevy of young and talented children.
With music performed by a live band featuring the members of Cassette under the musical direction of Parton’s partner Luke Buda (Phoenix Foundation), fronted by the perpetually hilarious Jo Randerson, the show contains a reasonable degree of cynicism, offset by moments of absurdity and humour.
In this cross-genre work, ideological meltdown is imminent, the revolution is doomed long before it begins and audience members are advised to bring a blanket.
PERFORMANCE DETAILS
Thursday 28, Friday 29 February and Saturday 1 March at 7pm
at The Film Archive, cnr Taranaki and Ghuznee Streets
Tickets:
Full Price – $15,
Concession – $13,
Fringe Addict – $12
Read Brannavan Gnanlingam’s great interview about the show
here
In 1998 Werner Herzog made an acclaimed documentary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly about German-born Vietnam hero Dieter Dengler and his adventures as a US Navy pilot. He obviously had a big connection to that story as he has now gone back and made a feature about the most amazing chapter of Dengler’s life: the escape from a jungle-bound Viet Cong prison camp after 6 months of near starvation. The Dark Knight’s Christian Bale stars. Rialto exclusive.
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star together as two old men on their last legs in The Bucket List, directed by Rob Reiner. It opens today at Readings, Empire, Lighthouse Petone and Penthouse. Also, from the commercial department is teleporting adventure Jumper starring Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson. Rumours that the proposed sequels to Jumper will be called Sweater and Pullover are simply reckless. Readings, Empire, Regent-on-Manners.