Theatre Review: Destination Beehive: 2017

You pos­si­bly couldn’t get more Welling­ton than head­ing to the the­atre, regard­less of the weath­er, to watch a musi­cal about pol­i­tics. Last week, I went along to Des­ti­na­tion Bee­hive: 2017, writ­ten by the clever and wit­ty duo of Lorae Par­ry and Pinky Agnew. The seat of Tinako­ri Heights is high­ly con­tend­ed this elec­tion as every […]

Preview: Young & Hungry

For 24 years Young & Hun­gry and BATS The­atre have been pro­vid­ing young peo­ple with a plat­form to per­form, pro­duce and cre­ate great the­atre. With the Play­wrights’ Ini­tia­tive pro­duc­ing three new kiwi plays a year and the annu­al Fes­ti­val of New The­atre at BATS — Y&H feeds the the­atri­cal hunger and quench­es the cre­ative thirst […]

Preview: Project Glow

At a pos­si­bly not-that-secret loca­tion in the heart of Te Aro, The Welling­ton­ista was invit­ed to pre­view the entrants for this year’s Project Glow. We had to tap on the win­dow to gain entrance, and while there only man­aged to take the blur­ri­est of pho­tos. That’s because the judges were busy at work; and we […]

Review: Oikos Hellenic Cuisine, Miramar

Oikos is the new Greek Restau­rant, in the the south­ern most southest part of Mira­mar,  on the 2 bus route, and close to the cycle tun­nel. This is firm­ly in Greek ter­ri­to­ry of Welling­ton. The local fish’n’chip shops also serve a vari­ant of Greek food (yeros most­ly), which is a deli­cious alter­na­tive to fried fish. […]

Preview: Black Grace – As Night Falls

Fol­low­ing a sold-out Auck­land sea­son in 2016, and a 10-cen­tre tour of the Unit­ed States, Black Grace and Tour-Mak­ers are proud to tour the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed As Night Falls to sev­en nation­al cen­tres from 22 June – 6 July around Aotearoa. A poet­ic ode to our trou­bled world, As Night Falls is Artis­tic Direc­tor Neil […]

Preview: The Mooncake and the Kūmara

Lay­ered with myth and fable, The Moon­cake and the Kūmara is a mov­ing sto­ry about a mixed-up, Māori-Chi­­nese love affair that sprouts among rows of pota­toes. Told in a mix­ture of Eng­lish, Māori and Can­tonese, the play is show­ing in Welling­ton as part of the Kia Mau Fes­ti­val. Māori-Chi­­nese play­wright Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen talked […]

Preview: Fire in the water, fire in the sky

Told through move­ment, dance and text, this is a mod­ern state­ment on cli­mate change, coloni­sa­tion and Chris­tian­i­ty across the Pacif­ic Rim. It’s an untan­gling of the great­est col­li­sion to have affect­ed the Pacif­ic — west­ern impe­ri­al­ism. Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky has var­i­ous per­for­mance times dur­ing the morn­ings. It shows in Tan­ga­ta Le […]

Preview: The Māori Sidesteps

The newest and naugh­ti­est Maori show­band on the Aotearoa enter­tain­ment scene plays at BATS The­atre dur­ing the Kia Mau Fes­ti­val. Self described as “Fun­ny Māoris with fun­ny songs” this show is more of a gig than a the­atre piece for the actors involved. Band mem­ber Jamie McCaskill talked about the ori­gins of the group and what they do. “Rob Mokara­ka, […]

Preview: The Purple Onion

The Pur­ple Onion  peeps into the world of Wellington’s infa­mous bur­lesque par­lour as part of the Kia Mau Fes­ti­val. Estab­lished in the mid 1960s, the Pur­ple Onion was Wellington’s pre­miere strip club which attract­ed some of New Zealand’s social elite as well as its fair share of dubi­ous char­ac­ters. Com­bin­ing text, dance and a live funk […]

Preview: Riverside Kings

River­side Kings opens in Upper Hutt today and plays in BATS The­atre next week as part of the Kia Mau Fes­ti­val. The cre­ators Sari­ta So and Natano Keni, describe it as “a phys­i­cal weav­ing of broth­er­hood, nos­tal­gia and change.” Their new com­pa­ny, I Ken So Pro­duc­tions, aims to cre­ate, diverse works of a high qual­i­ty.  They […]