Preview: Girl in the loft

Girl in the loft is a solo show by Kath­er­ine Wyeth. It’s the story of a child­hood grow­ing up at The King’s Head Theatre, Lon­don. “My life began as a theatre kid grow­ing up at the world-renowned King’s Head Theatre in Lon­don. I was lucky to exper­i­ence a unique child­hood grow­ing up in the theatre… […]

Preview: Routine Magic-Magic Routine

Routine magic – Will Aloysi­us aban­don ritu­al­ist­ic powers acquired dur­ing his 10 year social isol­a­tion? Magic routine – Can You­Tube Influ­en­cer Ant Hill find suf­fi­cient inner har­mony to open a life-chan­­ging envel­ope? This pair of plays, util­ising the same set and act­ors, tell two timely and com­pel­ling stor­ies. Routine Magic, short­l­is­ted for the Adam NZ Play […]

Preview: New Zealand Improv Festival 2020

Every year impro­visers gath­er in Wel­ling­ton to cel­eb­rate the New Zea­l­and Improv Fest­iv­al (NZIF), but this year impro­vis­ors from over­seas have been COV­­ID-19-blocked. Fest­iv­al dir­ect­or Jen­nifer O’Sullivan says, “We have built the fest­iv­al on a plat­form of col­lab­or­a­tion and con­nec­tion, reach­ing nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally and bring­ing togeth­er amaz­ing tal­ent and per­spect­ives. Of course, the cur­rent […]

Review: PLAY

It’s strange to be back in a place like BATS dur­ing times like these, but I’m very pleased I went along to see PLAY, a gay dat­ing dram­edy here from Auck­land. It’s a play with­in a play, of a sort – the first twenty minutes or so being a form of a draw­ing-room com­edy, then the show […]

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: Dance me to the end

Dir­ect­or Car­rie Thiel is seek­ing to “cre­ate con­nectiv­ity using mul­ti­me­dia, motion cap­ture and vir­tu­al real­ity tech­no­lo­gies in a theatre set­ting.” Work­ing with pro­fes­sion­al dan­cer Laura Jones, sound design­er Chris Winter and 3D180 VR film­maker Ed Dav­is, she’s brought togeth­er some­thing that’s quite spe­cial.  The per­form­ance itself is short and is designed as a ‘proof of […]

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 […]

Review: Death Comes To Us All

Death takes her by the hand, leads her to a pool of light at the apron of the stage and she tells us her last moments. There’s light at the end, she says, and dis­ap­pears off stage. I sniff, a little, and hold back tears. Death Comes To Us All is a remark­ably hon­est, very […]

Review: High School Magical: The Reunion

We all know Harry Pot­ter, right? The lovely folks over at Play­shop have turned its basic premise into an improv show called High School Magic­al, full of hi-jinks and com­edy of the wiz­ard­ing sort. It’s ten years since the Chosen One (who I pre­sume is gif­ted the title by the audi­ence each show, but was […]