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 […]