Nancy Harris should have been in Auckland tonight for the opening of her play Two Ladies. Instead she’s been chatting with the cast via Zoom from locked-down Ireland, where live theatre is a distant memory. It was a surreal moment in a year of surreal moments. I was sitting in my mother’s living room in … Read more
Elise Sterback is leaving The Basement theatre after seven years as its executive director. Battling post-Covid instability, she’s led the Auckland institution to a new artist-first strategy, renewed long-term funding and game-changing sector vision. It’s been a rough year for the arts, but the Basement Theatre, in its classic number-eight-wire fashion, has clambered through and … Read more
Ruby Brunton’s late parents Alan Brunton and Sally Rodwell founded New Zealand’s least ordinary theatre company, Red Mole. Now based in Mexico City, she reviews Martin Edmond’s memoir about his time with the group. It’s easy to romanticise the past, especially when the past you’re remembering is light-years from the current moment. As I read … Read more
Imagine a raucous garage party, with better talent, lighting and sound: welcome to the Modern Māori Quartet’s new show at Auckland’s Civic. There are many lessons to learn from 2020, but if there’s one I hope sticks, it’s the lesson to not to take shit for granted. Seize the day, seize the minute, seize the … Read more
Theatre has been used as a medium to communicate society’s toughest issues for hundreds of years. Every Brilliant Thing is a show by Silo Theatre company encouraging thoughtful discussion of depression and suicide in a year where people’s mental health has been put under heavy pressure. As we shuffle into the opening performance of Every … Read more
Crowd-hater Michelle Langstone discovers a new appreciation for the maelstrom of humanity. I’ve always found crowds panic-inducing, sweaty, noisy and lacking in manners. My attitude to crowds is akin to an 80-year-old woman who’s cross about the neighbour’s dog getting into her garden — no time for it, inclined to give people a real dressing … Read more
Whether they’re being cast as serial killers or compared to politicians, it’s a hard time being a clown. Sherry Zhang reflects on her time as a jester, and talks to some friends in the profession. Time and time again, clowns have been ridiculed and defamed in our parliament. A few weeks ago, in relation to … Read more
Auckland Theatre Company opened two shows this week, performed under Covid-19 restrictions. So what’s it like to go to the theatre during a pandemic? One of the last theatre shows I saw before we went into the first lockdown was Auckland Theatre Company’s Black Lover. It’s fitting, then, that it’s one of two shows the … Read more
On Tuesday, Creative New Zealand announced the details of their $16 million Emergency Response Package addressing the impacts of Covid-19. Here are the specifics of it, along with some added clarity from CNZ CEO Stephen Wainwright. Over the past two weeks, the arts community has been devastated by Covid-19. Shows, gigs, exhibitions, and concerts have … Read more
Sam Brooks surveys the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the performing arts community. As Covid-19 took hold across the world over the past few weeks, the ripple effects began to be felt across New Zealand’s performing arts sector. In late February, one of the flagship shows of the Auckland Arts Festival, Place Des Anges, due … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Before the Coffee Gets Cold – which Aucklanders, inexplicably, will not stop buying – and finds a book that sits oddly out of its native language and native form. For an extraordinary five weeks straight, a certain slim $20 novel has topped the Unity Auckland charts. That’s after making the Top 10 … Read more
Linda Burgess climbs the eternal staircase at the Opera House in Wellington to watch the virtuoso actor. At the interval her legs are aching. But in the second half, magic happens. There’s one person wearing a face mask, just the one, and it turns his face into a disposable nappy with two scared eyes above. … Read more
A highlight of this year’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts are the collaborations between some of the best artists and creators in the world. Sam Brooks talks to artists about the work they’re making and what collaboration means to them. Whether it’s the relationship between a writer and an editor, between a choreographer and … Read more
There’s a lot of confusion around the symptoms and effects of dementia. Now, neuroscientists are partnering with playwrights to give a voice to the research. In labs and clinics across New Zealand, researchers are working towards an ambitious goal: to understand the biological mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases, as well as stroke and … Read more
The Pop-Up Globe will be popping down at the end of its 2020 season and setting off overseas. Sam Brooks talks to its founder, Miles Gregory, about where the future of the company lies. More than 650,000 tickets; 17 productions; 1206 performances; 212 acting jobs. Regardless of where you stand on the Pop-Up Globe, the … Read more
In Mrs Krishnan’s Party, Kalyani Nagarajan plays the lead role and cooks the audience dinner to boot. What could possibly go wrong? The idea of cooking for more than 100 people would fill most of us with terror. How about cooking for more than 100 people within a constrained time limit while on stage acting … Read more
Inheritance plays as part of The Basement Theatre’s Matariki season this week. Sam Brooks talks to one of its creators about what the show wants to say. Jess Holly Bates has quite a bit of experience making shows that start conversations. Her show Real White Fake Dirt critiqued Pākehā privilege in a way that was both … Read more
On the Wellington waterfront, over several dark and stormy nights, a documentary is being filmed – and they need extras. Josie Adams, who had blood to spare, spent the night at Second Unit’s new, undead theatre experience. The only thing I knew about my night was I would enter something called the Cathedral of Despair. … Read more
She has scores of credits to her name, awards galore, she’s an CNZM, and she stars in the cabaret Delicious Oblivion, opening tonight in Auckland. Jennifer Ward-Lealand talks to Sam Brooks about her most memorable roles. It’s not hyperbole to call Jennifer Ward-Lealand a living legend. Across her 40-year career, the actress has graced both … Read more
What makes a piece of art ‘Indian’? What makes it ‘English’? Aarti Bajaj, director of new theatre production Meera, unravels our prejudices around art and what makes people put art into boxes. Every time I hear someone mention that our show Meera is an ‘Indian thing’, or just for an Indian audience, I have to ask: when they … Read more
A play teaching teens about consent and sexual harassment opens in Wellington this week, followed by Auckland next month. Co-creator Karin McCracken talks about why the show was necessary, and the generationally unique struggles kids face today. The current model of health education in New Zealand allows parents to opt their kids out of sex … Read more
Much like its subject, The Audience is blandly pleasant and frustratingly naive. Sam Brooks reviews Auckland Theatre Company’s latest production. Every week, Queen Elizabeth II has an hour-long meeting with her prime minister to discuss the matters of the day. This has happened since her coronation in 1953, and will happen until she abdicates, she dies, or … Read more
Spinoff parents editor Emily Writes’ bestseller Rants in the Dark is coming to Auckland – as a play. Her Spinoff colleague Sam Brooks, a playwright himself, spoke to her about the process of seeing her book adapted for the stage. I’ve been writing plays for nearly a decade now. I’ve written stuff that could not be further … Read more
As New Zealand remembers those lives lost in 20-century wars, New Zealand actor Michael Hurst reflects upon wars dating back millennia, and the role of storytelling in remembrance and resistance. Tomorrow, I begin a five day-intensive rehearsal process for An Iliad by Lisa Petersen and Denis O’Hare. I performed it a year ago in Dunedin and … Read more
Working on my Night Moves is the latest show from award-winning theatremaker Julia Croft and marks a philosophical change for her. Julia Croft is one of Auckland’s most essential theatremakers at the moment. The work she makes is consistently engaging with the zeitgeist in performative, accessible ways. The difference, according to the artist herself, with Working on … Read more
In a stunning new run of Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, Samoan women are allowed to be whole, writes Madeleine Chapman. I had two mums growing up. There was Pani (pronounced “Bunny”), my mum, who spoke Samoan on the phone to her sisters for hours, howling with laughter, yet seemed angry all the time. She could silence … Read more
Tonight, Pussy Riot perform their show Riot Days as a part of Auckland Fringe. In the lead-up to the performance, Dina Jezdic talked to the collective’s Maria ‘Masha’ Alyokhina. In 2012 Maria ‘Masha’ Alyokhina, member of the Pussy Riot activist collective, was sentenced to two years in prison and sent to a Russian penal colony. Today, Masha … Read more
A new book by Tony McCaffrey deals with stage performances by people who have intellectual disabilities. John Lambie was an actor with Down Syndrome. He had had been part of the initial intake of children in 1965 into Hohepa Canterbury, a residential community in Christchurch for people with intellectual disabilities, run on the principles of Rudolf Steiner. In 2015, John … Read more
