Silo Theatre: Auckland's Boutique Theatre Experience

Sat 24 Jul 10 - Sat 14 Aug 10

MUSIC & LYRICS BY STEPHEN SONDHEIM
BOOK BY JOHN WEIDMAN
BASED ON AN IDEA BY CHARLES GILBERT JNR.
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH HAL LEONARD AUSTRALIA
EXCLUSIVE AGENT FOR MUSIC THEATRE INTERNATIONAL, NY.

All you have to do is pull a trigger and you can change the world.

America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. But some sing a different kind of national anthem. This chorus line is populated by that not-so-exclusive club of men and women who have tried, with and without success, to kill the President of the United States. They want to grab headlines, get the girl, or see their name in lights. They want a clear shot at the big time. One man’s American dream can become a nation’s nightmare.

Stephen Sondheim is widely regarded as the world’s most significant living musical theatre composer and lyricist. In this glitteringly subversive musical he pushes the boundaries of the art form, creating an utterly idiosyncratic entertainment compounded equally of insight, gallows humour and provocation. Nothing quite prepares you for the gobsmacking brilliance of ASSASSINS.

from the writer of SWEENEY TODD and INTO THE WOODS

CONCERT CHAMBER, AUCKLAND TOWN HALL, THE EDGE®

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW AS PART OF A 2010 SEASON PACKAGE

PUBLIC SALES OPEN FEBRUARY 1

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
MITCHELL BUTEL BRONWYN BRADLEY GARETH WILLIAMS KYLE CHUEN CAMERON DOUGLAS ANDREW GRAINGER NATALIE MEDLOCK CAMERON RHODES ROY SNOW

Fri 19 Mar 10 - Sun 11 Apr 10

POLLY STENHAM. UNITED KINGDOM. 2007.

EXTRA PERFORMANCE ADDED TO COPE WITH DEMAND
Saturday April 10th at 2pm

Henry has dropped out of school to look after Mummy Dearest.
Mia is about to be booted out all of her own accord.
Mummy is a beautifully spoken monster, drunkenly indulging her own decline.
And Daddy? In absentia, but rushing home from Hong Kong to fix things as only his money can.

And now it’s time for this fractured family to face a reality they have avoided for far too long.

Written when she was just 19, POLLY STENHAM’s trail-blazing debut left London audiences gobsmacked, picking up every award under the sun. Told with youthful swagger, tremendous heart and a dark, mischievous sense of humour, Stenham explodes the tricky interface between neglect and active abuse. When children are forced to act like parents, and parents ignore their responsibilities, who has the right to dictate the future?

In a real mother of a play, Generation Y bites back at the Baby Boomers.

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW AS PART OF A 2010 SEASON PACKAGE

BOOKINGS ON 09 357 3358

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
CHELSIE PRESTON CRAYFORD ANDREW GRAINGER ROSE McIVER EDITH POOR DAN WEEKES JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND

Wed 01 Apr 09 - Sat 11 Apr 09

TOA FRASER. NEW ZEALAND. 1999.

We’re going to make this place come alive.

Today is the hottest day of the year and Nanna Maria wants a feast. She wants all of the grandkids here, but none of her children - they’re all bloody useless. She wants a big, long table outside and a pig on a spit. She wants to make it real flash, she wants tablecloths and stuff. And a priest. She wants spirits dancing, squabbles in the kitchen and bitching in the backyard. And some beers. And she doesn’t want anybody to go hungry. She just wants the miracle of family.

Because today Nanna Maria is going to name her successor.

Mixing kava with karaoke, Toa Fraser pushes the culture forward. We celebrate the raucous joy, the shifting dynamics and the chaos that only an extended family knows. And after ten years, Madeleine Sami returns to the Auckland stage in the virtuoso performance that took the world by storm.

It’s time to come home.

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE PUMPHOUSE THEATRE
BOOKINGS ON 09 489 8360

Direction:

Featuring:
MADELEINE SAMI

Thu 19 Mar 09 - Sat 11 Apr 09

OLIVER DRIVER & ENSEMBLE. NEW ZEALAND. 2009.

Storytelling has existed as long as humanity has had language. It provides us with a means to connect with one another, either through fantasy or reflection, entertainment or education. It allows us to understand and negotiate the complexity of life.

And if our lives today were truly linear, we would always live in the present moment. But we don't. At any moment, we live in the past, partly in the present, and much in the future.

For two months, eight actors will work to construct their own narrative. We don't know quite where we'll end up. We do know that we'll deliver an enigmatic portrait of hope. A work which embraces who we are, where we live and celebrates our inheritance.

Today's generation. Today's idiom. Theatre that speaks with its own voice.

PERFORMED IN REPERTORY WITH LIFE IS A DREAM
PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AUCKLAND FESTIVAL 09

PERFORMANCE TIMES VARY
HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
BREE PETERS JOHNNY BRIGHT RACHEL FORMAN RENEE LYONS SAM SNEDDEN DAN MUSGROVE FERN SUTHERLAND NATALIE MEDLOCK

Fri 04 Jun 10 - Sat 03 Jul 10

ANDREW BOVELL. AUSTRALIA. 2008.

SEASON SOLD OUT

2039. Fish are a rarity, almost extinct. Rainfall is incessant. The planet has been ravaged by years of abuse. The scars left by our ancestors are deep, marking the environment and humanity itself.

A fish falls from the sky and lands at the feet of Gabriel York – manna from heaven to bless the reunion of a father with his long lost son. And so we embark on an epic journey which crosses continents and spans four generations of one family. From the claustrophobia of 1950s London to the windswept coast of South Australia and into the dark heart of the Australian desert, we delve into the past and reach into the future, bringing to light the enduring impact of collective and individual actions.

Wounded souls in wild landscapes.
Compassion, transformation and survival.
This is theatre of miracles.

from the writer of LANTANA

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW AS PART OF A 2010 SEASON PACKAGE

PUBLIC SALES OPEN FEBRUARY 1

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
JUDE GIBSON STEPHEN LOVATT PETER ELLIOTT TANDI WRIGHT SIMON LONDON MORGANA O'REILLY JENNIFER LUDLAM

Sat 14 Mar 09 - Fri 10 Apr 09

PEDRO CALDERON DE LA BARCA. SPAIN. 1636.

Running wounded, Rosaura is on a crusade to avenge her past. She becomes lost in a rough country, discovering a chained wild man, Segismundo, who has been imprisoned in a tower for his entire life.

Rosaura is a woman disguised as a man.
Segismundo is a Prince, who believes he's a slave.
The country is in chaos, ruled by a King who would rather sacrifice his own son than relinquish power.

The couple must conquer a world of treachery and mistaken identity before they can truly awaken to a world of love.

Calderon's masterpiece from the Spanish Golden Age is an exultant journey through a fairy-tale landscape of destiny, desire and illusion. Michael Hurst is let loose on this feverish act of poetic transcendence.

PERFORMED IN REPERTORY WITH BACK STORY
PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AUCKLAND FESTIVAL 09

PERFORMANCE TIMES VARY
HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

Direction:
MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
DAN MUSGROVE FERN SUTHERLAND BREE PETERS NATALIE MEDLOCK RENEE LYONS RACHEL FORMAN JOHNNY BRIGHT SAM SNEDDEN

Fri 29 May 09 - Sat 27 Jun 09

THERESA REBECK. UNITED STATES. 2006.

When you scratch the surface, is there just another surface beneath?

Charlie used to be somebody. Now he's a nobody. Financially dependent on his wife and mortified by his own deadbeat status, he self-medicates his premature emasculation by ranting about the A-List lifestyle he still covets.

Clea is new to the scene. She's a trophy wife in waiting with a vocabulary ripped straight from Facebook. The glistening object of fascination in alpine heels and a (very) little black dress. Teeter-tottering between promiscuity and profundity, blondes don't come any more toxic than this.

Charlie, meet Clea - and see how unreality bites.

Ego, showbiz and the It Girl. Theresa Rebeck has crafted a naughty comedy about the empty narcissism of contemporary pop culture and the fierce economies of sex. Sharp, wicked, hilarious.

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®
BOOKINGS ON 09 366 0339

Direction:
PETER ELLIOTT
Featuring:
SOPHIE HENDERSON STEPHEN LOVATT EDWIN WRIGHT JOSEPHINE DAVISON

Fri 23 Oct 09 - Sat 21 Nov 09

JOE ORTON. UNITED KINGDOM. 1965.

Dear old Mrs. McLeavy is dead. She is survived by her husband, a devoted Catholic and horticulturalist, and her son Hal, a naughty young lad with grand larceny on his mind. After three days of mourning, the newly embalmed corpse resides in situ awaiting burial. Well, kind of. Some of the time.

Hal and his best mate Dennis have just robbed a bank and need a place to stash the dosh. So the coffin is hijacked and the bandaged cadaver chucked into the closet. Enter mayhem pursued by triple entendre.

As a buxom private nurse works her charms on Dad and the boys try to dodge the prying eyes of the intrepid Inspector Truscott (he of Scotland Yard fame), the play proper descends into a topsy-turvy, frickin funny utopia of decadence.

Detective fiction, religious ridicule, morality and the integrity of the police force. One of the greatest stage comedies of all time.

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

Direction:
MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
CAMERON RHODES DAVID McPHAIL CHARLIE McDERMOTT MIA BLAKE SAM SNEDDEN DAVID VAN HORN

Fri 07 Aug 09 - Sat 29 Aug 09

TOMMY MURPHY. AUSTRALIA. 2006.

SEASON SOLD OUT

We discover who we are, we fall in love, we stuff things up and we do the best we can.

And sometimes we have to dodge the trickiest of curve balls.
Like when you’re a homo in an all-male school in the 1970s.
And you’ve got a crush on the captain of the footy team.

Fumbling from febrile adolescence through to wide-eyed young adulthood, Tim and John eventually find a way together. For fifteen years their relationship survives everything life throws at it – the separations, the discriminations, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses. Until the only problem that love can’t solve turns up, changing their lives forever

A celebration of existence that speaks across generations, sexual preferences and cultures. Wickedly funny and breathtakingly candid, this is theatre that grips you by the heart and doesn’t let go.

adapted from Timothy Conigrave's classic memoir

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
MICHELLE BLUNDELL ALISON BRUCE ANDREW LAING CHARLIE McDERMOTT MATT WHELAN DAN MUSGROVE

Fri 24 Oct 08 - Sat 15 Nov 08

DIRTY FILTHY HOLLYWOOD

Mitchell Green is a movie star on the rise.
Men want to be him. Women want to bed him.
He's got ambition to burn and looks to kill.
And a teensy-weensy problem.
A cute little rent boy has got into his pants and under his skin.
And now he wants to come out and play.

Diane is a Tinseltown super-agent who appears to have no soul.
But she's highly evolved and always has her eye on the prize.
And determined to keep her #1 client playing it straight at any cost.

Will there be a happy ending as the final credits roll?

Tabloid gossip, man-on-man action and champagne whiplash.
This is a ridiculously funny take on fame and its discontents.
Indulge your obsession with celebrity.

Don't ask. Do tell?

CONTAINS NUDITY

LISTENER review
NZ HERALD review
LUMIERE review
GAYNZ.com review

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
SOPHIE HENDERSON PAOLO ROTONDO ALISON BRUCE CHARLIE McDERMOTT

Wed 08 Oct 08 - Sat 18 Oct 08

LIFE IS MULTIPLEX.

A brazen gym hottie, a philosophical meter-maid, a waffling academic, a Lexus-driving divorcee and a multiplex popcorn pusher. There is such a thing as society.

Armed with the voice of the street, two actors riff on body image, films, takeaway food, tagging and English literature.

Sold out in 2007, we celebrate the return of Toa Fraser’s much-loved and much-travelled poetic vision of NZ.

Love, sex, family, friendship, youth and bad movies at multiplexes. Listen to our people talk. Can you hear us?

BOOKINGS ON 09 357 3355

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
CURTIS VOWELL MORGANA O'REILLY

Fri 30 May 08 - Sat 21 Jun 08

MORALITY HAS NO HOME.

In a world of rapacious thugs and randy whores, we find our anti-hero Macheath - underworld legend, notorious womaniser and thief. Of late, he’s embarked on a cynical and dangerous liaison with Polly Peachum, daughter to the Master Controller of the Underclass. When Peachum and his booze-addled wife seek the smooth criminal’s downfall, revenge isn’t necessarily served cold.

Society is morally bankrupt.
Compassion is no longer existent.
Commercialism is the new religion.
You have to kill your neighbour to survive.

Theatrical icon Michael Hurst unlocks the biting savagery and tawdry razzle dazzle of this musical theatre masterpiece. Crammed full of sassy hit tunes, including the infamous Mack the Knife, this is Brecht for the 21st Century.

Vivid. Wild. Provocative. Hilarious. Human.

presented in collaboration with THE LARGE GROUP
BOOKINGS ON 09 308 2383

Direction:
MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
ELIZABETH TIERNEY ESTHER STEPHENS ROY SNOW PETER ELLIOTT KEITH ADAMS CAMERON RHODES JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND WAIMIHI HOTERE AMANDA BILLING PAUL BARRETT CHARLIE McDERMOTT DELIA HANNAH

Fri 20 Jun 08 - Sat 19 Jul 08

LOVE AND DECEIT. TOLD IN REVERSE.

The high price of passion is examined when an illicit affair destroys a marriage and sabotages a friendship.

Robert and Jerry were best friends.
Robert and Emma were married.
Jerry and Emma were lovers.
Welcome to the tangled emotional world of BETRAYAL

Peeling back the layers of time to reveal the unexpected, Harold Pinter captures the psyche's sly manouevres for self-respect with sardonic forgiveness.

from the writer of THE HOMECOMING

BOOKINGS ON 09 357 3355

Direction:
CAROLINE BELL-BOOTH
Featuring:
MICHELLE LANGSTONE COLIN MOY OLIVER DRIVER

Thu 20 Mar 08 - Sat 12 Apr 08

NINA RAINE. UNITED KINGDOM. 2006.

SEASON SOLD OUT

Bella is living, working, drinking, and loving in the 21st Century. And damn it to hell, she’s turning 29. None of her closest friends really know each other, but that hasn’t stopped her from assembling this gang of bright young things out to dinner for a celebration. As the booze flows and the festivities spiral out of control, this occasionally rancorous quintet bait and bite one another in an uncivil war of the sexes. Central Perk this ain’t.

But even as she toasts the skirmishes of contemporary love, Bella can’t help but face up to the confronting relationship she has with the one man in her life who has ever meant anything to her.

Told with merciless wit and explosive attitude, this lacerating black comedy probes the nature of identity, the elusiveness of memory and the emotional minefield of becoming an adult.

Birthdays are battlefields.

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®
BOOKINGS THROUGH TICKETEK

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
CLAIRE CHITHAM PETER ELLIOTT DEAN O'GORMAN JODIE RIMMER MADELEINE SAMI EDWIN WRIGHT

Thu 21 Jun 07 - Sat 21 Jul 07

KENNETH LONERGAN. UNITED STATES. 2002.

Morality comes in every shade but black and white.

Jeff is a chronic slacker and incorrigible wiseass stuck pulling the night shift as a security guard.

William is the brisk puritanical supervisor, the self-made man of integrity and enterprise.

Dawn is the rookie cop, a would-be tough cookie teetering on the brink of a possible assault charge.

Bill is the self-admiring, sexually overcharged officer of the law with a penchant for making his own rules.

As a brutal homicide is investigated, this quartet of law enforcers become inextricably bound to one another, their separate fates placed accidentally into each other’s hands.

This is the nitty-gritty, dirty-fingernail reality of life. Exploring the comedy of cause and effect, Kenneth Lonergan admires the struggle it simply takes to be human.

from the writer of THIS IS OUR YOUTH

Direction:
CAROLINE BELL-BOOTH
Featuring:
COLIN MOY FLEUR SAVILLE JAROD RAWIRI KIP CHAPMAN

Wed 10 Oct 07 - Sat 03 Nov 07

MARK RAVENHILL. UNITED KINGDOM. 2006.

Guilt manifests itself, doesn't it?

Paul has a secret he keeps from his family - as a state functionary he administers a violent and clinical procedure referred to as
THE CUT.

In a society sickened by itself and where a new order looms, Paul longs to divulge his truth.

Mark Ravenhill creates a gripping black parable laced with wry humour and chilling veracity.

Give in to the future.

from the writer of SHOPPING & F***ING

Direction:
JONATHON HENDRY
Featuring:
MIA BLAKE DAVID VAN HORN FRANK WHITTEN JAROD RAWIRI ROBYN MALCOLM

Fri 18 Sep 09 - Sat 17 Oct 09

BRENDAN COWELL. AUSTRALIA. 2008.

Black comedy with a big drunken heart.

Ruben Guthrie is flirting with the brink. He's the Creative Director of a cutting-edge advertising agency, engaged to a Czech supermodel and drinking like he invented it. He pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly. Given that the demons of self-destruction are hovering, Ruben steps toward a life of sudden sobriety - one day at a time.

But this is no community service announcement - Brendan Cowell lines up the shots for us in a heady cocktail of fizzy humour and epiphanic poignancy. Spiral high, crash hard and go to AA with you mum.

HERALD THEATRE, THE EDGE®

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
PETER ELLIOTT ANDREW GRAINGER TONI POTTER OLIVER DRIVER ELLIE SMITH CHELSIE PRESTON CRAYFORD DEAN O'GORMAN

Fri 09 Nov 07 - Sat 22 Dec 07

CHARLES LUDLAM. UNITED STATES. 1984.

SEASON SOLD OUT

Lord Edgar Hillcrest’s bosomy new bride is having a perfectly ghastly time adjusting to life on the manor. The portrait of Edgar’s previous wife is watching her every move, as is the randy, peg-legged stable boy, and the starchy, high and mighty maid with her beady little eyes. As supernatural forces encircle the foggy moors which surround Mandacrest Mansion, one question keeps returning to Lady Enid’s terrified, quivering lips…

Who – or what – is IRMA VEP?

A werewolf, a mummy, a vampire, insomnia, prosthetic limbs, silly walks, a really big mystery, vaudeville and melodrama. Two of our greatest theatrical show-offs turn themselves inside out in an outrageous parody of the gothic penny dreadful.

This velcro-ripping, bodice-busting romp takes satiric swipes at Victorian novels, B-grade Hollywood flicks, and the very process of entertainment itself.

* TRYGVE WAKENSHAW WILL APPEAR ON DECEMBER 19

Direction:
JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND
Featuring:
JASON SMITH MICHAEL HURST OLIVER DRIVER *

Sat 28 Jul 07 - Sat 25 Aug 07

RICHARD GREENBERG. UNITED STATES. 1997.

How does history collide with the human heart?

A brother, his sister and their childhood friend gather to divide the estate of their late fathers. Both were longtime friends and partners in architecture; their legacy is the brilliant Janeway House, a daring and much-celebrated icon of American design. But who was the provocateur, and who the follower?

In this tense and brittle reunion, the children are offered a lesson in perspective – and not just of the architectural kind. When their father’s diary is discovered, the siblings use it as a tool to unlock the relationships between the two men and the women in their lives, decades before. Over three days of rain, a creative dilemma and romantic import that none of them could ever have imagined comes to light. The past is the present (and the future too).

A witty, urbane take on the nature of inheritance and the peril of interpreting the past.

Embrace the architecture of life.

from the writer of TAKE ME OUT

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
GLEN DRAKE TANDI WRIGHT ERYN WILSON

Fri 31 Aug 07 - Sat 06 Oct 07

TOM STOPPARD. UNITED KINGDOM. 1982.

SEASON SOLD OUT

Henry is a playwright. Afflicted by detachment and obsessed with pop music, he’s always ready to finish other people’s sentences with an apposite witticism. Despite this, he struggles to make sense of that most elusive of human emotions – love.

When an incandescent actress casts him as the philandering husband, he’s forced to enact a situation he’s previously been content merely to write about. Suddenly, sophistication can’t save him; jealousy, tenderness and vulnerability aren’t merely his dramatic stock in trade, but genuinely powerful forces that obstruct rational thought and make him undignified, delicate and ultimately, human.

Tom Stoppard creates a playful theatrical structure riddled with acerbic humour and ironic paradoxes. Art, sex, sacrifice, and the politics of loving. This is a dazzling expression of THE REAL THING.

from the writer of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD and ARCADIA.

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
BRIAN RANKIN MICHELLE BLUNDELL CLAIRE CHITHAM PAUL ELLIS STEPHEN LOVATT CAMERON RHODES THERESA HEALEY

Thu 12 Apr 07 - Sat 12 May 07

NEW ZEALAND. 1998.

A brazen gym hottie, a philosophical meter-maid, a waffling academic, a Lexus-driving divorcee and a multiplex popcorn pusher. There is such a thing as society.

On an empty stage, armed with the voice of the street, two actors riff on body image, films, takeaway food, tagging and English literature.

As Silo Theatre celebrates its tenth year of existence, we return to the play that started it all – Toa Fraser’s much-loved and much-travelled poetic vision of NZ. Our own theatrical sensation - BARE

Love, sex, family, friendship, youth and bad movies at multiplexes. Listen to our people talk. Can you hear us?

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
MORGANA O'REILLY CURTIS VOWELL

Wed 14 Mar 07 - Sat 07 Apr 07

COMPANY CREATED. NEW ZEALAND. 2007.

EXTRA PERFORMANCE ADDED TO COPE WITH DEMAND
SATURDAY APRIL 7TH : 2PM

Auckland. A city of 1.3 million people that boasts 3 harbours, 2 mountain ranges, 48 volcanic cones and more than 50 islands. A metropolis that accepts difference within the individual, a richness of experience, and the interface of differing cultures and communities. A blend of landscape, lifestyle and the rhythm of existence.

Look further. Sometimes people have other truths.

Auckland’s people are affected by poverty, violence, addiction, isolation and exclusion. Economic, political and social forces outside the control of the individual impact on our circumstances.

BASED ON AUCKLAND - a matrix of urban stories which embrace the city in which we live. We celebrate the frailty of the human confusion.

A HAND MADE PROJECT PERFORMED IN REPERTORY WITH
TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AUCKLAND FESTIVAL 07

PERFORMANCE TIMES VARY

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
SILO THEATRE ENSEMBLE 07

Fri 16 Mar 07 - Mon 09 Apr 07

JOHN FORD. UNITED KINGDOM. 1633.

EXTRA PERFORMANCE ADDED TO COPE WITH DEMAND
SUNDAY APRIL 8TH : 4PM

Forbidden love and vertigo from vengeance.

In a corrupt society where women are used as chattels to further dynastic ambition and family honour is all, a cluster of monied men vie for Annabella’s hand in marriage. Bergetto is a simpleton. Grimaldi is sponsored by the church. And Soranzo is the boy most likely.

Her most persistent suitor is Giovanni, an Italian nobleman who is deeply and blackly divided by his desire for her. For he is her brother.

As his erotic obsession is indulged, their carnal love unlocks a barrage of violence and sexual transgression that neither could predict. Drowning in a sea of falsehoods and emotional helter skelter, blood is boiled, purity challenged and conspiracy is the order of the day.

Incest is a black lake where no-one treads water.

AN EXCAVATED CLASSIC
PERFORMED IN REPERTORY WITH BASED ON AUCKLAND

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AUCKLAND FESTIVAL 07

PERFORMANCE TIMES VARY

Direction:
MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
SILO THEATRE ENSEMBLE 07

Thu 17 May 07 - Sat 16 Jun 07

NEIL LABUTE. UNITED STATES. 2005.

SEASON SOLD OUT

Your career as a writer is on the rise and your beautiful, young fiancée is waiting to get married and rush off on honeymoon with you. So what is your natural reaction? Well, if you’re a man, it’s probably to get nervous and start calling up old girlfriends.

And so begins a single man’s odyssey through four hotel rooms as he flies across the country in search of the perfect woman (that he’s already broken up with).

Neil LaBute creates a portrait of the artist as a would-be Don Juan, casting a truthful, hilarious light on a typical guy as he wanders through the heart of darkness that is himself.

A divertissement of contemporary relationships from the writer of THIS IS HOW IT GOES, THE MERCY SEAT and BASH.

Direction:
MARGARET-MARY HOLLINS
Featuring:
ROY SNOW ALISON BRUCE JACQUE DREW MICHELLE LANGSTONE MADELEINE SAMI

Thu 08 Feb 07 - Sat 03 Mar 07

CHRISTOPHER SHINN. UNITED STATES. 2006.

The war lies within.

Craig and Kelly sat in their apartment on September 11 and watched the toxic clouds of dust spread like an infection across the city.

Four years later, called-up reservist Craig is dead in what may – or may not – have been an accident in Iraq. Frozen in grief, Kelly is preparing to move on.

But the past catches up with the arrival of Craig’s identical twin brother Peter – a self-obsessed, emotionally voracious actor – who turns up at the apartment bearing unexploded bombs.

Intricately calculated and quietly moving, DYING CITY investigates the scars of war, the politics of interventionism, and the close alignment between heartlessness and compassion.

Speak the unspoken. Face the truth.

Explore a triumph of alternating encounters.

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
DENA KENNEDY EDWIN WRIGHT

Tue 13 Mar 07 - Sun 08 Apr 07

THE NEXT GENERATION OF PERFORMANCE

EXTRA PERFORMANCES ADDED TO COPE WITH DEMAND
BASED ON AUCKLAND: SATURDAY APRIL 7TH : 2PM
TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE: SUNDAY APRIL 8TH : 4PM

Twelve actors. Two directors. Go.

We aim to discover the new breed of contemporary actors through a theatrical bootcamp, as two works are created to be played in repertory.

BASED ON AUCKLAND: a hand made project
The first is devised and directed by OLIVER DRIVER, and is a matrix of urban stories which embrace the city in which we live. We celebrate the frailty of the human confusion.

TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE: an excavated classic
Charged with the glory of youth, director MICHAEL HURST dramatizes our fascination with the themes of seduction, honour and revenge.

Youthful folly married to experience.
Ambition and genius.
The thrill of the new.
A benchmark of excellence.

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AUCKLAND FESTIVAL 07
PERFORMANCE TIMES VARY

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER & MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
BARNIE DUNCAN SOPHIE HENDERSON MICHELLE BLUNDELL GLEN-PAUL WARU CURTIS VOWELL SARAH THOMSON ESTHER STEPHENS BONNIE SOPER GLEN PICKERING JONATHAN HODGE SEMU FILIPO MORGANA O'REILLY

Thu 09 Nov 06 - Wed 20 Dec 06

CABARET OF DESIRE

In a time marked by explosive political change, Berlin became the centrepiece of European culture. In a world of the unknown, the people yearned for freedom, peace and truth. This truth was told in the intoxicating atmosphere of the cabaret hall – a haven of vice where sexuality, emotion, bohemianism and propaganda pushed modernism in its most vivid manifestation.

Sex. Hypocrisy. Defiance. Escape. Silo Theatre explores the biting musical experience of Kurt Weill, Mischa Spoliansky and Frederick Hollander. From MACK THE KNIFE to SURABAYA JOHNNY, these rousing anthems expose the hypocrisy of politics and the art of the possible.

Provoke your spirit with the voice of the underground.

“…the lust and anarchy of the Weimar Republic shall live forever…”
UTE LEMPER

SEASON SOLD OUT

Direction:
JOHN VERRYT
Featuring:
AARON CODDEL TIM HOPKINS ANDREW LAING BARRY WIDERSTROM LANA NESNAS JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND PAUL BARRETT

Mon 25 Sep 06 - Sun 08 Oct 06

UNITED KINGDOM. 1973.

Enter a world where witches can turn children into sausages or chop them up to make boy-girl soup, where they can turn policemen into apple trees or bananas into mice.

When Tim and Rose lose their beloved cow Lucy to Badjelly, the dastardly witch, they embark on a quest to save her, enlisting the support of worms, mice, tin lions and grasshoppers that bark like dogs. Bow-wow woof-woof.

The fast selling event in Silo Theatre's history, BADJELLY returns. Bigger. Bolder. Better than ever.

THE WINTER GARDEN, THE CIVIC, THE EDGE

Sold out in 2005

Direction:
BEN CROWDER
Featuring:
SCOTT COTTER NIKKI BENNETT FASITUA AMOSA LIESHA WARD-KNOX MADELEINE SAMI BRETT O'GORMAN MARGARET-MARY HOLLINS

Thu 20 Apr 06 - Sat 20 May 06

LOUIS NOWRA. AUSTRALIA. 1995.

A one-night stand in more ways than one. Moving from the streets of King Cross to the harbour views of a penthouse apartment, connections are made between people in a revelatory randomness.

A crack-addicted street walker. A corrupt copper. A Kurt Cobain fanatic. A homo businessman. A Romanian lover. A faded rock star. A media piranha suffering from champagne whiplash. You do the maths.

People exist within an almost amoral neverland in a city where a little kindness goes a long way.

R18: CONTENT MAY OFFEND

Direction:
CAMERON RHODES
Featuring:
ERYN WILSON AIDEE WALKER JODIE RIMMER DAVID ASTON PHIL BROWN

Wed 14 Jun 06 - Sat 01 Jul 06

NEW ZEALAND. 1976.

The clock ticks. The rain pelts down. The heaters don’t work. The phone rings. The in-tray overflows. Clipboards and circulars rule. And there’s a promotion to be had.

This is life in the public service. Ahem. John, Hugh, Jim, Michael and good old Beryl. We follow the lives of those forced to work together on a daily basis in a job that none of them likes.

Roger Hall’s public servants have won a special place in the hearts of audiences throughout the country, both on stage and television. Joining with the best of New Zealand’s theatre professionals, we venture back to 1976.

This is social history, but not as we (think we) know it. Laugh at yourselves.

MAIDMENT THEATRE
30TH ANNIVERSARY PRODUCTION

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
SIMON PRAST DAVID VAN HORN CRAIG PARKER COLIN MOY GREG JOHNSON THERESA HEALEY STUART DEVENIE

Thu 22 Jun 06 - Sat 22 Jul 06

UNITED KINGDOM. 1978.

To know the pleasure of power. To feel the heat of passion. To stretch life to the absolute limit. She would settle for nothing less.

Susan Traherne is transformed by the danger and exhilaration of her operations as a resistance courier in occupied France. Having played the heroine, she returns to a supposedly brave new post-war world, a place of hope and plenty, and finds herself without a role on a stage full of hypocrites. Conflict is used as a construct in order to feel alive.

The ravages of war. The persecution of peacetime. The personal and the political. David Hare creates a moving and passionate account of a life lived in dissent.

from the writer of THE BLUE ROOM and AMY’S VIEW

Direction:
KATIE WOLFE
Featuring:
EDWIN WRIGHT LIESHA WARD-KNOX DAVID ASTON JACQUELINE NAIRN LI MING HU LUANNE GORDON TOBY LEACH GARETH REEVES

Tue 22 Aug 06 - Sat 16 Sep 06

CATHERINE DOWNES. NEW ZEALAND. 1978.

Risk. Risk anything. Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

We celebrate New Zealand’s most controversial writer, from the age of eighteen to her premature death at thirty four. We share her frustration with the parochialism of early New Zealand, the anxiety and elation of her first years in London, the death of her brother and the frustration of marriage. We embrace the passion of her writing, which was to be the sustaining force of her life.

Every word spoken is Mansfield's own. Beautiful.

HERALD THEATRE: THE EDGE

Direction:
KATIE WOLFE
Featuring:
DANIELLE CORMACK

Wed 08 Mar 06 - Sat 15 Apr 06

NOAH HAIDLE. UNITED STATES. 2004.

with imaginary friends like these...

Grown-up behaviour and misbehaviour are refracted through the wide-open eyes of two precocious kids.

Lucy has a wicked vocabulary, killer skills in the kitchen, a husband who spends too much time at the office... and simply cannot wait to turn five. In her unique fantasy, imaginary friend Mr Marmalade comes accessorised with personal assistant, adult tensions and narcotics.

Her real world seems even crazier until she meets five year old Larry, New Jersey's youngest suicide survivor.

Growing pains, food fights, tea parties and trauma. Drawn in bright Crayola colours, this makes SOUTH PARK look like child's play. Hilarious.

NZ PREMIERE PRODUCTION

Direction:
MICHAEL HURST
Featuring:
HANNAH TOLICH PAOLO ROTONDO CHARLIE McDERMOTT ANDREW LAING LAUREN JACKSON PAUL BARRETT

Thu 02 Feb 06 - Sat 18 Feb 06

UNITED STATES. 1968.

This is the birthday party to end all birthday parties.

Seven known homosexuals and two very unexpected guests gather to commiserate the passing of time for everyone's favourite friend and enemy, Harold. As Michael's finger hovers on the button to self-destruct, cracked-crab appetizer will be ignored, games will be played and the truth will be outed.

We celebrate the coruscating and hilarious verbal pyrotechnics of a group of men forced to live on the fringe of a society not quite ready for liberation. Gripping revelations, annihilating wit, fidelity, pride, fraternal destruction and friendship.

THE BOYS IN THE BAND blows the lid off the joint.

"...a fun night out that makes you laugh and think at the same time ... this is a class act - a witty, intelligent reminder of the universal human need for love and acceptance..." NZ Herald

TOURING TO DOWNSTAGE THEATRE

Direction:
JONATHON HENDRY
Featuring:
FASITUA AMOSA SHANE BOSHER STEPHEN BUTTERWORTH HEATH JONES EDWARD PENI EDWIN WRIGHT CRAIG HALL NATHAN WHITAKER SIMON LONDON

Wed 01 Feb 06 - Sat 25 Feb 06

UNITED STATES. 2005.

Belinda and Cody Phipps appear to be a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts now married with children and a luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is in almost every respect an outsider - "rich, black and different" in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a (white) former classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly question the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swathe of bigotry, deception and betrayal.

A devastating exploration of the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America. Like a chiropractor of the soul, Neil LaBute looks for realignment, listening for a crack.

from the author of THE SHAPE OF THINGS, THE MERCY SEAT and BASH

"...THIS IS HOW IT GOES - beautifully written, well directed, acted and designed - is contemporary theatre at its best, providing a visceral experience no other medium can match..." NZ HERALD

Direction:
JEFF SZUSTERMAN
Featuring:
SARA WISEMAN ELIZABETH TIERNEY ROY SNOW MARK RUKA

Thu 27 Jul 06 - Sat 12 Aug 06

JOHN OSBORNE. UNITED KINGDOM. 1956.

Jimmy Porter is passionate, articulate and educated, but trapped within a dead end job and the claustraphobia of the bed-sit where he lives with his wife and best friend. In an atmosphere charged with sexual tension and fraught with frustrated energy, this emotional and powerful work is both an extraordinary portrait of post-war Britain and a love story for its time.

The play which changed the face of theatre forever. Director Miranda Harcourt excavates the kitchen sink and deconstructs the angry young man.

50th ANNIVERSARY PRODUCTION

Direction:
MIRANDA HARCOURT
Featuring:
AARON ALEXANDER MIA BLAKE LOUIS SUTHERLAND LUCY WIGMORE

Thu 27 Oct 05 - Fri 18 Nov 05

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE. UNITED STATES. 1936.

Sex, sin and the city. These are the ladies who lunch, but who lunch on each other.

Mary Haines is a nice girl. Nice house, nice family, nice life. When a vicious little gold-digger hooks her talons into Mary’s man, frocks, friendships and fidelity fly. Undone by the easy mouths of a troupe of adder-fanged New York socialites, Mary lets down her hair and turns the tables.

A cunning little comedy unfolds into the quintessential theatrical catfight, with dialogue so snappy it could have been written by a hairdresser. With frocks by top NZ fashion labels, this is the theatrical event of 2005. So lock up your husbands, forget about being a desperate housewife and prepare for the ultimate girls night out.

"....as dry and sophisticated as a good martini, and just as potent...." NZ Herald

SEASON EXTENDED TO NOVEMBER 19

THE CONCERT CHAMBER, AUCKLAND TOWN HALL

Direction:
KATIE WOLFE
Featuring:
HANNAH TOLICH LUCY WIGMORE SALLY STOCKWELL JACQUELINE NAIRN ANNA HUTCHISON JACQUE DREW SUSAN BRADY MIA BLAKE

Fri 16 Sep 05 - Sat 22 Oct 05

UNITED STATES. 2002.

When you reach the top, the only way is down.

Martin Gray is a contemporary hero. Politically liberal, financially and intellectually independent. Loving husband and father. At 50, he is the youngest recipient of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

Ever distracted and forgetful, Martin unravels his perfect world by engaging in an illicit affair of an unspeakable nature.

Obsessive love. Forbidden desire. Repressed sexuality. America’s greatest living playwright offers a powerful parable that plumbs the deepest questions of social constraints on the individual expression of love.

Astonishing contemporary theatre, brilliantly performed. Open your eyes.

SEASON EXTENDED TO OCTOBER 22

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND PAUL BARRETT KIP CHAPMAN MICHAEL HURST

Thu 17 Nov 05 - Sat 17 Dec 05

JACQUES BREL. BELGIUM. 1967.

Sleek, black cabaret.

Jacques Brel wrote music rich with a mid-20th century European sensibility that still manages to be timeless. Dark, sardonic, passionate and rebellious – this is a life-affirming take on the human condition. Having written over 300 songs in his lifetime, his music has been recorded by Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Sting, Marc Almond and a host of famous American singers and crooners.

Exploring the whole of the physical space that Silo Theatre provides with the audience sitting at tables, we aim to re-treat Brel's kaleidoscope of musical experience for an urbane audience who have never experience his work before.

Powerful. Intimate. Bold. Emotional.

Direction:
JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND
Featuring:
SHANE BOSHER KATE PRIOR CLAIRE CHITHAM ANDREW LAING

Wed 03 Aug 05 - Tue 16 Aug 05

NEIL LABUTE. UNITED STATES. 1999.

Atrocity is the new black.

A girl, a high school crush and the ultimate revenge.
A stranger with a burning need to tell the truth.
A boy, a girl, the perfect life. And the perfect lie.

Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
Evil wears an all American glow.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS and THE MERCY SEAT introduced audiences to LaBute's unflinching portrayals of the cruelty and self-delusion of which humankind is capable. Within the casual nature of conversation, our illusions are shattered with chilling precision.

touring to CIRCA THEATRE

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
OLIVER DRIVER MIA BLAKE

Thu 28 Jul 05 - Sat 13 Aug 05

NEIL LABUTE. UNITED STATES. 2002.

September 12 2001. New York City. While the dust is still settling, Ben and Abby can choose to see what has happened as a tragedy, a catastrophe… or an opportunity.

This is their chance to disappear. To be dead to the world, to start a new life.

Whatever will be will be… whatever.

A merciless and brilliant exposure of the brutality that calls itself love. From the writer of THE SHAPE OF THINGS and BASH.

Direction:
RACHEL HOUSE
Featuring:
CRAIG HALL ALISON BRUCE

Fri 08 Jul 05 - Sat 23 Jul 05

SPIKE MILLIGAN. UNITED KINGDOM. 1973.

Enter a world where witches can turn children into sausages or chop them up to make boy-girl soup. Where they can turn policemen into apple trees or bananas into mice. When Tim and Rose lose their beloved cow Lucy to the dastardly witch, they embark on a quest to save her, enlisting the support of worms, mice, tin lions and sausages that bark like dogs.

Spike Milligan’s fairy-tale of good triumphing over evil and defeating the most horridable witch in the world gives us family entertainment that will appeal to all children of all ages for all time.

Direction:
BEN CROWDER
Featuring:
MADELEINE SAMI BRETT O'GORMAN FASITUA AMOSA SCOTT COTTER NIKKI BENNETT MIA BLAKE JACKIE VAN BEEK

Wed 15 Jun 05 - Sat 02 Jul 05

MART CROWLEY. UNITED STATES. 1968.

Lies, secrets and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe.

This is the birthday party to end all birthday parties. Seven known homosexuals and two very unexpected guests gather to commiserate the passing of time for everyone’s favourite friend and enemy, Harold. As Michael’s finger hovers on the button to self-destruct, cracked-crab appetizer will be ignored, games will be played and the truth will be outed.

We celebrate the corruscating and hilarious verbal pyrotechnics of a group of men forced to live on the fringe of a society not quite ready for liberation. Bathetic revelations, annihilating wit, fidelity, pride, fraternal destruction and friendship.

THE BOYS IN THE BAND blows the lid off the joint.

Direction:
JONATHON HENDRY
Featuring:
HEATH JONES EDWARD PENI JAKE LINDESAY STEPHEN BUTTERWORTH CRAIG HALL SHANE BOSHER FASITUA AMOSA EDWIN WRIGHT SIMON LONDON

Wed 25 May 05 - Sat 11 Jun 05

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS. UNITED STATES. 1958.

Beneath the veneer of civilisation savage forces are at work.

Sebastian died suddenly last summer. His mother, a certain Mrs. Violet Venable, clings to him in death as she clung to him in life. She begins to manufacture a plan of quiet revenge on the young woman whom she believes robbed her of her son’s affections. Entering a discussion with a young doctor keen to experiment with lobotomies, she elects to make a sizeable financial contribution to his endeavours in an environment where strings are thinly disguised and love is revealed as a system of use and abuse.

Theatre’s great poet of impossible love Tennessee Williams creates a matrix of self-delusion and traumatised souls. We silence the truth by erasing the past.

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
JEFF SZUSTERMAN TONI POTTER JACQUE DREW JACQUELINE NAIRN

Thu 31 Mar 05 - Sat 30 Apr 05

KENNETH LONERGAN. UNITED STATES. 1998.

“....what you’re like now has nothing to do with what you’re gonna like be. Like right now you’re all like this rich little pot-smoking burnout rebel, but ten years from now you’re gonna be like a plastic surgeon reminiscing about how wild you used to be....”

It’s tough being rich, smart and bored. Dennis – with a famous painter for a dad and a social activist as a mum – is a small-time drug dealer and a total mess. His hero-worshipping, indifferently adjusted friend Warren has just impulsively stolen 15k from his dad, an abusive lingerie tycoon who is “not a criminal, just in business with criminals.” When Jessica, a skittery prep-school girl shows up for a date, Warren has a choice – to follow Dennis into dissipation or discover a way out.

A bittersweet fable that reveals the ache at the heart of the slacker generation.

Direction:
CAROLINE BELL-BOOTH
Featuring:
CHARLIE McDERMOTT HANNAH TOLICH DAVID VAN HORN

Wed 13 Oct 04 - Sat 13 Nov 04

CLAIRE BOOTH LUCE. UNITED STATES. 1936.

It's the guilt on the gingerbread, the icing on the cake.

Mary Haines is a nice girl. Nice house, nice family, nice life. When a vicious little gold-digger hooks her talons into Mary's man, frocks, friendships and fidelity fly. Undone by the easy mouths of a troupe of adder-fanged New York socialites, Mary lets down her hair and turns the tables.

Odious harpies. Brazen hussies. Tittle-tattlers. These women gossip and gloat, then gossip all over again, not caring about the consequences. These are truly the ladies who lunch, but who lunch on each other.

Sex, sin and the city. A cunning little comedy unfolds into the quintessential theatrical catfight, with dialogue so snappy it could have been written by a hairdresser.

Direction:
KATIE WOLFE
Featuring:
JACQUELINE NAIRN MIA BLAKE SUSAN BRADY ANNA HUTCHISON SALLY STOCKWELL HANNAH TOLICH LUCY WIGMORE JACQUE DREW

Thu 25 Nov 04 - Sat 18 Dec 04

DAVID GIESELMANN. GERMANY. 2000.

Ralf and Sarah are bored. They bought the remix. They went to the opening. They collected vintage sports shoes. They bought the air freight copies. They took heaps of pills. They moved in. They moved out. They transferred. They specialised and they processed. They converted. They started over. And now they have murder on their minds.

In a modern apartment, said couple invite a work colleague and her husband over for dinner. The glittery chitter-chatter grinds to a half when Ralf informs the guests that there is a dead body in the room. It's hooray for homicide as the veneer of normality dissipates, hospitality implodes and we are served a bourgeois bloodbath - murder, mayhem and pizza.

A bloody funny comedy. Get Kolpert for Christmas.

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
JACKIE VAN BEEK SIMON LONDON TOBY LEACH LAUREN JACKSON ADAM GARDINER

Wed 22 Sep 04 - Sat 09 Oct 04

SARAH KANE. UNITED KINGDOM. 2000.

4.48 am. The mind is at it's lowest ebb. A patient, a doctor and a witness dissolve into imagination, interweaving fantasy and delusion with a bitter life experience.

We move effortlessly around the corridors of institutionalised insanity. Our journey is deft, brilliant and unnerving in it's extremes. This is what it is to be pulled toward ceasing to be.

Seek the truth. Be honest.

A beautiful and bruising work about medicine's inability to understand, contain, and normalise depression. From the writer of BLASTED.

Direction:
RUSSELL PICKERING
Featuring:
ANNA HEWLETT ABIGAIL GREENWOOD PETA RUTTER

Wed 25 Aug 04 - Sat 18 Sep 04

DYLAN THOMAS. WALES. 1953.

The town is mad.

As the inhabitants of Llareggub lies sleeping, their dreams and fantasies deliciously unfold. Dysfunction is a way of life for the people that populate Dylan Thomas' masterpiece - from cannibals to bigamists, nymphomaniacs to Satanists, and then of course Mr and Mrs Floyd, who lie in bed side by wrinkled side, like two old kippers in a box.

Through the music of language, we create indelible, unforgettable images of humanity. Enter the romantic world of a recording studio in the 1950s, complete with live musicians and a foley artist. Journey across the landscape of the mind - a place where thoughts run into dreams and time forgets it's own name.

Time passes... Listen.

Life is lived out loud.

Direction:
CAROLINE BELL-BOOTH
Featuring:
SARA WISEMAN KEITH ADAMS TIM BALME PAUL BARRETT JON BRAZIER STUART DEVENIE PETER ELLIOTT SOPHIA HAWTHORNE SALLY STOCKWELL KATIE WOLFE MICHELLE LANGSTONE THERESA HEALEY

Wed 04 Aug 04 - Sat 21 Aug 04

STEPHEN BELBER. UNITED STATES. 1999.

Some things can never be erased.

A film director, a drug-dealing fireman, a girl from their past, a motel room, sex, violence, friendship, accusations, revenge, confessions and love - all caught on a $3 tape from K Mart.

Sixty minutes on the edge of your seat.

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER & COLIN MITCHELL
Featuring:
PHIL BROWN JEFF SZUSTERMAN CLAIRE CHITHAM

Wed 14 Jul 04 - Sat 31 Jul 04

NEIL LABUTE. UNITED STATES. 1999.

Direction:
SHANE BOSHER
Featuring:
TONI POTTER DAVID VAN HORN OLIVER DRIVER MIA BLAKE

Wed 09 Mar 05 - Sat 26 Mar 05

COLIN MITCHELL. NEW ZEALAND. 2005.

A dark, disarming and beautiful fairytale of sensory seduction.

An orphan is born into extreme poverty - a person as gifted as he is abominable. Born without a scent of his own but endowed with an incomparable sense of smell, he apprentices himself to a perfumer and becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human.

Inspired by Patrick Suskind's PERFUME, this is a feast for the senses and imagination.

Direction:
COLIN MITCHELL
Featuring:
PHIL BROWN NATALIA DI PALMA MARGARET-MARY HOLLINS SIMON LONDON BEN CROWDER

Wed 26 May 04 - Sat 12 Jun 04

MARK RAVENHILL. UNITED KINGDOM. 1996.

Retail therapy. Fornication. Two of life's simple pleasures, one might have thought. Not so. Humanity is now on sale and love is a four letter word. Robbie used to love Lulu. Now he loves Mark. Mark used to love the skag, now he covets the rent boy who wants it rough, or not at all. A shabby apartment. A drug dealer with an obsession for The Lion King. Stolen instant noodles. A screwdriver, rehab and amphetamines. Lots of them. The story of our lives.

Direction:
STUART DEVENIE
Featuring:
JON BRAZIER CHARLIE McDERMOTT EMILY O’BRIEN-BROWN DAVID VAN HORN SHANE BOSHER

Wed 31 Mar 04 - Sat 10 Apr 04

SHANE BOSHER. NEW ZEALAND. 2000.

Terrible acting. Appalling dialogue. Singing that drills a hole in your head. All in a days work. Wanganui is not the place to attempt stardom. Richard Head thinks it is. When the evil nemesis Sally-Ann Mitchum-Butcher issues a theatrical death warrant by excluding him from the cast of Les Miserables, Richard retaliates by staging his own inimitable revue Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! The result is hysterically funny and undeniably tragic. Book yourself in for laser surgery because you'll split your sides laughing.

Direction:
OLIVER DRIVER
Featuring:
SHANE BOSHER