SCENE BY JAMES: 2023 – A Theatrical Year in Review [Part 1: The Issues]

December 30, 2023

The good news: For the first time in four years, 2023 was marked by the absence of widespread disruption and cancellations of performing arts events caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Buoyed by Government investment, festivals were back in force up and down the country. There were plenty of sold out shows. Theatre is back, baby! The not-so-good news: Extreme weather […]

REVIEW: Festival of Live Art, F.O.L.A (Auckland Pride)

February 23, 2023

[Oasis in a Storm] I, like many others, was excited about F.O.L.A’s initial line-up – promising an enticing array of local and international experimental artists, and a diversity of modes and mediums. It looked to be a festival that would blur and push the boundaries between art forms, genres and styles, that would not end once you stepped outside the […]

SCENE BY JAMES: 2022 – A Theatrical Year in Review [PANDEMIC EDITION YEAR THREE]

December 31, 2022

[THE DEEPENING CRISIS] On April 13th 2022, New Zealand said goodbye to gathering restrictions. When we moved from the Red to Orange Covid-19 traffic light setting, live performance could go ahead without any capacity limits for the first time in months. Later in the year we’d say goodbye to the entire traffic light protection framework. With boosters and antivirals, we […]

Launching Aotearoa New Zealand Theatre and Covid-19: A Timeline

May 3, 2022

Today Theatre Scenes is launching a timeline tracking the impact of Covid-19 on Aotearoa New Zealand’s theatre and performance ecology from the beginning of 2020 till today. This is the first public feature of a two-year research project ‘Growing Aotearoa’s Theatre Ecology: Sustainability, Resilience and Opportunities in the Pandemic Environment’. This theatre ecology project seeks to understand the impact of […]

SCENE BY JAMES: 2021 – A Theatrical Year in Review [PANDEMIC EDITION YEAR TWO]

December 31, 2021

[Weathering the Storm] On the 20th April, 2021, the Prime Minister, the Deputy PM and Aotearoa’s leading epidemiologist converged at BATS Theatre to watch an uncanny mirror image of our country’s 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. The play was Transmission, created by Stuart McKenzie and Miranda Harcourt, which used verbatim extracts of interviews primarily with Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson and Professor Michael […]

REVIEW: First World Problems 3.0 (Basement Theatre)

April 18, 2021

[Healing Together, Beyond Our Problems] As I arrive into the Basement foyer and navigate past the throng of bodies to collect my tickets, I feel instantly uplifted. Surrounded by so many members the South Asian community, we are lucky to be able to gather and witness the premiere of new homegrown writing. Yet I can’t help but feel a pang […]

REVIEW: Le Basement XXXmas Cabaret (Basement Theatre)

November 23, 2020

[Who’s Stuffing Your Stocking This Christmas?] It’s a Christmas miracle, and the one the world (or Aotearoa) needed. This year there is extra emotion in the festivities that are the Basement’s Annual Christmas Show. We have much to celebrate and be thankful for. Sitting in a room pressed up against happy, drunken, theatre goers feels positively illegal and the excitement […]

REVIEW: Every Brilliant Thing (Silo Theatre)

November 9, 2020

Performing Mental Health I often dislike how the topic of mental health is dealt with in a lot of film, literature or theatre. I feel it is contrived and sensationalised and completely misunderstood. However, Every Brilliant Thing is one of the very few shows I have seen that maintains a respectful and empathetic discourse around mental health. It celebrates life […]

REVIEW: Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream (Indian Ink)

October 27, 2020

[Enjoy a Scoop of Life] As audience members pack the rows of the TAPAC theatre, I take my seat beside a group of strangers for the first time in months. There’s an edginess to the atmosphere – a flurry of discussions around the recent Covid cases in managed isolation – and I flinch as the woman next to me coughs […]

Dead Bird: Reflections on The Seagull (A New Version by Auckland Theatre Company)

June 10, 2020

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Auckland Theatre Company launched a four episode adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull created within the constraints of social distancing at the time. Using the now widely used Zoom app as its mode of production, it was also set within the world of Zoom too, placing its characters squarely within the circumstances of our global pandemic. […]

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