NZ Theatre in 2012

Homegrown writing is all the rage this coming season. All the kids are doing it. It’s ‘trending’. Keep up!

New Zealand’s major theatres and theatre companies are publishing their programmes for 2012 and there is plenty to get your wiri on about!

The year starts with a TIHEI MAURIORA! New Zealand and particularly Maori work features proudly and resolutely alongside some international big-guns during the New Zealand International Arts Festival. Hohepa, an opera in Maori and English by Jenny McLeod, Tu by Hone Kouka, Taki Rua’s revival of James Broughton’s 1991 play Michael James Manaia and The Maori Troilus and Cressida to name a few. 

Auckland Theatre Company is producing eight main bill works in their 2012 season, entitled Encounter - four of which are by Kiwi writers.

The Motor Camp by Wellingtonian Dave Armstrong holds the fort until a mid-season burst of NZ works headed by Roger Hall’s A Shortcut To Happiness and followed by Black Confetti by 2010 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award winner Eli Kent and Awatea by the man himself – Bruce Mason.

Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North so very nearly offers exclusively New Zealand works (83.3333333% to be precise) in 2012. They premiere two new NZ plays - Roger Hall’s You Can Always Hand Them Back in April and Victor Rodger’s At The Wake in July as well as producing Well Hung by Robert Lord and The Motor Camp by Dave Armstrong and playing host to Taki Rua’s touring production of Michael James Manaia - direct to Centrepoint from the NZ International Arts Festival.

2012 is a great year for New Zealand plays at Wellington’s Circa Theatre with an impressive list of new works being hosted in Circa Two, among them Tawata Productions’ Sunset Road by Miria George and The Mourning After by Ahi Kahunarahan; The Tigers Of Wrath by Dean Parker and Manawa by Jamie McCaskill. The mainstage productions include Roger Hall’s A Shortcut To Happiness, the world premiere of West End Girls adapted for the stage by Ken Duncum; The Truth Game by Simon Cunliffe, Cinderella, the Roger Hall pantomime and Peninsula by Gary Henderson – Circa’s offering for the International Arts Festival.

BATS Theatre is…well, prolific in their support of NZ plays and practitioners. They will host scores of shows next year so keep an eye on their website.

Christchurch’s Court Theatre is picking themselves up after a hugely difficult year in a city shaken and grieving. They have programmed Roger Hall’s A Shortcut to Happiness to launch their new performance space and their full programme will be announced early in the year.

Many more productions will tour the country’s popular regional festivals and Capital E National Theatre for Children will again, to the delight of children up and down the country, tour two new commissioned works: Around the World and Buck Again,for 2-7 year-olds, by writer/composer team Jenny and Laughton Pattrick and Magnolia Street by Dave Armstrong for the 8-14s.

So… I hope you didn’t have anything else planned for 2012 because you are going to be pretty busy. Take some time over the summer break to leaf through the programmes and browse around the websites, and mark in your spotless new 2012 diary all the amazing New Zealand works you simply cannot bear to miss (or be seen to miss).

Nga mihi mahana and see you at the theatre.

Aneta Ruth