Bright lights beckon for Wellington student
Wellington student Landen Hale-Brown has a lead role in the Australian production of Billy Elliot the Musical. Hale-Brown, 12, won the role of Billy’s best friend Michael over 3000 other hopefuls. He made…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
On the up
Auckland juggler Mike Twist is building a name for himself internationally with his uniquely entertaining act. Twist began his career in at the Rainbow’s End theme park in Auckland, and has gone on to…
McKellen’s Middle Earth return
Sir Ian McKellen returned to NZ in August for the first time since 2003, to perform both Shakespeare’s King Lear and Chekhov’s The Seagull with the Royal Shakespeare Company. McKellen, who reached a…
Killer opportunity
Annie Crummer has been handpicked by the surviving members of Queen to sing on the remake of their best-selling single Another One Bites the Dust. The NZ singer caught the attention of Brian…
Funny man finds his feet
In just over a decade, Hawera-born comedian Alan Brough has established himself as one of Australia’s most popular talents. Since moving to Melbourne in 1995, Brough has appeared in films The Nugget and Bad…
Henderson plumbs personal landscape
Peninsula, the latest play from NZ writer Gary Henderson, is applauded in Brisbane’s Courier Mail. Commissioned by the Christchurch Arts Festival, the play was inspired by Henderson’s own experience growing up in Duvauchelle Bay,…
Serial thriller
October saw the UK premiere of hit NZ play, Serial Killers. Written by former Shortland Street scriptwriter, James Griffin, Serial Killers is a black comedy which takes place behind the scenes of…
Bogans go global
New Zealand comedians Matt Heath and Chris Stapp, of Back of the Y and Bogan’s Heroes fame, have taken their special brand of gross-out humour to London, as contributing stuntmen on Channel 4’s …
Disney Classic Gets Kiwi Treatment
A new Walt Disney stage production of Beauty and the Beast has proved a double coup for NZ. Weta Workshop is to design costumes for the $1 million extravaganza, which will be presented by…
Mane attraction
Turanga Merito has officially assumed the lead in Sydney’s The Lion King, taking over from close friend and fellow Kiwi, Vincent Harder. The 20-year-old from Rotorua studied for a Bachelor of Performing Arts at…
King of the Jungle
20-year-old Turanga Merito has assumed the lead role of Simba in the Sydney production of The Lion King, after fellow Kiwi Vincent Harder bowed out for family reasons. The Disney blockbuster draws a minimum…
Might of the Conchords
“New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody act,” Flight of the Conchords (a.k.a Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement), made a triumphant return to this year’s Edinburgh Festival, with a new show entitled ‘Lonely Knights.’…
Star on the rise
14-year-old Wellington performer Letitia Forbes has a starring role in the latest production by Cirque de Soleil – Quidam. An accomplished singer and actress, Forbes plays the central character of Zoe. The show is…
A day like no other
Alone It Stands, John Breen’s play about the infamous 1978 All Black loss to Irish club Munster, ran at Sydney’s Opera House Drama Theatre during the Rugby World Cup – not on match nights,…
AllOver UpOverDownUnder
Waikato University film graduate, Hadyn Butler, won both the best film and audience award at the annual UpOverDownUnder Antipodean Festival in London this year. His entry – Fresh – looks at the quintessential OE…
Edge Meets Fringe
Kiwi comedy act, Flight of the Conchords, was dubbed the “unlikely hit” of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival by the Guardian, and narrowly missed out on the event’s prestigious top award. The satirical folk…
For him (and her)
First we were treated to the infinite variety of feminine experience in The Vagina Monologues; now actress and playwright Geraldine Brophy has penned the masculine equivalent. She describes The Viagara Monologues – which opened…
The first, second, and third Noel
The trio behind Kiwi comedy act The Four Noels – James Pratt, John Forman, and Jesse Griffin – interviewed in SMH. The group formed in 1996, without any strictly comic ambitions. “We just wanted…
Laga’aia Lionised
NZ performers feature strongly in Sydney’s highly anticipated production of The Lion King. Vincent Harde plays the lead role of Simba, with Water Rats star Jay Laga’aia as his on-stage father, Mufasa. The Disney…
Henwood plays Burton
Welsh-Wellingtonian actor, Ray Henwood, thrilled Melbourne audiences with his portrayal of theatre legend Richard Burton, in Mark Jenkins’ Playing Burton. The Age: “Henwood’s fine performance, beautifully paced, movingly builds real tragic stature for his…
Richard’s rocky road
Rocky Horror man, Richard O’Brien, interviewed about life and love in the Times. The weekly column – ‘Love etc’ – invites celebrities to divulge how different relationships have shaped their lives. A typically candid…
James treatment for Kiwi ‘boys together’ tale
The latest play by renowned British actor and writer Lennie James – The Sons of Charlie Paora – features a group of NZ actors telling a quintessentially NZ story. Charlie Paora explores the lives…
“Snap, crackle and grace”
SMH: “Black Grace, New Zealand’s all-male company of Maori and Pacific Island dancers, is the most engaging and entertaining company to visit Sydney for years. Maybe since the last time they were here…
Kiwi gives life to Coppelia
NZer Malcolm Burn was the guest choreographer for Ballet Tech Ohio’s production of Frederic Franklin’s Coppelia. Currently associate artistic director of the Richmond Ballet, Burns’ 25-year career includes stints as a principal dancer for…
Ballet Bebe
NZ ballet export Bebe Eversfield profiled in the Victoria Times. Now 78, Eversfield won a government scholarship to study at London’s prestigious Sadler’s Wells Company (now the Royal Ballet) and made her Albert Hall…
D’Acclaimed funny-man
Kiwi comedian Tarun Mohanbhai has taken his acclaimed one-man show – D’Arranged Marriage – across the Tasman, with high-profile stints at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Sydney Opera House. Mohanbhai made his name…
Conchords Take Flight in Melbourne
Kiwi act Flight of the Conchords was voted Best Newcomer at the 17th Annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival, following on from similar accolades at Edinburgh last year. The two-man performance – made up of…
A New Zealand first
NZ Drama School student James Ashcroft has secured an internship at New York’s prestigious theatre and film company, The Wooster Group. The Wooster Group was founded by actor Willem Dafoe in the late…
Best man for the job
NZ-born Alexander Grant is in the director’s chair at Boston Ballet’s Grand Studio, where a performance of Ashton’s Fille is currently under production. The 77-year-old, widely regarded as “one of the great character…
Grand Dame
Dame Judith Mayhew has been elected chairperson of Scotland’s Royal Opera House, the first time the position has been held by a woman. The NZ-born high-flyer previously helmed the Corporation of London, and remains…
Behind the scenes
Wellington-born Kristian Fredrikson, Australia’s leading set and costume designer, interviewed in Weekend Australian. A designer “whose name is synonymous with opulence,” Fredrikson is currently taking his third crack at creating “the perfect Swan Lake.”…
Liquor, Lear and Liz
NZ’s 2002 Actor of the Year, Ray Henwood, has taken his award-winning portrayal of Richard Burton Sydney-side. In Playing Burton the Welsh-born actor brings to life his hell-raising compatriot with uncanny ability. Opening night…
The quality of Maori Merchant of Venice is not strained
Don C. Selwyn’s The Maori Merchant of Venice won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 22nd Annual Hawai’i International Film Festival’s Golden Maile Awards. The Maori film adaptation of Shakespeare’s…
Alone it Stands
Irish playwright John Breen’s tale of Munster’s famous victory over the 1978 grand-slam All Blacks recieves winning reviews and box office at the Sydney Opera House on its way to a season in Auckland’s…
Alan Brunton: Mystic Gold From the Edge
NZ performance artist Alan Brunton (57) died while touring Europe with his Red Mole theatre troupe, ” NZ letters of its one truly iconic radical figure.” Coming to prominence in the late 70s as…
Improv Bandits steal America’s Cup
NZ’s Improv Bandits are NZ’s latest world champions having won the Super Cage Match Championship at the Chicago Improv Festival in the USA. Beating off “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” wannabes from across…
This is Our Youth
“Highly talented” 19-year-old Anna Paquin combines “prim formality of speech with an argumentative sexual ardour” as she stars alongside Hayden Christensen and Jake Gyllenhaal in the London staging of This is Our…
Filler Up!
NZEdged comedian Deb Filler rises to a theatrical challenge in her one-woman show in Baltimore: “Glistening and piping hot, the bread has a rich, yeasty taste. But in the end, what Filler has to…
Speaking in tongues
Applauded young Aotearoa actress Madeleine Sami, dodges questions about her involvement with Rings star Elijah Woods (“we kind of hung out and went to the movies a bit”), a day after Woods confesses he’s…
Xena tackles Vagina Monlogues
Warrior Princess Lucy Lawless learns “new respect for the vagina, for the power and sacredness of it”, as she stars alongside Madeline Sami and Danielle Cormack in Auckland Theatre Company’s staging of the feminist…
“All the world’s a stage”
24-year-old Aucklander, Miles Lattimer-Gregory, hits the big time in London’s West End, with the company he founded, the British Touring Shakespeare Company opening its season of Hamlet and the Twelfth Night at the Westminster…
Shakespeare Goes Maori
The Merchant of Venice is turned into the first Maori-language film of a Shakespeare play. “Shakespeare’s use of language is not dissimilar to the ancient poetic, lyrical and metaphorical Maori style,” explains Scott Morrison,…
Feast of epiphanies
The praise has not ceased for No.2, New Zealand playwright Toa Fraser’s play, currently touring the world. “The play has been a triumph wherever it has shown, jumping cultural barriers with its universal themes”,…
Paquin comes of age
Anna Paquin has blossomed from child prodigy to multi-talented star. She is receiving rave reviews for her role in the Broadway play ‘The Glory of the Living’, directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. “This is…
No 2, one year on
Picked by Observer critics as an Edinburgh Best of Festival 2 and winner of a prestigious Fringe First, Toa Fraser’s No. 2 continues to thrive and garner praise despite a bit of reality-biting about…
First class performance
New Zealand student Geoff Pinfield gains a first class degree and the inaugural Simon Callow prize for Theatre Criticism at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Improv queen
Miss Wonder drags herself out to promote New Zealand comedy group the Improv Bandits at the Montreal Fringe Festival.
The loved one
Yale University based NZ playwright Julie Mckee’s one-act play about death and two maidens, Invitation to a Funeral, well reviewed in NYT: “a wonderfully wry trip to the funeral parlor” about two women…
Pregnant pause
Hold the show, my wife’s having a baby cried Jeff Knight of Christchurch’s Court Theatre.
Fashioning humour
Kiwi comedy queen Cal Wilson on frocks and laughter in the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
Hello Kitty
Kiwi comic Cal Wilson brings home the laughs: “God’s Little Poppet verges on brilliance, as does Krystalle the exotic dancer. Krystalle is close to a work of art; a lap dancer who forces her…
Kan 007
Secret Asian Raybon Kan infiltrates the Melbourne comedy scene with a “sharp, contemporary and observant” show.
Bare tour
New Zealand playwright Toa Fraser’s Bare tours Sourthern England. Madeleine Sami reprises her award winning role.
Old play, new tricks
1975 New Zealand play Mothers and Fathers gets a convincing makeover for Sydney’s Fringe – “even though it’s slightly archaic to think that $50,000 could buy you a dream home in this town”.
Skin Tight
Based on iconic Dennis Glover poem ‘The Magpies’, Gary Henderson’s Skin Tight is a play with “spare beauty and competitive power”.
Maori Shakespeare
Te Tangata Whai Rawa O Weneti, (usually known as The Merchant of Venice), currently filming in New Zealand will “introduce the Maori language to the world,” as well as making Shakespeare more accessible to…
