Finding Cynthia – Artworks Theatre, Waiheke Island (13th Floor Theatre Review)
You’d think a play about a woman discovering her birth identity when adoption laws were relaxed would be sternly serious stuff. Yes there’s a weighty undercurrent to this one-person performance. But there’s also an unexpected lightness to Finding Cynthia. This is thanks to the lively script and direction by Renée Lyons and compelling acting by […]
Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge – Q Theatre: April 9, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
A View from the Bridge is a trip — back in time to the 1950s, and to another place, Brooklyn, NY. They did things differently there. Male toxicity was very much cushioned by feminine tolerance and genuine love. When Eddie Carbone the Brooklyn long-shoreman supports his illegal immigrant cousins one of them falls for his niece. […]
Helen Clark In 6 Outfits – ASB Waterfront Theatre: April 7, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Helen Clark in 6 Outfits: this is her journey from Waikato farm girl to the first elected woman Prime Minister of New Zealand. Her tenure as PM was to last three terms in office from 1999 to 2008. And, after that, onwards and upwards to the United Nations.
The Worm – Te Pou Theatre: April 8, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
The Worm takes over Henderson’s Te Pou Theatre to tell a tall tale especially crafted for your child’s school holiday. With the added bonus of a master musician in the chair.
MILLI – Basement Theatre: April 7, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
MILLI sustains a constant, almost unbearable tension as though something is always on the verge of erupting. Don’t be misled by its theatrical framing, because beneath the surface lies a story of desire, vulnerability, and…corn.
Write Notes – The Button Factory: April 2, 2026 (13th Floor Arts Review)
There is something quietly, almost old-school radical about an event that trusts stillness. Write Notes, presented as part of the Keep Curious Salon Series, highlighted the art of storytelling across written /spoken word and song. In the comfy surrounds of The Button Factory, words and music unfolded as an act of shared focus.
The Visitors – Q Theatre: March 19, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
The Visitors begins on a sandstone embankment overlooking Sydney Harbor where a small number of aboriginal leaders have assembled. It’s January 1788. Sydney. And they are there because they have sighted a fleet of small boats approaching, carrying visitors to their native land. The immediate question is do they welcome these visitors to their shores, […]
He Kākano: Marmite & Honey – Q Theatre Loft: March 14, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
He Kākano: Marmite & Honey takes a wonderful play on all family dynamics, the good the bad…the sweet and salty relationships and layers that all families experience.
Becoming Jeff Bezos – Q Theatre Loft: March 13, 2025 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Becoming Jeff Bezos puts two characters on stage with two contrasting takes on a dystopic Aotearoa after the climate apocalypse has hit. When they confront each other, sparks fly.
A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) – Q Theatre: March 12, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen starts with the personable Josh Hinton recounting his journey of discovery about himself, his culture, and his place in the world — and ends with a good feed of One-Pot Chicken Curry. Hard to complain really, unless you’re the one vegetarian in the audience who’d like just a little […]
Waiora Te Ūkaipõ – The Homeland – ASB Waterfront Theatre: March 6, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Waiora Te Ūkaipõ – The Homeland is a revival of a by now celebrated play, first performed to great acclaim in 1996. Since then it has travelled widely, and been taught in school curricula. I fear however that it was a 30-year old story back then, and is now being revived thirty years too late.
WET – Te Pou Theatre: March 5, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
WET welcomes you to a world of “cliterature,” fun and whanau. Which don’t always mix, we discover. Turns out that mixture creates some angst to negotiate too.
The Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan – Q Theatre: March 5, 2026 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
The Music Portrait of a Humble Disabled Samoan starts with a moment that changed a life. In 2005, Fonotī Pati Umaga experienced what first seemed like a minor accident — a simple slip and fall, something many people have encountered. What appeared insignificant at the time became event that altered the course of his life […]
La Ronde – Spiegeltent, Aotea Square: March 5, 2026 (Auckland Arts Festival Review)
La Ronde holds the drama of extraordinary beauty and sensuality — a celebration of the human body and how good it looks when its doing its thing. Five-time festival favourites brought their brilliance again — aach international performer delivering something spectacular, hovering in the balance betwixt circus and cabaret, between athleticism and sensuality.
Genuine and Stable – Herald Theatre, 9-13 Dec (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Genuine and Stable is a sympathetic look at a shitty situation: an immigrant judged not by her peers, but by strangers—and on the basis of a private relationship which is nobody’s business but their own, but which must be recorded and questioned.
H.R. The Musical #2 – Q Theatre: 25 Nov – Dec 6 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
HR The Musical #2, the sequel to 2004’s big hit, revealed Human Resources for its irredeemable double-speak: how inhuman and unresourceful “human resources” are; how impersonal are the Personnel Department where, due to “privacy concerns,” employees are referred to only as numbers.
Life On A Loop – Q Theatre: November 11, 2025 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Life on a Loop brings theatre icon Ellie Smith back to the local stage for the first time in 17 years with her award-winning solo show, direct from London, throwing us with humour and heart straight into a care home. And if you’re in the right demographic, it zings!
The Dry House, by Eugene O’Hare – Basement Theatre: 4-15 November
The Dry House is confronting. We’re greeted with a small suburban lounge, a house full of debris, a selection of empty bottles, and Alison Bruce with a bad case of the shakes.
Tiri: Te Araroa, Woman Far Walking by Witi Ihimaera & Auckland Theatre Company, at ASB Waterfront Theatre
Tiri: Te Araroa Woman Far Walking gives us a 185-year-old woman born on the day the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.
In the Web of Louise Bourgeois — Auckland Art Gallery
Open Late: In the Web of Louise Bourgeois marked the Auckland Art Gallery’s new exhibition Louise Bourgeois: In Private View, which runs to 17 May 2026.