THE ARTS: ALL YOU CAN EAT
After a year that saw Broadway and the West End face a seemingly neverending curtain call, local audiences can rest assured that the pandemic won’t stop Auckland artists from putting on a show this year.
While the Level 4 lockdown in March sent a seismic jolt through the country’s artistic community, cancelling dozens of shows and festivals and forcing numerous venues to shut for months, theatre and arts organisers hope 2021 will deliver a better performance.
In the first half of the year alone, Aucklanders will be able to enjoy live comedy, catch up with their favourite local authors, and enjoy a plethora of theatre, dance and music spread across a broad-range of festivals that are making a comeback after being forced to take the last year off.
For the Auckland Theatre Company, 2020 saw only two of the shows they’d planned to do. Despite that, they’ve announced a full season through to November, with hopes that all six shows programmed will make it to the stage.
ATC chief executive Jonathan Bielski said that they contemplated a different approach from their usual modus operandi of announcing a full season at once, but when it came time to make a firm decision, it felt like the right move.
“We had doubts that we could do it, but our desire was to have a confident statement that we were returning to the stage in a way that was familiar for our artists and our audiences.”
Smaller theatre company Silo Theatre saw the pandemic as a chance to try something new. Four shows are scheduled for 2021, but there are no firm dates. Most of the shows will debut in the latter half of the year, as the company sees how the pandemic unfolds.
Artistic director Sophie Roberts said the Defence Force cluster in early November during the season of Every Brilliant Thing showed the pandemic could change on a dime, and they did not want to be tied to a packed programme set in stone.
She said they had long wanted to try something new in terms of delivering their work, and the 2021 season became their chance to experiment.
“From an artistic point of view, there’s a lot of positive things to come out of this situation to make everyone look at the status quo and ask ‘why are we doing it that way, can we try something new? This feels like a great opportunity to try new things,” Roberts said.
The March lockdown and the resulting mass cancellations were “heartbreaking”, and they wanted to avoid that as much as possible.
Avoiding such pain means many other organisations are developing contingency plans. The Comedy Festival has plans to hold sociallydistanced shows should the country return to Level 2, while the Pride Festival has developed a guide to help producers plan for the event of level 4.
The ATC was one of the first in the country to pivot under lock down, staging a sociallydistanced version of The Seagull over Zoom and filming cancelled production of The Master Builder.
Bielski said that while they have not announced any backup plans yet, they recognised the importance of making those plans. Any show that has to be cancelled will provide artists with an opportunity to do something else digitally, while the opportunity to do something similar to The Seagull remains on the cards.
“What we’re learning is what we need to do is have a fertile ground where those things can emerge and grow rapidly, and be open to the idea of grasping opportunities as they arise.”
The big events in the first half of 2021:
Auckland Arts Festival
Bouncing back from a truncated festival last March, the AAF returns with over 70 shows scheduled across Auckland between March 4 and 21. The festival always covers a diverse blend of music, theatre, art and dance, and close to a third of the shows are free of charge to open the festival up to more people than ever.
Key highlights include a series of events marking 50 years since the Polynesian Panthers, including exhibition The Dawn Raids — Educate to Liberate. Che Fu celebrates 20 years since the release of his second album, Navigator, with a special concert at the Auckland Town Hall. The Town Hall will also host the Legacy Vogue Ball, bringing South Auckland ballroom culture to the heart of the CBD.
Family events include The Griegol from Trick of the Light Theatre, and an Aucklandcentric retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk incorporating the Sky Tower. And as well as being one of the few festivals in the world of this scale, AAF will host a number of world premieres, including Pasifika play Tropical Love Birds and Subtle Dances from new dance company BalletCollective Aotearoa.
The lack of international acts means the festival will take over the Civic Theatre, with the opportunity to flip the perspective — putting the audience on the stage, while performers will be placed on a specially erected platform over the seats. The Civic Club will combine comedy — including chat show The Love Hour with Tom Sainsbury — music, with a line-up featuring Julia Deans, Anna Coddington and French for Rabbits, and cabaret, with special highlight Heavenly Bodies involving acrobats and circus performers. More info at aaf.co.nz
Pride Festival
There is no shortage of cultural events to be found at Auckland Pride, perhaps the biggest festival in the country celebrating the rainbow communities. The festival, running from February 3 to 28, has expanded to a four-week event for the first time in order to fit in as many events as possible and spotlight every area of the community.
The Pride Gala will include festival artistic highlights on February 4, before the multitude of events get to shine. Cabaret show Night of the Queer and literary festival Same Same But Different return — with the latter festivalwithin-a-festival free.
On the theatrical side, Tom Sainsbury and Jason Smith’s comedic musical Gays in Space
from the 2018 festival returns for a limited run. New works include Let’s Get Loco! and Over My Dead Body: Uninvited
at Q Theatre and HEtheyShe
and I Wanna Be Mark Wahlberg
at Basement Theatre, just a few of the 45 events announced. More info at aucklandpride. org.nz
NZ Opera
Opera fans have plenty to savour, with the country’s largest opera company planning a number of tours after being silent for much of 2020. Things start with a family friendly Summer of Opera tour, which will bring some of the country’s best artists to Glover Park in St Heliers.
NZ Opera follows up in March with the world premiere of Ihitai ‘Avei’a — Star Navigator, which tells the story of Tahitian star navigator Tupaia, who sailed with James Cook in 1769. The original piece features songs by Tim Finn and will be performed for just two shows only.
And Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, originally scheduled for 2020, hits the stage in June. More info at nzopera.com
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, one of the biggest arts companies in the country, was also one of the first to pivot during lockdown, going digital to perform shows that racked up millions of views. Now they are back together with a packed season for 2021, including 12 performances in their premier season, with the first four — Nordic Fire, Enduring Spirit, The Romantic and Rediscovery — coming before July.
Live concerts continue to be a big trend, and the APO has several early this year, including returning to the world of David Attenborough with Blue Planet II Live, while fans of Steven Spielberg’s ET can enjoy the Australasian live-concert premiere of the 80s classic at the Auckland Arts Festival.
Local soul singer Louis Baker will join the APO on stage on February 11 for a oneoff show. The APO will also hit the Town Hall stage during the AAF for Shoulder to Shoulder, an event celebrating female composers for International Women’s Day.
More info at apo.co.nz
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
The NZSO is back to touring, with a variety of shows designed to bring live music back to city centres and towns. The Setting Up Camp series will see the NZSO spend more time in different parts of the country, stopping in Auckland in June 9-11 with Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, which features dancers from the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Other concert highlights coming to Auckland as part of the NZSO’s Podium Series includes La Valse , The Firebird, Buzzard, Symphonie Fantastique, Dreamtime. More info at nzso.co.nz
Auckland Theatre Company
The big ensembles the ATC normally bring together are on hold for 2021 at least, with most shows set to spotlight smaller casts and more intimate plots. Kicking things off is Two Ladies, starring Jennifer WardLealand and Anna Jullienne as the American and French first ladies locked in conversation
at an international event.
The Haka Party Incident, originally intended to be staged in 2020, will now debut during the Auckland Arts Festival, telling the story of the 1979 confrontation between activist group He Taua and engineering students at the University of Auckland rehearsing a mock haka.
Following in May will be the local debut of Single Asian Female by Australian playwright Michelle Law, telling the story of a Chinese immigrant trying to keep her family and restaurant together.
In the middle of the year, Kiwi actor Michael Hurst takes to the stage with the ATC for The Life of Galileo. The play about the astronomer whose findings were strongly opposed in the 17th century is being pitched as uncomfortably relevant today.
More info at at.co.nz
International Comedy Festival
One of the first festivals forced to cancel due to the lockdown, the International Comedy Festival, hopes to have us roaring in our seats again in May — but expect it to be a lot more local this year. The festival is scheduled to run from May 4-23, and like many festivals, local comedians will make up the bulk of the programme this year — though there is room for international comedians should borders reopen.
The line-up won’t be fully announced until February, but the Comedy Gala will be back in both Auckland and Wellington to kick off the festival, with a smorgasbord of home-grown talent set to be on show.
The 2020 Billy T Award nominees — celebrating the best rising talent on the comedy scene — have been carried over, so expect to see Brynley Stent, Lana Walters, James Mustapic and Josh Davies contend for the prestigious title.
More info at comedyfestival.co.nz
Other highlights
Visiting comedians: No international comedians have visited New Zealand for nine months, but that is set to change. UK comic Russell Howard will be the first international comedian to visit, his Respite tour stopping in Auckland on January 23.
He will be followed by recent Strictly Come Dancing winner Bill Bailey, who is heading our way with En Route to Normal, which comes to Auckland on March 23-24. And Aussie favourite Chopper is back, his nationwide The Silencer tour playing two nights in Auckland on March 12-13.
Auckland Writers Festival: No line-up has been announced so far, but the AWF will be back from May 11-16.
Royal New Zealand Ballet: The ballet goes national in early 2021 with the
Tutus on Tour show, before returning to Auckland in May with its beloved production,
Giselle.
Fringe Festival: The celebration of independent theatre is going bigger than ever, featuring 100 shows across the city. Running from February 14 to March 6, the festival will also take shows out to the suburbs for the first time. The full programme is due on January 14.
Jersey Boys: The Broadway musical on the life and songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons hits the Civic Theatre from April 17, from the same company that brought Les Miserables and Mary Poppins to the theatre.