You can now book tickets online for Binge Culture's exciting new work, This Rugged Beauty. 

click here to book 

There's no warming into theatre this year... BATS kicks off with this spectacular explosion that will see you either running to Burger King or put off the sight of food for some time. Audience responses have ranged from "I have to go now. I need pizza" to "I couldn't look or I would puke" and Laura McQuillan of Wotzon said "It made me want dip. And wedges. And an ice cream... It taught me candy is evil but organic food is also gross. And to never trust a vegetarian."

Produced by Fiona McNamara and featuring Rose Guise as a militant vegan activist, "No Taste Forever!" by Paul Rothwell and brought to you by our friends The Bacchanals is at BATS Theatre until 29 January. book@bats.co.nz or call 04 802 4175

Our new show, This Rugged Beauty, is a subversive slice of kiwiana presented as part of Fringe and VUWSA Orientation 2011. Before we present to the full show at Studio 77, we're road testing some of it at Gryphon Theatre, 26th-29th Feb. Be there!

In a first for Wellington theatre, ‘The Peek Party' will develop links between award-winning practitioners and the next generation of Wellington theatre makers. The established companies will host open rehearsals and provide mentoring to allow for unique insights into the theatre making process and to help develop the skills required of producing theatre companies.
School teacher and London University Masters in Directing graduate Stuart Henderson is facilitating the work of Not Another as they work towards presenting their first piece, a work structured around the daily experience of clicking through the internet and the non-linear, fragmented realities that result. The Playground Collective will present an interrogation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Tinder Box, Binge Culture Collective will present work drawn from the development of their new show This Rugged Beauty and Dan Weekes will present the first showing of The Aliens of Poverty Bay. The final production is designed as a developmental step in the growth of each work. The project will therefore create a unique non-commercial space where practitioners are free to experiment and push theatrical boundaries.

All four works will be presented 26 - 29 January, 7:30pm at The Gryphon Theatre, Ghuznee Street, Wellington.

MINGE is a slang word for the nether regions of a lady. MINGE is a play at BATS Theatre in Wellington from 1-11 December 2010. MINGE is a celebration and an interrogation of womanhood in New Zealand, as well as musical extravaganza for people of all genders. What better way is there to kick start the festive season than with some MINGE?

The year-long MINGE project sprung from the desire of many of Wellington’s young female theatre practitioners to make theatre by women, for women and about women. Women involved are from Binge Culture Collective, The PlayGround Collective, Three Spoon Theatre and Theatre Militia, as well as many independent theatre practitioners.

It's directed by Fiona McNamara and stars Rose Guise and Steph Cairns (music) of Elimination Rounds fame.  

Check out http://minge.co.nz/

We spent a stimulating Sunday gallivanting around central Wellington helping the creators of Hidden City Maps, Sarah Burrell, John Coddington and Andrew Simpson, test-drive material for their performance, which is coming up soon as part of Massey's Blow Festival, Fri 12 Nov - Wed 17 Nov. Here's the blurb:

Hidden City Maps is a performance installation sited in the urban spaces of Wellington that provides the participants with an alternative itinerary by which to encounter the city. Participants are invited to engage in situations that disrupt their habitual routines of moving through the streets to rediscover the city as a zone for ludic detours and performative encounters. Audience members are guided on a solitary self-paced journey accompanied by a soundscape, and are led to uncover and participate in subtle urban interventions that reveal a fantastical dimension within the familiar city.

The experience made us feel like tourists in our own city- the tour is full of suprises and food for the imagination. The website with more information is here.

The forecast is for Golden Weather. From the makers of Elimination Rounds comes a work of epic scale and dizzying majesty.
Raw, playful, risky and compassionate, Binge Culture’s new theatre project will be an exploration of the intensity of childhood, a full blown attempt at a epicness, and a ruthless parody of attempts at summing up national identity. With Wellington about to be engulfed in manic preparations for the Rugby World Cup, what better time to present a work which complicates and satirizes the myths of who we are?

March 2011. More details soon!

First rehearsal today for our next theatre project. Working titles include This Rugged Beauty, The Great New Zealand Story and Binge Culture's Golden Days.

We're making it as part of our residency in the Victoria University theatre programme, and we'll be presenting working rehearsals and scenes through the trimester to the students, with the aim of a full length show at the beginning of 2011.

-Ralph