Don't know if you spotted this in the Dom Post the other day, I couldn't find it online so I've had to type it out: 

7/11/2010
Theatre managers around New Zealand are "dismayed" by pirated copies of their performances appearing on the streets- often before the work has even premiered. "They must sneak into the $15 previews," one representative of a Wellington theatre said, "and so outside on the footpath there are these cheap knock-offs for sale which are inferior in every way. Its dismaying."

The "ripped" performances undermine legitimate theatre's profits by drastically undercutting ticket prices. However, as the plays are performed entirely from the memory of one performance, the quality is markedly inferior. One bystander, who asked not to be named, described a "rip" of  Circa's My First Time: "they got the intonations and general blocking right, but heaps of the lines had been learned wrong, bits were missing- and the motivations were shakey."  However, having paid a mere $2.50 for the experience, he admitted he wouldn't fork out for the theatrical version; "what would be the point? I feel sorry for the actors if they lose money, but frankly I don't have the spare cash to be scrupulous at the moment." He added that he never pirated New Zealand plays.

In spite of the threat posed by performance piracy, theatre owners are confident the superior quality of plays performed in theatres will keep punters coming back for the real thing. "We've got lighting, seating and protection from the elements, which is more than you’ll get on some dirty footpath. There's no substitute for actually being there. Sooner or later, people are going to realise what they're missing out on."
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with apologies to Howard Barker.
1.       You are probably making theatre for the wrong reasons.
2.       Few people go to the theatre to have a bad time and be improved. How will you target them in your marketing?
3.       Poetry may make nothing happen but it lacks theatre’s social aspect.
4.       Shared light is spooky, because look how hard you are working and how still the audience is.
5.    The banks have gotten pretty chummy recently, haven’t they? 
6.       Evolutionarily, it may not be in your interests to be happy.
7.       Nihilism in the elderly is disconcerting, isn’t it?
8.     Truth in the theatre is quite hard to define. 
9.       All that junk food is altering your perception of things.
10.    When the actors are having a bad time, comfort them by calling out things like “its ok! None of it is really happening!”
11.    Try getting up there and helping out. See what they do.
12.   Discussion of Facebook will not, in itself, make the work avant-garde.
13.    All this coffee is making you edgy. Have you added up what it costs you in a week?
14.    Lists can be written more quickly than novels.
15.    If you want to watch people bored at work, there are fast food places where you can do it for free. 
16.    It is more about the asking of questions than about being so presumptuous as to proffer answers, wouldn't you say?
17.     You will see all these things differently in a few years. 
18.    The news media in this country is very emotionally invested.
19.    We are doomed with or without your scholarly concern.  Stop reading those depressing books and go outside, its sunny.
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Where all your Beckett royalties go
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Here's a thing I wrote to promote Elimination Rounds and be offensive, and a text from Drowning Bird which was done by Joel from inside a cardboard box.
YOU DON'T YOUR NEED YOUR COLOURED GOGGLES FOR THIS SHIT

Or: "Towards an Undead Theatre"

Remember how your youth group leader used to take someone hip, like Eminem, and say: "You know, there was this guy called Jesus, and he was pretty much doing what Eminem is doing, 2000 years ago, in Jerusalem.” And you believed him, right? That youth group leader sure knew how to make something old and irrelevant look new and appealing: he compared it to something you cared about. It’s an old trick, and you’ll find it works with just as well with Shakespeare, and poetry, and lots of other dead things.  In this article, I’m going to try and be like that youth group leader, only I want to tell you about theatre.  As we all know, theatre was murdered by TV and film long before we were born. Or was it? Can it be resurrected? Do we need what famous zombie director Peter Brook (11 and 12) called for: an Undead Theatre?
 
Let me begin.

There's been a lot of fuss recently about cinema realising that it can "do 3D."

No it fucking can't.  Theatre can do 3D. Effortlessly. Everything it does is totally in all directions. Look at all the dimensions. It can do smells too. At the end, the performers and you have been through something together. You know the phrase “break a leg?” Actors can break legs. In theatre, things actually happen to people and you’re there to witness it.

So forget  Avatar, taste the next big thing. You might not have heard about it. It’s not on at Readings, or the Embassy. It cost less than a million dollars to make. It’s a theatre show.
 
Binge Culture's Elimination Rounds, is, in conclusion, a theatre show. It is better than Jesus.  In it, there’s a leafblower, a feeding frenzy, a live band, and a lion mauling. People pretend to be in danger. People get sort of naked. Gravity exerts its force upon objects.  Wellington is built onstage and destroyed by a monster.

My gosh, you say, can theatre do all this? Can it really be as hip as Eminem? To which I reply: heck yes, kid, and you won’t even need your 3D glasses.

*****

You know, not all performers are naturally extroverted.
Many of them are quite shy, off the stage.
Actually, a lot of people get on the stage for the same reasons that a lot of people get drunk.
When you're on the stage,
Or on the piss,
You get to be funnier than you are in everyday life.
You get to be bolder.
More flirtatious.
You get to do things you wouldn't normally get to do.
Because people are generally more understanding when you're drunk.
Or acting.
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Young Victorians 16/05/2010
 
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Left to Right, Alex Lodge and Jack Shadbolt, in costume
Get amongst it! These shows are coming up at BATS featuring fellow Victoria grads which are guaranteed delicious:


Four of the Threespoon crew are bringing you a new play, Tea For Toot: Friday 21st - Saturday 5th June 2010 (no show Sun/Mon). Its inspired in part by Enid Blyton, so it should be a jolly good show, old chap.


The Intricate Art of Actually Caring returns to Wellington Tuesday 1st - Saturday 5th June 2010. Don't miss out. Here's that snazzy website again.


All the info is, of course, on www.bats.co.nz 
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Comedy 05/05/2010
 
Seeing the hilarious Sammy J at Downstage last night added to a feeling that other performers have a bit to learn from comedians in terms of audience acknowledgement and presence. From Sammy's casual remark on the topic of his home renovation: "I've knocked down the fourth wall and now I've got a great view of the audience" to the almost unnoticeable "bless you" as one of us sneezed in the middle of an emotional speech - it just seemed, you know, right. As in, not a big deal. Here's to that.

Before that I'd been enjoying this clip from Sight Is The Sense That Dying People Tend To Lose First as a kind of cross between stand-up and performance art. It seems to me like a twist on the idea of the comedian in this context as a sort of educator, the one against the many, getting up and sharing with us how the world really is. And again, we've got a part to play in the performance.
In a not unrelated vein, here's a really interesting article exploring the pleasures and perils of audience interaction (as recommended by Tim), and it reminds me of some recent debates on theatreview about active audiences, and some problems we've had with our own work. Who really has the power in these situations, who's really taking the risks?

"On the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 one company had the not-so-bright idea of making an interactive show about Auschwitz, which cast the audience as Jews being led to the gas chambers. The performers (who played the camp guards) were so hectoring and aggressive that one critic physically resisted them. After the show, artists and critic got involved in a brawl, and the show’s director was given a formal warning by the police."

And I'm sure it seemed like such a clever idea at the time...
Full article
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A Poem

There's no denying that these festival actors are
Indescribably different from everyday actors.
For a start, they are a lot further away.


PS- To Whom It May Concern Did you notice that in New World Metro, the packs of fruit- four pieces shrinkwrapped in a styrofoam tray- are hosting messages? Instead of the obvious "apple/mandarin/kiwifruit/banana" label, there's a bunch of them which declare, among other facts about people, "Lana is single and looking." Better check they're not saying anything about you.
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The Intricate Art of Actually Caring is back and coming to your town, which is good news because everyone should see it. The link below takes you to the website, with a really nice trailer on it. It sort of captures the tone and contradictions of it:  jaded but raw, intensely cynical and totally honest somehow at the same moment... but you can't beat actually being there.

www.intricateart.co.nz
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Kids these days. 17/01/2010
 
'Who's Neat? You!' is Happy, Healthy You's latest children's mis-education show, taking place during the 2010 New Zealand Fringe Festival.

Its on a bus. Its about puberty. Yes, yes, you there!
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Check out the website of  Free Theatre Christchurch, especially the Theatre of Unease essay. In it, Peter Falkenburg argues that whereas NZ film has a history of roughness and difficulty, (cinema of unease), "the mirror that New Zealand theatre seems to hold up to its audience seems to be one of reassurance, that everything is all right or it will be." Worth a peek. We shared The Globe in Dunedin with Free Theatre at the start of the year and saw first hand the unsettling and very uneasy Ella and Sussn. Hope they get to Wellington again soon!

Also, have a look at the handsome and mellifluous home of Barbarian Productions

In Etchells news, hope you're following this guardian column and that you've read this.

-Ralph
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