Comedy Songmaker · Music Director · Composer · Broadcaster · New Zealander in Chicago · etc
I’m sitting in Dunedin Airport waiting for the 1710 to Auckland. Time for a quick blog update…
Early yesterday morning I flew from Wellington (current home) to Dunedin (next year’s home). This is my first time in Dunedin as an adult – growing up in Auckland, the only time our family made it this far south was on The Big South Island Trip one summer. (In the words of my mother: “You’re growing up in Auckland and you won’t be a real Kiwi unless you’ve seen the South Island!”)
Pride and Pestilence.
I should blog about Austen Found – Zombie Time.
The short of it: I have played pianoforte for 31 public performances of Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen. We debuted it at the 2008 New Zealand Improv Festival in Wellington, sold out our drama school rehearsal room at the 2010 Adelaide Fringe, and were extremely well received in October last year as part of the STAMP Programme in Auckland.
Penny Ashton has more background on her own blog.
This new show, well, it’s a bit of a twist. I won’t have workshopped exactly this format with the cast before I get there, but all of us have improvised together before so I’m sure it’ll be just cooking. It is my first gig under the brand new Instant Kiwis banner – quite exciting.
So I missed the first night of the New Zealand Improv Festival in Wellington. I was filling in for Kate Mead on Sound Lounge. And I’ll miss the second night too. I’m filling in for Kate Mead on Nights with Bryan Crump. (See what happens when people take leave from work?!)
But I’ll be there the third, fourth and fifth nights, playing musical accompaniment for ten different shows. You should come. Book at BATS Theatre.
Two in particular leap out at me as being very exciting:
The Long Weekend. I blogged about this a few weeks ago but since then I’ve actually workshopped it with the players! The ideas they have will make for some emotionally honest improv – the disconnect between idealised memories of uni days and the reality of late-20s-hood / early-30s-hood is perfect fodder for interpersonal relationships to laugh and cry over. Thu 13 October, 9:30pm.
So it’s the weekend – the time between two runs of shows, and the time in which I can do a load of washing.
Last night was the close of The First Asian A* B* – it was a reasonably successful season, considering that shows from Auckland seldom get the same audience numbers as Wellington shows. There’s just not the same degree off on-the-ground promotion.
Tonight is the opening of Zomburlesque. Out of the band of six players, I’m the only one not to have seen any rehearsal of the action yet. But I’ve received descriptions from those who have… I reckon it’ll be epic.