2011 Productions

Love ‘s Labour ‘s Lost

by William Shakespeare 

Wed 26 October – Fri 4 November 2011              

This year’s Graduation season presents one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies crammed with jokes, disguise and hilarious confusion. The King of Navarre and his three young friends have devoted themselves to study when they are surprised by the Princess of France and her sexy entourage. How can you study when you have got love in your mind? From the team that brought you last year’s celebrated musical Company at the Museum Hotel, Love’s Labour’s Lost is a hilarious exploration of the language of love, directed by Jonathon Hendry.             

The 25^th Annual

Putnam County Spelling Bee

Tue 18 – Sat 22 October 2011             

Music & Lyrics by WILLIAM FINN
Book by RACHEL SHEINKIN
Conceived by REBECCA FELDMAN
Additional Material by Jay Reiss.
Originally produced on Broadway by David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Barrington Stage Company, Second Stage Theatre.
By arrangement with Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd Exclusive agent for Music Theatre International (NY)              

Our annual sell-out musical event. This year’s Toi Cabaret production is straight off Broadway: a musical comedy that is a hilarious tale of overachievers’ angst, based around a fictional spelling bee competition in which six quirky adolescents are vying for the big title – moderated by six equally quirky grown-ups. Winner of a 2005 Tony award at Radio City in New York and directed by Nathaniel Lees.             

Classic Cuts 2011

Thu 13 – Sat 15 October 2011                 

First-year acting students take centre-stage for the first time in these condensed versions of Shakespeare’s work. This year’s excerpts are from  The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Jude Gibson and Perry Piercy.

The Roaring Girl

by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton & Dean Parker 

Thu 25 – Wed 31 August 2011 

Is there any place so lewd as Lady London?               

Among the quacks, pimps and drifters who populated early 1600s London were the notorious “roaring girls” who dressed as men. A curiosity to some, a monstrosity to others, they cut their hair, dressed in breeches, fought in the streets with swords, swaggered about like men and were generally censured for living and behaving in a “noisy riotous manner”.               

One of them was Moll Cutpurse, and her real-life adventures found their way into the Middleton-Dekker play. 400 years old this year and adapted for the modern stage, it is a robust and sexy comedy that portrays Moll as a person of tremendous integrity and fun –  courageous, brave, and the scourge of scoundrels and unworthy men everywhere. She exposes all the vices of low-life Jacobean England, with riotous results. Directed by Toi Whakaari MTA graduate Rachel More.             

Go Solo 2011

Mon 11 – Fri 23 July 2011             

Go Solo is our annual season of new solo shows created and performed by the final-year acting students. This rich variety of individual viewpoints and bold theatre making is as entertaining as it is thought provoking, and for many of our acting graduates is their first major stepping stone into professional theatre. Directed by Toi Whakaari acting graduate Sophie Roberts.

Taku Rua

Thu 9 – Wed 15 June 2011                  

This winter, Toi Whakaari’s second-year Acting, Design, Entertainment Technology and Performing Arts Management students are nesting inside Wellington’s Toi Poneke Arts Centre, composing four evocative and intimate site specific performance experiences devised from stories, collections and encounters specific to this Te Aro site. Facilitated by tutors Jade Eriksen, Teina Moetara and Heather Timms in partnership with the staff and residents of Toi Poneke.

Welcome to Thebes

by Moira Buffini 

Wed 23 – Sat 26 March 2011                  

Set in the modern day, but inspired by ancient myth, Moira Buffini’s new play (2010) explores an encounter between the world’s richest and poorest countries in the aftermath of a brutal war: a contemporary political fable drawing inspiration from Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Hippolytus and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.

The annual workshop production from second-year acting students. Directed by Annie Ruth using the Viewpoints approach, focussing on space and time.

Crossing Lines

Wed 9 – Sun 20 Mar 2011               

“When you get to the country that offers you permanent residence then that is the end of that label of refugee. You got a country. You are no longer a refugee. I am not stateless. I’ve got a country. I’ve got a home, where I belong to. It’s New Zealand.” – Adam Awad, Somali Council.               

Crossing Lines was the culmination of a two-year project involving more than 400 people in the Māori, Somali and artistic communities of South Wellington, working together to find common threads and ways of examining some of the challenges they face. Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School staff members Penny Fitt, Lisa Maule, Teina Moetara and Heather Timms were the directorial and production team and developed the project through their involvement with Eko Theatre, an independent arts organisation set up to build socially engaged arts projects and create high quality artistic work in New Zealand. The result was a professional theatre show backed by an exhibition, and the show flowed from the exhibition space, beginning with larger-than-life projections and shadow imagery and moving into to intimate and personal poetics to match the audience’s journey through time, space and culture.