Five Fab Fringe Shows at BATS

Five Fab Fringe Shows at BATS

We have five fantastic Fringe shows this week ­ Coldstart (season sold out), Mathew Simcock's stunning poetry in Mihi, from Auckland comes Rena Owen's Te Awa I Tahuti, from London we have Perseus Uncovered and finally Match ­ a play by Marc Chun.

And next week you can check out Onion, Train Ghosts, Swim, Karaoke Poetry, Uniform and MmmDance. For more information about our Fringe shows you can check out our website ­ www.bats.co.nz

Coldstart

Season: Sunday 13 ­ Wednesday 16 February

Time: 8pm

Tickets: $15 full/$12 concession/$10 Fringe addict card

A quirky, slice of life comedy about six young professionals living the single life. Just in time for Valentines Day is a hilarious comedy about three young professional women who decide to spice up their single lives by inviting three desirable strangers over to dinner: Toby the sexy gym instructor, Simon the amazing "busboy" and Duncan the handsome Doc. It's not a blind date, it's not a swingers party ­ It's a COLDSTART! Director Lyndee-Jane Rutherford brings this fresh insightful comedy to the stage as part of the 2005 Wellington Fringe Festival along with actors, Cath Harkins, Brianne Kerr, Louise Proudfoot, Cohen Holloway, Alan Brunton and Cooper Amai. Lighting design by Rob Larsen. This is writer Louise Proudfoot's second stage comedy, the first being the highly successful Fringe Festival 2001 show "Four Doors and a Sofa".

Mihi

Season: Monday 14 ­ Thursday 17 February

Time: 6.30pm

Tickets: $15 full/$12 concession/$10 Fringe addict

"The weight of the word on my tongue eats the roof of the world." Lovers of edgy, challenging poetry are in for a treat. Mihi is a poetry storytelling show by a Wellington-based poet, comedian and storyteller, Matthew Simcock. The great success of Mihi, which also featured in the Dunedin Fringe Festival 2004, encouraged Simcock to bring the show to the capital. Simcock's Mihi is a rare attempt to merge a traditional Maori speaking structure with an Anglo-Saxon poetic diction. A cocktail of versed elation and anguish, Mihi displays all seven stages of Maori welcome; it identifies the speaker, sets the mood, acknowledges the Creator, greets the living, greets the dead, affirms the reason of the gathering and closes with a blessing. Te Awa I Tahuti

Season: Tuesday 15 ­ Saturday 19 February

Time: 9.30pm

Tickets: $15 full/$12 concession/$10 Fringe addict

Auckland's Koanga Maori Theatre Company presents the Wellington premiere of Rena Owen's powerful play as part of Fringe NZ: 05. ŒTe Awa I Tahuti ­ The River That Ran Away' ­ written by Owen (Ngati Hine) in the mid-eighties ­ received rave reviews for its Auckland and Whangarei seasons last year. Owen shares a personal story through the life of a young Maori woman called Toni who finds herself on the other side of the world in a London prison for a drug offence. Through a counsellor, Mrs Bottomly, she is forced to confront her past in order to heal and move forward into the future. ŒTe Awa I Tahuti' premiered at the Albany Empire in London in 1987. Owen performed as Toni and toured the play extensively at major theatres as well as prisons and drug rehabilitation centres.Director Kim Cullen (Ngapuhi, Ngai Tuhoe) is again joined by play producer Natasha Keating (Ngati Tuwharetoa, Ngai Tuhoe, Te Ati Hau Nui a Paparangi) in the role of Toni and recent British import, Sian Jaquet, as Mrs Bottomley.

Perseus Uncovered

Season: Thursday 17 ­ Wednesday 23 February

Time: 8pm

Tickets: $15 full/$12 concession/$10 Fringe addict

London's Purple Fish Productions (patron Dame Maggie Smith) make their New Zealand theatrical debut at the Wellington Fringe Festival after a Œsell out' tour across Canada with an amazingly innovative and creative devised work based on the Greek myth of Perseus and the Medusa. The story itself has been taken directly from Ovid's Metamorphosis and is told in a modern way with the use of mime, puppets, masks, manipulation of objects and plenty of modern music and modern references . Perseus Uncovered is a fast paced, up to the minute comedy and is performed by two highly skilled and experienced actors Luan de Burgh (from London) and Michelle Seton (from Tauranga, New Zealand) both of whom were trained in London and at the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris ­ the world's leading physical theatre school.

Match

Season: Friday 18 - Monday 21 February

Time: 6.30pm

Tickets: $15 full/$12 concession/$10 Fringe addict

A play by Marc Chun, directed by Trish Ah Sam. What do we do with random events, some would call them chance, others fate, and what do they do to the people whose lives are irrevocably changed by them? ŒMatch' an exquisite one-act play looks at just that. The winner of the 2001 Premiere One-Act Play Festival in Los Angeles deals with fate, destiny and inevitability, how they are different and how they are the same. It is also about being responsible to yourself and to at least one other person in the world. It tells the story of five ordinary people whose lives are brought together on a bright blue May afternoon, due to a seemingly obscure disease that effects more people than we realise, with extraordinary results.

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BATS Theatre
1 Kent Terrace
Wellington, Aotearoa
bats@bats.co.nz
bookings 802 4175
office 802 4176
fax 802 4010
www.bats.co.nz
The Fabulous Fringe 05 at BATS! On now until 12 March
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