Basement Theatre

The Bard of Now – A guest blog by Dawn Glover

Basement — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:36:04 +0000

In acting school I quickly discovered that Shakespeare performed puts me to sleep. There I said it. Give me Williams, give me Shepard, give me Shanely, give me Howe and Eno, just don’t give me blank verse. While my fellow grads would grapple and sweat over who was going to get to play Lady M, I was crossing my fingers to do my final grad school performance in the experimental studio bringing to life a Caryl Churchill character. It’s not that I hate performing Shakespeare (in fact two of my most life changing roles have been thanks to Will) it is just that I have always held the opinion that our dearly departed Bard deserved more then to have his shows dressed up in modern clothing and re-imagined in an airport. “Out, out damned spot” is the same uttered at Terminal A as it is in a mid-evil bedchamber.

However, at the risk of sounding life a fan girl, I left The Baement Theatre with my mind blown by Hurst’s performance in “No Holds Bard”. Not only was he bringing to life four of Shakespeare’s more tragic hero’s (or anti-heroes) but he was doing it in a way that had me laughing at the profound hilarity of the script, marvelling at the athleticism in his performance, and literally leaning forward in my seat to drink in the way he delivered the moments of blank verse. I am pretty sure that I could listen to Michael Hurst read the whole of Shakespeare’s cannon and then hand him “Faust” and ask him to read that too (and for me reading Goeth is the equivalent of taking a sleeping pill).

Here’s the thing: What Hurst, Natalie Medlock, and Dan Musgrove did with “No Holds Bard,” is what this theatre nerd thinks should happen with Shakespeare more often. Shakespeare was brilliant; there is no arguing that. I mean how do you argue the brilliance of a man who created hundreds of words that we use in the English vocabulary? He wrote rich and wonderful characters that many actors love to play because hitting the right moment with a Shakespeare character is like the acting equivalent of an orgasm. But for many modern audience members who venture out to a Shakespeare play for the sake of feeling “cultured” the language (unless the actor is a master like Hurst, and let’s face it many think they are but aren’t) is alienating. While the performers are in the throws of “to be or not to be” the audience is usually squirming in their seats thinking, “to get up at 7am or not get up at 7am? “

I have this theory that “The Bard” roles over in his grave every time a theatre does one of his shows exactly how he would have done it in the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare was innovative! He was in tune with his times! If William Shakespeare were alive today he would find a way for his work to reach the masses. Not just the PHD’s, wanna’ be culture snobs, and actors, but the care takers, waiters, and stay at home moms of the year 2013. Last week I saw a Shakespeare piece for us, for who humanity is now, and I loved it. I hope to see more theatre artists taking their passion for Shakespeare, and finding a way to translate it for the audiences we have right now and the ones that we will have “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

“Gravity Hotel” & The Value of Live Theatre – A guest blog by Dawn Glover

Basement — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 03:00:03 +0000

“Gravity Hotel” & The Value of Live Theatre

Around the time that The Wizard of Oz (1939) used Technicolor to bring Dorothy’s adventure to dazzling life, theatre artists found themselves facing this question: “How do we compete with or even survive movies?” In 2013, live theatre has managed to do more then survive and we have moved on to perhaps a deeper question “what value does live theatre offer an audience that movies do not?” Of course there is the obvious, that it is a live performance experience, but is that alone enough to persuade a generation of filmgoers to buy a ticket to the theatre?

If I were trying to win an audience member to the theatre I would want to take them to see Full Colour Theatre Productions company devised work “Gravity Hotel.” The show is playing this weekend at Auckland’s Basement Theatre and it has elements of what this theatre nerd believes is the lifeblood of our art form. I’m not just talking about the acting, though Julia Croft gave a riveting performance, or even Sally Stockwell’s sophisticated score and perfectly smoky vocals; the piece was clearly solid on both these accounts. What got me excited was the use of staging and found elements that provided the show with more then just an artsy and quirky vibe. From the moment the lights came up on stage to reveal the “chorus” of sorts peeking out from under the large heavy skirts of the play’s seeming nemesis, to the final moment when Julie Croft’s character hops on her circa 1930’s bicycle and “rides” away from the metaphor of the hotel I was immersed in theatre magic. There were so many moments: when large picture frames were used as doors, bodies and sticks used as stairwells, and vintage suitcases were waltzed with in loo of a long lost lover, that I wanted to stand to my feet and point to the stage and say, “This is why! This is why theatre is wonderful and valuable and should be experienced by everyone sitting in a movie theatre tonight.” Sure, Baz Luhrmann and Darren Aronofsky, and before them, Stanley Kubrick, have brought surprising and odd things to film but the experience is still not the same as watching what human beings can create unedited and right in front of the naked eye.

Thursday night in the theatre as I listened to the sound of a bicycle spoke integrated into the depths of the upright bass and the dance of jazzy piano keys I felt a bit like I imagine Dorothy must have felt when she landed in that vibrant Technicolor place called “Munchkin Land” and I relished in the fact that theatre is alive and well and full of amazing and talented artists ready to share their experiences and imaginations on the live stage.

https://www.facebook.com/TheatricaThnerd

What is theatre’s obligation for accessibility? – Guest blog by Dawn Glover

Basement — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 02:55:03 +0000

A friend of mine recently posed this question: “What is theatre’s obligation for accessibility?” I think it’s a damn good question. Are we, as theatre artists, obligated to be accessible? Are we obligated to entertain? Are we obligated to be profound? Are we obligated to tear down social misconceptions and break through narrow minds?

Today is the beginning of my third week here in New Zealand. After just a couple of visits to The Basement Theatre and a chat with General Manager Charlie McDermott, I feel like I have found a theatre, which just may (thanks to the smart programming of Sophie Henderson) fulfill all of those supposed obligations in just one season.

I know that I certainly found Dynamotion’s “Terror Planet,” (which played over the weekend) to not only be accessible, thanks to it’s sci-fi components and the simple love story at the center, but also laugh out loud entertaining. The members of this comedic dance ensemble not only had the lady behind me laughing so hard I feared she might pee her pants, but also kept me impressed with their cheeky choreography. That and the fact that one member, Lara Fischel-Chisholm, at eight months pregnant was dancing like a beast! When Dynamotion danced to Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls),” her presence brought a whole new level to the song.

So what is theatre’s obligation…? I have my theories and I have a feeling that The Basement Theatre and its artists might have a few theories of their own. Whatever those theories are, this blogger is ready for the next show!

https://www.facebook.com/TheatricaThnerd

Goodbye My Feleni

Basement — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:16:04 +0000

Guest blog by David Mamea

Watching a director and actors in rehearsal is not unlike watching a kitten at play with an unfortunate cricket: at first it can be baffling but then you realise why the feline is doing it (better hunting through play) while the process is alternatingly cute and cruel.

The actors form up for their director (seated).

Watching director Amelia Reid-Meredith work with actors Taofia Pelesasa, Samson Chan-Boon, Leki Jackson Bourke and Andy Sani using exercises, provocations and other actorly-technical-stuff was mostly baffling for this writer.

And yet… seeing the actors begin to get under the skin of not only their characters but the story and its milieu was exciting to observe. This wasn’t just some let’s pretend kind of thing going on – it was about understanding the how and why, and how that knowledge just seeps through to the performance in such a way that within an instant on walking stage, it’s not just an actor reciting lines and hitting marks – it’s a person in the middle of their story and the audience is right there with them.

As one of the characters keeps saying in the script: Phwoah.

www.chocolatestigmata.com

AND I WAS LIKE…Basement blog – by Sam Brooks

Basement — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:41:33 +0000

And I Was Like has been a crazy six or so months.

I came up with the idea of a guy falling in love with a mute sometime last year then shelved it for a while so I could figure out the logistics of how somebody would be in a relationship with a mute.

Then September came around and I decided I needed to write something and so And I Was Like came up in my head again. So six months ago, I started writing it. Then I sent it off to The Basement and let it go until I found out that it had a slot.

I went into this script without ever thinking that I would possibly direct it. A lot of the things I wrote I wrote thinking, “Oh hey somebody else can deal with how this is going to happen onstage!” But when scheduling slayed the director I had lined up for the show, after we had excitedly decided on how we were going to stage and design everything, I made the reluctant decision to step into shoes I never really planned to step into and solve problems I never expected to have to solve myself.

And it turned out pretty damn okay! After a pizza-driven workshop in my Papakura garage at the end of last year to work out the kinks of the thing, we started rehearsing in January. I’ve been super lucky to work with the actors I’ve been working with: Kate, Steven, Elyse, but especially Eli and Fia, who get scenes faster than I could ever anticipate and are utterly fearless. It’s been a learning experience for me as a director, something I haven’t done a huge amount of in the past, and especially as a writer, letting go of the text and allowing the actors to take it as far as it can go.

Put simply, And I Was Like is a story of a guy falling in love with a mute.It’s a little funny, it’s a little dark, a little sad. Put less simply, it’s a story of relationships. What happens when you take one of the fundamental pillars of relationships, the words, out of the equation? In the last crazy six months, from brain to page to floor to stage, I’ve been trying to answer that.

And when it gets from the stage to your faces, maybe you’ll get an answer.

Dear The Basement

Basement — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:45:13 +0000

Dear The Basement,

You are very lovely. Super lovely. I’d like to tell you how I feel about you but it’s tricky, you’re too big and tingly to squish down onto a silly little page. When I first met you, to be honest, I was nervous. I was also very smelly, with a runny nose and bloodshot eyes – I came strait from the airport. But you didn’t seem to mind, I guess you were feeling a little self-conscious about your appearance too. It was about six hours before you reopened with all your wiz bang renovations, and you had lots of dust and paint and bins on and around you. You looked worried, but you needn’t have, you were beautiful, even then.

The past couple of weeks have been very special to me, every night you pick me up and dust off the loneliness that catches in my beard during the day. Your beer is always very cold, and who ever happens to be standing behind the bar smiles when they see me stump up the steps. I smile too, and my air balloon heart fills with fossil fuel and lifts, while the tiny couple in the basket spit over the edge and open a bottle of bubbles.

I have a handful of shows left, then I’m left leaving you here, far too far from me. I’ll miss you when I’m gone, and think about you often. I’ll tell my friends all about you and the times we shared. They’ll tell me to shut up and talk about something else, and I will, but secretly I’ll still be thinking of you.

I love you, The Basement,

Love Wil.

Posted by Wil Greenway

Nurturing new treasures in the Basement by Janet McAllister (NZ Herald)

Basement — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:28:12 +0000

I asked my flatmate – usually pretty clued-up for someone who wears roman sandals – how many shows he thought The Basement put on this year. “Uh, 30?” he guessed. Wrong by 300 per cent! By their annual December fundraising show (MegaChristmas in homage to Megaupload), the little-theatre-that-could will have hosted 94 low-cost, experimental shows in their downstairs auditorium and smaller upstairs studio. That’s damn good going for an artistic oasis still stuck in a Greys Ave carpark (it should be a green park by now).

But we ain’t seen nothing yet. Exuberant and irrepressible general manager (and actor) Charlie McDermott estimates that next year, there’ll be 158 shows on offer, including the Comedy Festival slate and three mad weeks of Fringe Festival.

It’s not all about quantity, however. What’s really got McDermott excited is something called “risk sharing”. Thanks to Creative NZ funding, and the Supercity landlord giving The Basement free rent, theatre producers will no longer have to pay up to $300 plus GST per night, whether or not they’ve sold any tickets; instead they’ll pay 20 per cent of every ticket sold.

The benefits of the model – the same as Wellington’s celebrated Bats Theatre – are enormous. No big bills encourages artistic development and experimentation, and hopefully more set designs.

“Up until now it’s only been those who can afford the space who’ve put on work. They are not necessarily the best shows because artists are starving!” says McDermott jokingly.

The Basement’s programme manager (and actor) Sophie Henderson isn’t worried about being inundated by proposals from people wanting to take advantage of the scheme. “I hope to have a billion submissions,” she says. Pro tip for would-be practitioners: the kaupapa is to favour new New Zealand work.

And more than one TV actor has got a wee break at The Basement; apparently the Shortland Street casting director “comes to everything: she’s got a lot of slots to fill,” says venue manager (and actor) Sam Snedden. They’re making it easy for us to follow her: ticket prices will be capped at $25 for downstairs shows, $15 for upstairs.

The Basement, which is also crowdfunding for a more welcoming foyer, has been increasingly upgraded and organised since it started in 2008, after the last incarnation of the space – the Silo – spun off to become Auckland’s second major mainstream professional company. The current lot aren’t in a hurry to move – they see their mission as fostering emerging artists and more established artists wanting to try something new. And in spite of last year’s toilets upgrade and installation of showers for the actors, Snedden declares: “We’re not going legit – I don’t want it out there that we’re legit. We’re street.” Street behind a garage door in a carpark and proud of it.

pledgeme.co.nz/basement

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/arts/news/article.cfm?c_id=544&objectid=10846227

Dear Kim Dotcom

Basement — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 01:51:14 +0000

Dear Kim, Please will you be in our Christmas show? Lots of much loved celebrities are doing it. The show is called MEGACHRISTMAS and the role is SANTA CLAUS. We think you’d be terrific. You don’t need to audition or … Continue reading →

What the heck is RISK SHARE?

Basement — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 04:20:47 +0000

Dear Basement Friends,

We have been talking a lot about risk share recently. How we received funding from CNZ to run The Basement as a risk share for the next two years and how great risk share is and all that.

I guess maybe because we have been talking about it ourselves for so long and working towards it we just kinda assumed that everyone would know what it meant. We now realise that is like totally wrong. Totally our fault. Sorry.

So here it is in black and white so that everyone is on the same page

At the moment the Basement works on a Venue Hire model:

You wanna put a show on you submit an application to us, we pick you, you do your show and at the end of the season you get an invoice for the time you spent in the venue. That invoice is standard, $75 for tech days and $300 for performance days. It doesn’t vary based on what you did at the box office so if you haven’t done that well it can be a major hit to your pocket.

In addition to this the Basement has mostly been staffed by part timers. So you can end up having to do a lot for yourself: marketing your show, doing a budget, trying to scrape together for posters and flyers etc. Basically a lot of stuff that has bugger all to do with making your show great but is really important for getting people along.

From January 2013, unless the world really does end in December like the Mayans reckon, we will be running a Risk Share model:

What this means in a nut shell is that instead of giving you an invoice at the end of the season which you may or may not be able to pay, you pay the Basement 20% + gst of your box office. That’s it. No money up front and no hidden costs.

What’s more the Basement will be setting up deals with people like Phantom Billstickers and Elephant Publicity so that you can get things like posters and publicity on tick, once again to be paid out of your box office at the end of the season. This means that you can pretty much come to our place and do a show even if you have NO MONEY. Like none at all.

The Basement will also have a full time programming manager and a full time onsite technical manager. We will help you out with things like building a budget and a marketing plan so that you can spend more time on making your show awesome. We will hold your hand through the whole process if you need it (not in a creepy way let’s just be mates).

All we need now are your ideas. We want your shows. The door’s open, let’s do it.

Download your Basement Submission Form 2013 here. We will now be taking submissions at any old time.

Fringe Fest. 2013 at The Basement – Submissions due September 10th

Basement — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 03:03:03 +0000

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE BASEMENT THEATRE 2013 FRINGE FESTIVAL.

The Basement is pleased to invite submissions from independent companies and practitioners to be part of The Basement Theatre Fringe Festival Programme (Friday 15 February to Sunday 10 March, 2013)

Got something fringy up your sleeve??

DOWNLOAD THE BASEMENT SUBMISSION FORM

The Basement is planning a curated programme as part of the Auckland Fringe 2011 – and you need to apply to be part of the programme. We are looking for a wide variety of work to be presented at The Basement during the Fringe including spoken word / poetry / film / theatre /dance/ burlesque / music / performance installations / visual arts / genres not invented yet.

The Deadline for Basement proposals is Monday 10th September at 6pm. We will then come back to you by the 20th September to let you know if you have been accepted and to offer you a time slot.

THE VENUE
The Basement is a home for Auckland’s most adventurous emerging artists. We collaborate with an artistic mixtape of theatre makers, dancers, visual artists, poets, musicians, comedians and everyone in between. We are a safe place to be experimental, brave and innovative. We provide an affordable independent venue for hire for local talent and fresh work.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA

- We are calling for fringy works from 45mins to 1hr in length

- We will be programming Friday 15 February – Sunday 10 March, 2013

The Cost

For the 2013 Fringe Festival The Basement will be operating under a Risk Share Model. The Basement will receive a percentage of the gross box office receipts in lieu of venue rental.

For the first time ever The Basement is pleased to announce that we will operate as a risk share model during the 2013 Fringe Festival. We will take a 30% share of box office in lieu of venue rental.

This percentage will cover the following expenses

MAIN THEATRE

- Rostra & seating

- Lighting and Sound equipment

- Technical support for your pack in and out of the venue

- Hire which covers rent, power & water

- Bar staff available for the duration of your show

- Box office staff for the duration of your show

- Your season publicized through entertainment listings and The Basement website

- Your event featured in The Basement’s Mail out to database

- An Operator for your season

- A Stage Manager for your season

- Presence in The Basement Fringe Brochure

STUDIO

- Seating, lighting and sound equipment – some subject to availability

- Hire which covers rent, power & water

- Bar staff available for the duration of your show

- Your season publicized through entertainment listings and The Basement website

- Your event featured in The Basement’s Mail out to database

- An Operator for your season

- A Stage Manager for your season

- Presence in The Basement Fringe Brochure

Things to think about:

The technical requirements of your show – you will most likely only have a matter of a few hours to pack in your show and tech in the venue – there will be NO rehearsal time in the venue so your show needs to be performance ready by the time you get into The Basement.

We will be running several shows each night and you may only have 20 minutes or less to pack your set in and out for each performance.

Storage – with many companies using the space at once we will be very limited for storage space for your set/props etc.
You will need to register for the fringe through The Edge.

www.the-edge.co.nz/Fringe-2013/Fringe13Master/News/Registrations-Open.aspx

KEY AUCKLAND FRINGE DATES:

Artist registrations open: 1 August 2012

Basement submissions due: 10 September 2012 at 6pm

Artist registrations close: 28 September 2012

Auckland Fringe: 15 February – 10 March 2013

Enquiries and submissions to: sophie@basementtheatre.co.nz

Please remember we have limited slots available to offer practitioners and unfortunately will not be able to programme all the submissions we receive. Thank you for your continued support and interest in The Basement.