by Shannon Friday  This year's Summer Shakespeare is confident and clever, tackling a doozy of a script. Comedy of Errors is chockablock full of rhyming couplets and a farcical plot involving not just one but two sets of identical twins. Director Samuel Phillips and his team focus on creating strong comedic set pieces. The actors work super-tightly together, using and transforming Debbie Fish's modular construction-site set to add situational gags and physicalize every moment they can.
by Shannon Friday  Die Hard Rock Cafe Müller starts firmly in the realm of Die Hard, all machine guns and suits. The dancers (Jadyn Burt, Leah Carrell, Tui Hofmann, Tallulah Holly-Massey, and Alana Yee) blast each other with pistols and machine guns, Bruce Willis' weirdly distorted voice melting into Purcell as dancers twist and throw each other, bouncing up with unending energy.
Corey Spence Ah, family reunions. Somebody always drinks far too much wine, somebody always finds something to yell and scream about, and somebody always serves up the latest gossip. Aunty (Johanna Cosgrove) has requested our attendance at her family reunion, where she wants to reminisce and make new memories with us. Aunty enters from the audience stairway like she’s hitting the stage for a Broadway number; enthusiastic and vivacious, she floats through us, embracing and kissing her favourite nieces and nephews, all of us that is! She’s preparing to dive into family tales, churn through yarns and banter with the same avidity as she scoffs a cheeky saveloy or gulps down (with the utmost class of course) her Chasseur.
By Shannon Friday  As a tourist, you don’t have a historical tie to the place you’re visiting. The result is an easy acceptance of simplistic narratives; stories shaped at the level of primary-school patriotic fables. Nuances and sites of contention are erased in favour of a calm reassurance that you can continue to enjoy your visit. And the 100% Pure Tour, the site-specific brainchild of real-life tour guide Bethany Miller, wants to destroy ALL that complacent bullshit.
 We're on the hunt for new reviewers, editors and creatives for Fringe and beyond! If you are keen to contribute to Art Murmurs, please fill out our Google Form. It's pretty easy. There is a writing sample, but don't stress too much. You can write a paragraph about a movie you like and we'll be pretty happy. We've mostly worked in writing, but if you want to do something else, get in touch/upload a sample. https://goo.gl/forms/ooDl0bhacAB5eYcN2 Peace! by Shannon Friday  Two young women sit huddled over a homemade pop-up book. Alex (Alayne Dick) explains to her girlfriend Libby (Hilary Penwarden) that her book covers the history of moose imported to New Zealand in the early 1900s, and there may still be a couple wandering around Fiordland, mysterious and rarely sighted, like a low-key Bigfoot.
Corey Spence A wooden coffin, a decorative skull, and several circular panels with painted cacti. The Dome feels very ‘Day of the Dead’ for Lola’s Grave Mistake, an endearing, sometimes heartbreaking, always entertaining, tale. It’s visually striking from the get go, and my mind flushes with questions about how the space will be used and how it will affect the story. After we settle, on walks Lola (Ian Harman), clad in sleek six-inch heels, a tailored black dinner jacket, and a flurry of teal feathers escaping just above her tush. She’s about to perform her opening number; she’s about to show us her story about how she felt dead while being alive thanks to falling for a big, bad, handsome man.
Deanne Cherie Adam shuffles into a bare bedroom: a single bed, guitar sloppily chucked on the cover facing a blank TV. Weary from his day, there’s a brief guilty tussle over whether or not to turn on the TV; eventually Adam succumbs to the call of the screen and it’s easy oblivion. He switches the screen on and we are faced with a bare black screen. As music begins to play our attention is drawn back to Adam, perched on the edge of his bed and lip-syncing to a high pitched funky pop song like he belonged in the video clip. Laughter erupts from the audience as we’re reminded of our own lip-sync performances in the confines of our bedrooms
By Shannon Friday  So often improv is described as “gutsy”; performers take big risks with content or logic, trusting their teammates in the ensemble to “yes, and…” their crazy idea and run with it. It’s often an absurd delight, and more than a little escapist. Memento moves the centre of that impulse from the gut to the heart, using memories solicited from the audience to create (mostly) tender scenes of reminiscence.
By Shannon Friday Confessions of a Secret Hoarder needs a director. There’s a lot of design going on: creepy-cool puppets; a pretty, shadow-filled lighting design; a charming original piano score with complex vocal harmonies. All the parts are pretty neat, but there’s no overarching concept, target audience (it’s for kids, I think?), or even a coherent plot. The result is a disjointed but very pretty and aesthetically, well, cool show. Deanne Rutherford I entered Gryphon Theatre highly charged for the Wellington version of the long-time running broadway musical Nunsense, directed by Lyndee-Jane Rutherford and musically directed by Michael Nicholas Williams. As an avid musical lover and being familiar with Rutherford's and WIlliams’ previous work, I was expecting to be on the edge of my seat immersed in a musical world that made all other life seem ordinary. Maybe I set the bar too high and should have realised that this would be a very small scale production. Within the first 20 minutes I began to feel torn. On one hand, I appreciated the efforts of such a talented cast; on the other, my anticipation for a change in set or enhancement of the musical support was never satisfied.
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