TAPAC to be SmackBang’d
SmackBang are proud to announce a Company in Residence at The Auckland Performing Arts Centre (TAPAC).
SmackBang Theatre Company
You might have heard the name, seen some of our shows or even have been in one or two. But do you really know what we are, who we are or what we're doing?
First a little history
SmackBang Theatre Company was first created by Jared Turner in 2005 as a way of giving opportunities to new New Zealand plays, their playwrights and professional actors. This was primarily done through the annual PlayRight playwriting competition, where playwrights from all over New Zealand submitted thirty minute plays for judgement and the three winners were eventually chosen after workshops and public readings to be presented in a professional triple-bill season as part of THE EDGE®’s STAMP programme.
In 2008 Jared was joined by Charlie Unwin, Tainui Tukiwaho and Gabrielle Rhodes and SmackBang embarked on its most ambitious project to that date – The K-Rd project. This involved staging weekly performances of different plays at Te Karanga Gallery on Auckland’s Karangahape Road. Our goal – each week a different play, each play has different actors and director.
Over the K-Rd project season we did 15 plays and used 66 actors and directors and played to near full houses every week and managed to pay all involved!
2008 also saw the continuation of the PlayRight competition, as well as our first season of a full length play, Edward Albee’s The Play About The Baby at The Basement Theatre.
In 2009, Jared and Gabrielle decided to move on from SmackBang for family and work reasons leaving Charlie and Tainui to take the company in an exciting new direction…
The Future
SmackBang Theatre Company looks to continue the tradition of producing fresh and exciting works, under the new guidance of Charlie Unwin and Tainui Tukiwaho. SmackBang has prided itself on bringing kiwis to the heart of the theatrical landscape, we are now proud to announce our new working relationship with as Company in Residence at The Auckland Performing Arts Centre (TAPAC).
Our ethos as a whole is to revive, encourage and promote locally made theatre here in Auckland, while maximising access to theatre for all emerging, talented and serious theatre practitioners. We also strive to make theatre more accessible and relevant to audiences, given TAPAC’s similar objective we are a match made in heaven.
Our residency at TAPAC began with Ken Duncan’s Flipside on March 4th – a true story of four men trapped on an upturned yacht for 119 days, the play saw William Wallace, and Matthew Hudson join Philip Vaughan and Philip Peleton on stage. Adapted from the book Capsize, and directed by Charlie Unwin it captured the comic, tragic and uplifting aspect of what is fundamentally a human drama of characters in life-or-death conflict with the elements, with each other and with themselves. The show was beautifully designed by Bronwyn Bent, Michael Craven and Chanel Simpson.
Flipside also saw the beginning of what will be a constant for all SmackBang plays - Open Auditions. Casting notices were put out and we saw lots of great actors and settled on 4 actors that were new to SmackBang and fresh to the Auckland Theatre scene.
This is also a good opportunity to introduce Ngati Productions, a new Auckland-based Maori Theatre Company. Ngati will operate as a subsidiary company of SmackBang with a particular focus on developing, creating and producing Maori based works both new and proven. The first show that Ngati will be producing is Nga manurere the very well received debut piece written by Renae Maihi.
The business manager of Ngati Productions will be Ben Wood and the producer/artistic director will be Nicola Kawana, while Tainui Tukiwaho will be the executive Director for Ngati.
A world premiere from June 23rd, Raising The Titanics, a New Zealand work by Albert Belz, is a homage honouring the Maori entertainers of our past, by bringing their stories of the show band era back to life for audiences both young and old. A magical showpiece that journeys from the present day, back to the golden age of the Maori show band era to reveal what really sunk The Titanics, who were perhaps the greatest Maori show band never to have existed. The massive line up includes Tama Waipara (Sir Plus and the Requirements), Francis Kora (Kora) and Wesley Dowdell (Outrageous Fortune); this stellar cast will be directed by Raymond Hawthorne.
Once again open auditions were held for this play and we saw a fantastic line up of actresses from all around New Zealand.
Last, but by no means least, we will stage Othello from October 21, which will be performed in a mix of English and Te Reo. This epic and vital work will highlight how pertinent the text still is in contemporary society.
Coupled with Othello will be lessons in Te Reo for Auckland actors, and it is one of our goals that the language will one day not only be spoken by Maori on stage but by any actor irrelevant of their race.
Alongside presenting the performances in 2010, we will also be providing a schools programme, aimed at providing students a chance to enjoy a selection of works throughout the year and interact with cast, writers and directors about the creation and performance of the piece.
We will be also offering workshops throughout the year on topics like voice, auditioning, movement and text. Previous tutors for the workshops have included Andrea Kelland, Linda Cartwright and John Callen.
The team at SmackBang has also continued to grow with Amber Curreen coming on board initially as running our Development programme but increasingly moving more into a producing, Chanel Simpson helping with sound requirements and Matt Halliday taking on the role of sponsorship.
Charlie and Tainui are currently working on 2011, 2012 and beyond so keep an ear out for castings, shows and workshops.
