Award-Winning Theatre Company Back With Electric New Season

Posted: Tuesday Apr 02, 2019

“Arcade Theatre Company.. is proof that provocative, energetic theatre can still be offered in Dunedin” - THEATREVIEW

An absurd farce, a kiwi drama and a dystopian rom-com are on the menu for award-winning Dunedin theatre company Arcade’s 2019 season. Watch the 2019 season launch video here.

“The company is entering its second year and our aim is to improve on the high standards we set for ourselves last year. The season we present is eclectic and electric, while also maintaining our commitment to emerging artists”, says Artistic Director Alex Wilson.

2018 was a highly successful first year for Arcade, during which the company staged three New Zealand and one international work, garnered critical acclaim and earned ‘Company of the Year’ and ‘Director of the Year’ at the 2018 Dunedin Theatre Awards.

Arcade kick-started the 2019 season with HarleQueen, a new solo show by Dunedin playwright and comedian Abby Howells, directed by Anya Tate-Manning and performed as a part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival and New Zealand Fringe Festival. Howells show won Best Comedy at the Dunedin Fringe Festival and the Adelaide touring Award at the NZ Fringe Festival, meaning that this Dunedin story will travel to Australia in 2020.

Arcade will continue into 2019 with a season of three additional plays. After Arcade experienced sell out runs of it’s 2018 shows, the company is extending each show’s run to eight performances. “We are confident that our 2019 main stage season will give our audience an experience!” adds Wilson.

The second show of 2019 is The Bald Soprano by avant-garde, Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco. Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano is an anti-play, an assault upon convention and a celebration of chaos as two couples meet for dinner. An infamous farce that breaks all the rules, The Bald Soprano promises to be an outrageous theatrical offering. The Bald Soprano, directed by Wilson, will run from the 24th of May to the 1st of June.

Contemporary New Zealand drama Me and My Sister Tell Each Other Everything by Wellington playwright Uther Dean will be Arcade’s third show of 2019, running from the 26th of July to the 3rd of August, directed by Heidi Geissler. Dean’s play has had successful seasons in both Wellington and Auckland and explores relationships between sisters, covering topics from Tinder, mismatched socks, depression, a childhood dollhouse, and Mary Poppins.

Lastly, Arcade will close it’s 2019 season with dystopian rom-com Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons by English playwright Sam Steiner, running 15 - 23 November. This break out hit from the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival is set in a near-future where governments have imposed word limits on the population. Arcade is proud to restage this show that asks us to contemplate, in a world where there is a multitude of ways we can communicate, which words are the ones that mean the most.

In addition to Arcade’s 2019 programme, the company will continue to host the storytelling event Light to Light, where a curated line-up of speakers are invited to share stories around a theme. Two simple rules apply: there can be no notes and the stories must be true. Light to Light will still be curated and presented by Abby Howells and hosted at the University Bookshop and will also be distributed as a podcast available for free download. 2018’s four editions of Light to Light were noted as being sometimes hilarious, sometimes emotional and always poignant and real.