After The Dance

At some point in mid 2015 I had one of those brilliant cosmic experiences of being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. While walking from town along Ghuznee street, trying to work out where the closest bus stop was to get home. I happened to look the direction of the Gryphon theatre just as I was passing the window. In the window there happened to be an audition notice. I took down the contact information from it and emailed off an inquiry as soon as I got home (the auditions were due to commence two days from my becoming aware of the notice).

Fortunately I was able to book myself into an audition slot and sling together a 1 minute monologue to audition with. The audition process was as painless as performing in front of a judgement panel of 3 complete strangers and having to run scenes with another complete stranger can be (utterly terrifying) but I got through it. The next day I got a call from the director offering me a small speaking role with a handful of lines. I was ecstatic.

My part was to be the handsome young toy boy of a middle aged upper class woman who is actively refusing to acknowledge the fact that she is indeed getting older. It required me to develop a Cockney accent which was a fun challenge to have, and to create a believable young man who is exceptionally working class and somewhat out of his depth amongst the glamorous company he keeps despite his romantic partner keeping him immaculately dressed. To be frank, it was a glorious amount of fun.

Shortly after the casting being announced for this show which I'll refer to from now on by its title "After The Dance" (Terrence Rattigan for anyone unfamiliar) I got a job working mostly early mornings (4am starts) which became a challenge in terms of tiredness levels and having time to sleep but more on that in a later post.

The production run for the show was set for mid-September with my scenes rehearsing twice a week until the weeks before opening night where for obvious reasons the schedule got a little more involved.

For my first foray into theatre since high school and my first ever show in the realm of amateur theatre as an adult, this was a phenomenal play to be a part of.

I had a lot of fun putting together my small part and making noticeable improvements throughout the rehearsal period but I also learned a hell of a lot about acting from the amazingly talented people that were a part of it all and made a few friends along the way.

Our director entered our performance into a Wellington - wide theatre award and we ended up winning in several categories (my scene partner won best actress without even being one of the two female lead roles!) and gaining honourable mention accolades in several others which was nice because the awards were announced a couple of months after we closed so it gave us all a lovely nostalgic feeling to read through the judges comments about the show.

A lot of the people that were involved in the show have had numerous previous involvements with the different theatre troupes in Wellington so when it came to production time, I felt like there'd be a few nights where I'd be the only one to not know anyone in the audience. When it came down to the production run though, I had a few friends come out to see the show and several out of town family members travelled to Wellington to see it (thanks Marshy, Darshy, grandma and grandad) so there were only one or two lonely nights for me.

I have a lot of moments in my life where I can't believe what stupidly good luck I've had to end me up in particular situations and having the opportunity to act in Stagecraft's rendition of After The Dance is one of them. If anyone from the cast or crew of After The Dance happens to be reading this, know that I am grateful to each and every one of you for making this such an amazing first real theatre experience for me, and that I miss all of you and hope you're having fun with whatever shows you've all been involved with since.

I know that as soon as I'm back in Wellington again (writing this post from Vancouver, B.C. right now) I'll be looking out for audition notices and jumping straight back into theatre life. As much fun as Canada is I'm gutted to be missing out on being a part of Stagecraft's production of History Boys, it's going to be an epic show!

My next post here will be about my other theatre engagement in 2015/ early 2016, SUMMER STAR TREK!

Speak Up

Some time early last year a friendly acquaintance offered me a short musical set at a gig she was organising. Lacking in confidence and new material, I hesitated in getting back to her and didn't end up playing. Over the last little while I've seen her brand as a rapper expand monumentally and I imagine it's a matter of a very short period of time before you start to see her name in the mainstream of NZ music. Naturally, I've been kicking myself for a while, although I feel a sense of pride at how well she is doing for herself.

In July of last year, I received a message from a poetry friend asking if I was keen on a paid half hour poetry set as part of an event he was organising. Never one to repeat mistakes several times over I replied "Fuck yeah!" or something to that effect.

The event was called Speak Up, designed to be a new monthly poetry event where poets could open mic their work in a safe and friendly environment. Presumably this was to address the overwhelming numbers that Poetry in Motion (an existing monthly event that hosts open mic's and slams throughout the year in Wellington) was starting to see at their events.

I'd come away from poetry shows with a bit of cash in hand before from winning/ placing in slams but this was the first feature length set I'd been offered and the first pre-arranged paid gig I'd been asked to do. I decided to write mostly new material for it and spent the weeks leading up to the big night wonderfully excited, albeit anxious as all hell.

Closer to the day I had the unexpected honour of several of my family members (mostly out-of-town based) saying that they were coming down especially for it. I'd designed my set material around a theme of "shit that happened to me in high school" with poems grouped across topics questioning origin, morality, drug use, alcoholism and sexuality so I was a little worried about what my grandparents might think of it all.

For all my stressing, I decided ultimately not to censor any of my poems and to just go for it as best I could. There was not a comfortable moment on stage for me but I think that's true of any new experience in the realm of live performance. I had similar feelings about my first season slamming even with making it to regionals that year. Nowadays slamming in front of a room full of people comes with the normal nerves but mostly with a sense of fun and camaraderie between poets.

The gig went well. My family loved it. I loved the experience. The organisers seemed happy with their choice of me as a feature performer. At the moment I'm playing with the idea of re-working some of the material from the set into a full-length poetry show for the Wellington Fringe festival the next time I'm in town for one. When I got off stage and all the thank - you's were said to everyone who came along (who are all of my favourites) I felt really good about it all which is a nice place to be as an artist (a state of being that is so often accompanied by crippling self doubt).

Speak Up didn't end up continuing as a monthly event for whatever reason which is a bit of a shame but I am beyond stoked that I was asked to feature on the night. I am also exceptionally proud of myself for taking up the opportunity without hesitation. It stands as a big "fuck you" to all the times I've been kept from devoting time to the things I enjoy most (writing, performing, playing music, socialising with friends) by mental health issues and crippling self doubt.

More thanks than I have words for to Duncan Hope who organised the event, Tarns Hood, who was also a billed poet on the night and is a very talented performer, Michael Gray who ran the door on the night and is always full of kind words and hugs and anyone/everyone reading this who came along to support me on the night. I love you all and you make my life so much easier for being in it.

My next post here will be about my involvement in local theatre in the later months of 2015.

Home?

After a good couple of months exploring Melbourne (and with a working visa for Canada finally secured) , it felt like the right time to head back over the ditch and buy into the whole "being a real person" thing again for a while.

I spent a few days catching up with people and couch-crashing between my brother and my girlfriend before finding my own flat on the same side of town as I've always lived but a little closer to the city (just can't seem to stray from the eastern suburbs).

After a couple of weeks, a couple of hundred applications and a handful of interviews I managed to secure myself full time work back at the airport but this time working as a barista/ front of house for Mojo, a fairly reputable coffee place. As I write this several months after the fact, I'm still working there and enjoying it for the most part. I don't think anyone can ever really say they love getting up at 3 in the morning for work but outside of the early starts it's all good.

I have an interesting relationship with Wellington these days having both spent more time here than any other one place in my life so far and venturing far from it for extended periods of time over the last few years. Upon arrival I fall in love with the place all over again for about 2 months. I think a lot of people feel similar things about their respective hometowns. It's nice to be back in a familiar place, to get coffee from long-time favourite cafes, drink at preferred bars, participate in communities that don't induce huge amounts of anxiety. This city is definitely home to me and I'd proudly call it my city to anyone.

That said, since my first adventure off to the U.S. as an exchange student (and perhaps even further back than that) I have been very aware that my status here at any given point in time is merely that of a visitor. My time in this city is limited and every time I return it is with the mindset that I will shortly be off exploring again. I'm not sure if I'll ever find a place with the power to capture me permanently but Wellington is my home and the thing about home is it's a wonderful place to return to fleetingly. In order to properly return to a place, however, one must first leave that place for long enough to miss it.

I've been back now since May, and I'll be back until March which at the moment (just after Christmas) feels both too far away and incredibly close. This visit has been a good one, and I am ultimately glad to have had major travel plans delayed. At the same time, the moment I get to touch down on North American soil again cannot come quickly enough.

My next post here will be about one of the coolest performance opportunities I've yet had the pleasure of involving myself with.

Laughing in Australia

My visit to the great city of Melbourne happened to occur at the same time as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and so as well as experiencing the usual quirks the city has to offer, I also got to see some pretty amazing comedians in their element.

The first show I saw was a spontaneous affair. I was sitting at the hostel chatting with a couple of people I'd just met when we decided we'd go out for a drink. The Canadian girl in our group suggested that we get tickets to a show as well and go check out some of the festival so we looked through the schedule and settled upon the London-based Canadian Catherine Ryan.

We got ourselves some food and a couple of drinks in town before heading up to one of the smaller rooms set up within the town hall complex where Catherine's show was hosted. She was vaguely familiar to me having appeared on some English panel shows I've seen but I'd never seen her do stand-up so I was going in mostly blind.

She was hilarious. From telling us about her room-mate (5 year old daughter) to the most accurate Beyonce impression you'll ever see from a white woman, her show came to an end far too soon. I think it ran for an hour but I would have happily watched her for double that.

The second, third and fourth shows I saw were a bit of a marathon affair. Looking for something to do one day I decided to check out the cheap tickets office where they sell off tickets to shows that day at a cheaper price to try and sell as many as possible to shows that haven't managed to sell out.

Arj Barker who I was familiar with through Flight of the Conchords and his various appearances at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival was one of the shows on sale so I got a ticket to his show. I realised while getting my ticket to that show that with the time it was on, I could probably swing getting to a show before and after his performance. I ended up buying a ticket to James Acaster who I'd seen on tv in New Zealand before and who I rate pretty highly as well as one to see the combined show of Guy Montgomery (NZ comedy's 2nd favourite Guy) and Rose Matafeo in an effort to support the kiwis at the festival.

Arj's show was as expected a flawlessly crafted hour of comedy genius culminating in the most shameless sales effort I've ever seen in a show that I paid to see in the first place. To some extent it worked because I did end up buying one of his dvd's, although mostly so I could get him to sign it and say hi to him, which I did!

I went into the Rose and Guy show without really knowing what to expect and was treated to a very New Zealand experience. An audience member got a phone call in the middle of Guy's half of the show and as he tried to call her out on it, she yelled back that it was from his cousin which was both hilarious and probably true. Rose was on form with her unique brand of awkward comedy featuring cringe-worthy stories from her life with a little bit of observational comedy and her famous attack on the creepy coffee club ads. All in all I underpaid heavily for the show these guys put on (I think it cost me 15 bucks).

James Acaster was someone I REALLY wanted to see at this festival so I was stoked to be attending his show. He is the master of awkward white boy humour and was in the best form I've ever seen him in (having seen him do a lot of stand-up via online videos). From talking about his thug-life days in the SW-4 (I think) street gang to his hatred for Lucas, whom he served on a jury with and eventually gained respect for after a series of harsh realisations, his set was all over the place in the most fantastic of ways. I can't decide who was funnier between James and Catherine but it was close.

I really appreciated the non-headline shows because they were in such wonderfully intimate settings and I feel like that's the best way to experience any performer. I'd take pub performances over crowded stadiums any day. Those sorts of shows make it feel like you're just hanging out over a beer with the performer rather than someone who has paid for the privilege of being in the same vicinity as a superstar.

The shows that I went to see in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival were all amazing and I will definitely be back for the festival in the future to see more great comedy.

My next post here will about my return to Wellington.

Melbourne

In Mid-March, I got sick of not travelling and booked a ticket to Melbourne without anything much in the way of a plan. I stored all the stuff I couldn't take with me with family, emptied out everything from the flat as we were all moving out and the landlord wanted everything gone (furniture, dishes etc...). While it wasn't a whole lot of fun leaving Clem, it did feel really good to be getting on a plane bound for somewhere I hadn't yet seen.

I'm not really sure what all to write about my time in Melbourne but I'll brush over a few of the more memorable things and hopefully this post wont be too all over the place to follow.

Accomodation-wise, I booked myelf into a backpackers in central Melbourne before I left and decided if I liked it I'd just stay there the whole time. I ended up working there as a cleaner to pay for my accomodation and becoming a part of the staff culture which was an ecclectic mix of travellers from all walks of life. We had a bar downstairs that had something social going on pretty much every night and I spent a lot my time in my first couple of weeks down there meeting new people only to have them leave a couple of days later. It was a quick walk or free tram ride to pretty much everywhere you'd want to see in the central area from where I was staying so it had that going for it as well.

I spent a bit of time busking in the downtown area and loved that. The streets are wide and the foot traffic heavy which is pretty much a buskers dream. It was a bit more of an intense process getting a busking permit there than in Wellington but I guess that can be expected from a city of 4 million odd people trying to keep everyone in line.

The two most interesting people I came across were an utterly insane Englishman who became one of my best friends in the hostel, and an equally ecclectic guy from small town Victoria who I ended up taking a weekend camping trip round the Grampians with and who showed me some of the most beautiful parts of the state (cheers Ben).

My favourite hang-out spot in town was the ACMI (Australian centre for the moving image) at Federation Square where I spent a lot of time wandering through the free exhibitions and watching random collections of animations and short films from their archives.

I got incredibly sunburnt in the Cricket World Cup fan zone down by the river where I sat and watched with great commitment as New Zealand were embarrassed by Australia in the final along with an English cricket fan named Freddy who was equally distressed at our poor showing against the Aussies and two Scandinavians who probably had very little idea of what was going on.

I drank a lot of terrible beer at various different places across town, went to a poetry night at Ferdydurkes where I was too intimidated to read anything of my own, probably my only regret from the whole trip and was shown some cool bars around the central area which I could never find on purpose again.

I got to catch up with a guy that was hosted a couple of years after me by the same host dad as I was in the states. We went and got lunch and it was nice to chat with him about Fort and reminisce about things back there.

Ultimately, I went to Melbourne to get away from the familiar for a bit and achieved that. I can't wait to go back again some day, hopefully on a more permanent basis rather than a 2 month taster. I think my favourite thing about Melbourne is that it has a very ecclectic artsy feel to it (much like Wellington) but on an absolutely massive scale which appeals to me. I like that there is so much to discover there and that I could never find anything until I wasn't looking for it at which point it would appear seemingly out of thin air. Melbourne is definitely a city for the explorer, and there is so much there to be explored.

My next post here will be about my experiences with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival which co-incided happily with my visit.

Shakey Graves

Upon returning to Wellington after the fun of New Year's I returned to work as a construction labourer, something I was fairly confident I would be able to do full time without having to commit to anything more than a casual contract.

This was important because of my plan to escape to Melbourne in March to satiate my wanderlust briefly whilst waiting for the U.S. government to provide me with a copy of my non-existent criminal record so that my Canadian work visa could be approved...but I digress.

I signed up with a recruitment company who called me up the next day to send me to a site I would end up working on 40-50 hours a week for the next two months. Sorted.

During my time on this job two important things happened, the cricket world cup began with Australia and New Zealand co-hosting and one of my favourite lesser known musicians (though not for long) announced a New Zealand date on his tour.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the incredible alt-bluesy sound of Shakey Graves, get to googling that name. I highly recommend "Dearly Departed", "Late July" and "Roll the Bones" as songs to get you hooked on him. He hails from the famous musical city of Austin, Texas and is the type of artist (in terms of fan-base size) that would normally ignore NZ altogether (I'm looking at you Watsky!) on the logic that a couple of Australian dates covers all that needs to be covered in the South Pacific region of the globe.

When the announcement came through that he'd be stopping off for one New Zealand show at The Tuning Fork (A really cool bar type venue setup next to vector to cater to smaller scale gigs), I did some number crunching and booked my tickets as soon as they became available, electing to head up and back by bus over the working weekend, spending one night in Auckland.

I had a hell of a time booking accomodation because the night of the gig also happened to be the day that Eden Park was hosting a cricket world cup pool match between Australia and New Zealand (the first of two clashes we'd have with them in the cup as it turned out) but eventually managed to find a bed in a backpackers not far from Queen Street for a reasonable price.

On friday I finished up work, jumped a bus up to Auckland and arrived mid-morning saturday. After wandering around for a bit I came across a fan area set up with a big screen and seating for people to come and watch the cricket. Figuring that would be a nice way to kill time before the concert, I dropped my stuff off at my accomodation, stopped by a supermarket for game-watching snacks and water (it was a ridiculously warm day) and settled in a good spot within the grandstand to avoid the heat as much as possible.

The cricket played out pretty spectacularly with both sides dropping wickets like crazy, New Zealand eventually getting the better of our tasman counterparts very narrowly in what should have been a more convincing win given the bowling effort. The game wrapped up with just enough time for me to walk down to The Tuning Fork as doors opened so I got the best of both worlds really.

As expected the gig was fucking phenomenal. There was a New Zealand solo act named Will Wood https://www.facebook.com/WillWoodnz?fref=ts who was very high energy for one man with a guitar and is worth checking out. He played a few original songs and a few covers of classic country/blues type songs whilst rocking around stage in a cowboy hat. After Will's set, Shakey came out with his touring drummer and played a hell of a set. He ripped through all his staples (Roll the Bones, Dearly Departed, Late July) played some impeccable mouth trumpet and even called random fans up to stage throughout the night to help him sing some of his songs.

It was an incredible show and I'm grateful that Shakey decided to make the NZ stop on his tour. I hope he'll be back on NZ soil again soon or that I'll get to see him over in the USA or Canada next year when I'm travelling. Definitely worth the 24 hour return bus trip to get up there to see him and definitely good use of a weekend on my part.

My next post here will be about my Melbourne excursion and things I discovered in that crazy town across the ditch.

Discovering Auckland

In December 2014, I resigned from my much-loved position as a humble donut baker and waved goodbye to the horror of 2am shift starts. This conveniently left me with an entirely open Summer ahead of me and no obligations to anyone through the Christmas and New Year period with the minor inconvenience of having no income.

With Christmas and New Year's Eve well celebrated Clem and I had a day to ourselves in central Auckland before she was booked to fly home after which I'd arranged for another couple of days in the city for the sake of urban explorations in a place I'd not yet spent a lot of time alone in.

We booked ourselves into a backpackers just off the lower part of Queen Street, right in the heart of the city who charged us a fairly reasonable rate for a room to ourselves in such a convenient location.

For those unfamiliar with Auckland City culture, the December/ January summer period is the time of year where the city's population is at its lowest, with most of its workers taking off out of the city to enjoy the sun. This being the case, we had the golden opportunity to explore the city without the hordes of people that usually occupy the space.

A thorough K road excursion was of course, a mandatory item on the agenda after fuelling up at The Strand Arcade Cafe (best coffee I've yet had in Auckland). We wandered from end to ecclectic end stopping in anywhere that took our interest. I searched in vain for a second hand guitar shop I'd stumbled across on an earlier trip eventually realising that the arcade it was in had closed up for the New Year period.

We got brunch and more coffee (well, alright, iced chocolates...) from a place in the St Kevin's Arcade complex which a quick google search tells me is called Alleluya. I highly recommend the food and the iced chocolate there. I had a big breakfast which was phenomenal and everything else I saw going to other tables while we were there looked incredible too.

After brunch we headed back to explore more of Queen Street via the Myers Park walkway which is my favourite part of central Auckland. It's this absolutely stunning park and walkway that starts at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to St Kevins arcade and finishes up by a really cool looking old kindergarten on Queen Street. There's a couple of quirky statues on the way and a kids playground that looks like it could be a post-modern sculpture installation. I make a point of walking through it about 5 times a day whenever I'm anywhere near that part of the city.

We made a stop at Real Groovy (again mandatory Central Auckland culture) and spent a bit of time fossicking through their novelty section and books before succumbing to tired feet and heading back to our accomodation to rest up a bit.

It was nice being able to explore central Auckland with Clem a bit, both to show her my favourite parts of it and to do a bit of discovering together. I started writing a poem about the central city that trip which I ended up finishing a little ways after and performing at one of the Poetry In Motion (Wellington poetry group whose events I perform at quite often) open mics. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to perform it at an Auckland venue and get some footage of it up on youtube. When that happens I'll stick it here for you all to see, I feel that it captures my experience of Auckland pretty perfectly.

The next post here will be about returning to work, the start of the cricket world cup and most importantly seeing Shakey Graves live at The Tuning Fork.