August 21, 2013

Theatre Month

Dean Parker       posted 16 Aug 2013, 08:27 AM

Today, August 16, is our National Poetry Day. According to the on-line entry I’ve just checked, National Poetry Day “has celebrated NZ poetry and poets since 1998”.

Earlier in the year, in March, we had New Zealand Book Month, “an annual campaign to raise the profile of reading nationwide” which “this year funded 183 events featuring 178 authors.”

And in May there was New Zealand Music Month, “firmly entrenched as part of our cultural landscape” and which “over the course of the last decade… has gone from a period of encouraging radio to play more local tunes to a 31-day celebration of homegrown talent across the length and breadth of the country.”

I’m sure you can see where all this is heading.

Over the last few years I’ve raised the issue of a New Zealand Theatre Month and clearly there is some impediment but I’m buggered if I can see what it is. Possibly it’s just that everyone’s under the hammers and no one has the time for novelties and Creative New Zealand is hardly likely to come in behind if there’s nothing out front with which to come in behind.

But it’s more than a novelty, it’s a simple and gainful proposition: one month of the year to be designated New Zealand Theatre Month and for its duration all theatres programme and perform local plays and local playwrights are promoted, the aim being to draw attention to how much good theatre is written in New Zealand and to attract a new and wider audience to it.

Actually I reckon the big municipal theatres — ATC, Circa, The Court — could, as a commercial marketing move, simply select a month next year and together declare it a de facto New Zealand Theatre Month, thereby establishing the event by fiat. Dead easy.

nik smythe          posted 19 Aug 2013, 04:34 PM

Hear hear!  Motion seconded.

John Smythe      posted 20 Aug 2013, 12:12 AM

Do we put this to the vote or pass it by acclamation? Resounding applause from me …

Michael Smythe                posted 21 Aug 2013, 05:10 PM

standing ovation from me so the Smythes are unanimous – how about the rest of you?