October 3, 2024

Hannah Playhouse new Manager appointed

Following the announcement of the departure of Isobel MacKinnon for pastures overseas, Wellington City Council is delighted to announce Eleanor Strathern as the new General Manager of the iconic Hannah Playhouse.

Strathern is a Pōneke-proud and prolific producer, with experience across venues, festivals, and freelance theatre and comedy. She has produced more than 60 productions with her independent company A Mulled Whine, also working as a producer for the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts and experimental theatre collective Binge Culture.

Her mahi has supported hundreds of Aotearoa artists to premiere new work, find their audiences, and tour to new horizons.

The Hannah Playhouse is an affordable theatre space for the development of the professional performing arts sector in the city. It’s a specialist performance space, a ‘theatre laboratory’ to help artists develop, as well as showcase, great work.

As General Manager of the Hannah Playhouse, Strathern is excited to support artists to go bolder or bigger, try out new things, and think long-term. Her creative production, audience development, and venue expertise will be   vital resources to resident artists and the evolution of the Hannah Playhouse from an iconic venue to that of an iconic venue and creative incubator.

She joins the team in October, after recently returning from Edinburgh and delivering a highly engaging interactive production at the Hannah with Binge Culture.

“We are excited by the skills and passion Eleanor will bring to the Hannah Playhouse as a home for development. The Hannah is a key infrastructural investment for this city’s diverse performing arts. It has already proved its worth with around 900 practitioners working in the space and developing numerous new works that have gone on to entertain audiences both nationally and internationally since we took on the operations of the theatre” says Council’s City Events Manager Stephen Blackburn.

Background

Award-winning works Strathern has produced include the 2022 revival production of Skin Tight (dir. Katherine McRae); The Artist and The King of Taking by Thom Monckton; long-running show A Traveller’s Guide to Turkish Dogs; and Hugo Grrrl’s Princess Boy Wonder. Eleanor is the recipient of two Wellington Theatre Awards (Theatre Angel, 2020; Most Promising Newcomer, 2018) and Most Promising Emerging Artist, NZ Fringe 2018.