Yvette Parsons has written a new comedy with Tom Sainsbury. It’s pitch black, and characters and occurrences in the play are based on the kind of newspaper accounts of child and elder abuse none of us want to read. Perhaps some nasty truths behind this piece? 

When life hands Janeece Gunton lemons, she makes lemonade – and force feeds it to her diabetic hubby, Lloyd.

Janeece is the go-getting matriarch of the Gunton clan; wife, mum and gran to them all – her only respite is a good twelve to fourteen hours on the pokies at Sky City – and she’s bloody had a gutsful.  So she’s dealing dope, turning tricks and benefit-frauding her way to some quality me time on The Pride Of Free Enterprise – a floating casino cruise on the Mediterranean. All she needs is a wallet full of cash to get started on the tables. And to get shot of her dying hubby, leeching daughter and a pesky fraud investigator… 

Inspired by people-watching at Sky City, and not least by newspaper horror stories of gambling addictions, and family neglect, Yvette Parsons and Thomas Sainsbury bring you the dark comic tale of Janeece Gunton.

Luck be a lady tonight…

Yvette Parsons, nominated Best Actress and Most Outstanding Performance, Chapman Tripp Theatre awards, 2012, for her solo show Silent Night, and Thomas Sainsbury (Joseph & Mahina, Super City I & II, Terror Planet) are back – fresh from creating the hit gothic horror comedy Dolly Mixture, with a pitch black comedy to rule them all.

Starring Yvette Parsons, Thomas Sainsbury, Bryony Skillington, Andrew Ford and Roberto Nascimento.  

Contains offensive language, violence and sex scenes.

Basement Theatre
Tues 18^th June – Sat 29^th June at 8pm 
Tickets $25
www.iticket.co.nz

BIOS

YVETTE PARSONS

Yvette has enjoyed a long creative association with Thomas Sainsbury not least of which when he worked as dramaturg for her  ‘tour de force’ solo show ‘SILENT NIGHT’, touring New Zealand to critical acclaim, and for which she was nominated Best Actress and Most Outstanding Performance in the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards 2012.

Her theatre credits include Dolly Mixture (Basement), Mega Christmas (Basement), Dance Troupe Supreme (Musgrove Studio), Dan Is Dead/I Am A Yeti ( NZ International Comedy Festival 2011,The Basement and BATS), Entertaining Mr Sloane (Circa), GAS (BATS), The House of Bernarda Alba (TAPAC), and Stephen Sinclair’s Intimacies: Sweet Thing at The Victoria Theatre, Devonport.  

Yvette’s latest writing collaboration with Thomas Sainsbury, the horror comedy Dolly Mixture, received rave reviews in the Auckland Fringe Festival March 2013, and is booked for a season at BATS in October.

Yvette appears in Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s feature film In The Shadows, a horror comedy which is due for release late 2013.  Television work includes Super City, The Jono Project, Shortland Street, Outrageous Fortune and The Wilson Dixon Show.

Yvette has trained variously with John Bolton, Ben Crowder, Theatre At Large, Raymond Hawthorne and at The Comedy Store, London and The City Literary Institute, London.

THOMAS SAINSBURY

Thomas Sainsbury is one of New Zealand’s most prolific and popular playwrights, gaining considerable attention and praise in the past few years for productions of his dark comedies in New Zealand, USA, Australia, Greece, France and the UK. His plays include Sunday Roast, LUV, The Mall, Loser, BeastandThe Christmas Monologues. The Mall, Loser and The ChristmasMonologueshave beenpublished by The Play Press. The second season of Thomas’s TV show, the observational comedy, SUPER CITY, will air later this year. 

BRYONY SKILLINGTON

Bryony Skillington graduated from Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School in 2007. 

She has performed at BATS Theatre in her one woman cabaret Get Cuffed, and has appeared in Christ Almighty (BATS), Toys (BATS), Idiots: Back To School (BATS), as well as the political satire sketch show Public Service Announcement playing Tariana Turia, Rodney Hyde and Annette King and various roles in The Laramie Project: Ten years On (BATS).

She has also performed in 6 Kidzstuff theatre company productions including Badjelly in Badjelly The Witch as well as directing The Hare And The Tortoise.

She enjoys singing, recently with The Cab Savs having hosted the Chapman Tripp Wellington Theatre awards, leading lady ‘Martha’ in the world premiere of Lonely Heart the musical at BATS Theatre and ‘Hilda’ in the world premier of West End Girls at Circa.

Television credits include Nurse Penny Segar in Shortland Street, 26 episodes as ‘Kelly’ in the children’s sitcom Emu TV2/UK TV, ‘Tigerlily’ in season 2 of Paradise Cafe TV2/UKTV and a murder Victim in TV One’s The Investigator.

Having recently moved to Auckland she is excited to be playing Janeece’s daughter, Shontay, in Janeece Gunton: Herstory. 

ANDREW FORD

Andrew graduated from the Unitec School of Performing and Screen Arts in 2007. As one of the founding members of the Outfit Theatre Company, he has appeared in several of the company’s productions, including: Treasure Island, King Arthur, Boys’ Life, The Office Xmas Party,

Course Related Courses, A Criminal Christmas, Alice, The Sex Show and An Awkward Family Christmas.

Other theatre credits include: Design for Living and the NextStage development season of Le Sud for Auckland Theatre Company, The History Boys for Peach Theatre Company, Auckland and Wellington seasons of The Idea of America and These Are The Skeletons of Us, Some Explicit Polaroids for Rebels & Robots Productions, Nic Sampson’s Idiots 3D, The Complete History of Cinema (Abridged) and The Complete History of Christchurch (Abridged) for the Christchurch SummerTimes Festival (both directed by Mark Hadlow) and just recently, Shop ‘Til You Drop for Centrepoint Theatre

ROBERTO NASCIMENTO

Roberto is an actor and producer based in Auckland, who has been calling NZ home for the past 10 years. Recent theatre credits: The Somnambulist as well as Chub – by Thomas Sainsbury; Terror Island (2012); Terror Planet (2013) – dance shows devised by Tom Sainsbury and Lara Fischel-Chisholm; Play Me Deadly!  – by Louis Mendiola; all at The Basement Theatre. He also produced a new webseries called The Adventures of Suzy Boon which will be released later this year; and next will be Cat And Mouse written by Tom Sainsbury, also at The Basement Theatre in July this year.