16 Nov 2017
Arts On Tour NZ has arranged a potpourri of musicians, singers, actors and comedians to tour rural and smaller centres throughout the country from February to November.
Performers will be at small and large venues from Kaitaia in the north to Invercargill in the south, and sometimes Stewart Island.
Fiddle player Flora Knight and guitar picker Sean Donald will be playing old time country music in February.
In March comedians Raybon Kan and Nick Rado will perform. In the first half of the show there will be separate stand-up slots and second half they will solve problems suggested by the audience.
In April, Olive Copperbottom a new musical by Charles Dickens and, Penny Ashton, brings orphan Olive and a gaggle of squalid Victorian characters to life on stage “…very very good ..very very funny” RNZ National
In May, horn playing duo Hopetoun Brown are joined by trumpet player, Finn Scholes. The trio will bring trumpets, saxophones and keyboard instruments on stage to offer blues, soul, funk, jazz and Americana, complete with foot stamping vocals.
Seed, winner of the 2014 Adam New Zealand Play Award, follows four women as they try to get pregnant, stay pregnant or become unpregnant. Described by the award judges as “hugely entertaining, funny and entertaining”. Seed tours the country in July.
No Holds Bard features Arts Laureate Michael Hurst playing a fictional aging thespian confronting his demons in what he hopes will be a final ’dark night of the soul’. The demons are as crazy as he is, with the result that audiences get to hear a foul-mouthed Macbeth, a confused Hamlet, a know-it-all Othello and a hungry King Lear. In other words, no holds barred, touring in August.
Award winning musician Helen Webby presents the world of the harp – music from Wales, Ireland, Scotland; plus music written by Bach and other baroque composers. Webby has toured several times with AOTNZ and will be performing in September.
October features Adam McGrath and The Roaring Days. Famed as the lead singer and songwriter of the The Eastern, McGrath brings the same intensity, passion and humour to his act when travelling solo.
Finally, in November, husband and wife team Lizzie Tollemache and David Ladderman present two shows inspired by the life and times of Harry Houdini - Seven Deadly Stunts (for adults) and Messy Magic Adventure (for children and families). Expect escapology, chainsaw juggling, walking on broken glass and other famous feats performed together with illuminating storytelling.
For more information, contact:
Diana Moir, AOTNZ media liaison, 021 126 5738, diana@aotnz.co.nz
Steve Thomas, Arts On Tour NZ Trust, 0274 386 154 aotnz@xtra.co.nz www.aotnz.co.nz