The Liberal Agenda – Basement Theatre Auckland

Nau mai, haere mai ki te pānui o Basement Theatre – pānuitia mō ngā whakaari hou koutou!

This wiki is chocka! We’ve got something for everyone! Mind-bending Chrome, Dome & Schizo returns after a sell-out season, and tensions are high with cut-throat competition in Eat, Sleep, Dance, Repeat.

Catch Fitting in at Myers Park: A Site-specific Trail on Saturday for an exploratory dance series.

And get all your comedy fix with Live Reel: SpaceFight LaserDaddy, The Asian Comedy Takeover and Bull Rush! Grab your mates and get amongst it! 💥

Mā te wā,
Basement Theatre x

Bad news. Shit receptionist. Sexual tension.

Doctor with a moose knuckle. Patient with matted hair.

Late nights. Phone calls. True story.

Sort of…

Chrome Dome and Schizo returns!  

After a sell-out season in 2022, the cast of the original production come together again to bring you a story of real love between an unreal couple, living with psychosis but make it sexy (or at least bearable), and trying our hardest not to die alone. Difficult when your partner turns out not to be real.

Chrome Dome and Schizo is a fusion of poetry and memory play. A recollection and preservation of a 4 month long love story…with a ghost. A gay love story! A break up in the most dramatic way possible. And a way to recover. Through psychosis, through heartache, and in the arms of people who stick around in unreal times.

Don’t miss out on this exciting redevelopment season!

This March, prepare for intergalactic mayhem as six of Auckland’s funniest improv sweeties attempt to perform Star Wars: The Force Awakens from memory, in its entirety, in 60(ish) minutes.

Expect pew-pew shoot-outs, daddy issues on a galactic scale, at least one person attempting a brooding Adam Driver impression, and a droid carrying the entire plot —if only we can remember it… This is SpaceFight LaserDaddy.

Featuring Fang Fang, last seen smashing up RAW comedy quest 2024, and quiet but stealthy underdog Wanaka Yamasaki, plus Ankita Singh, writer and creator of Auckland Theatre Company’s Basmati B*tch and winner of the NZTA Best Comedy 2024 (Give Me Babies).

Hosted by Jess Karamjeet, with more acts to be announced!

PACSA (Laughs) aka the Pan-Asian Comedy School Aotearoa, trains Pan-Asian creatives in the art of stand-up comedy.

With a roster of Tāmaki Makaurau’s best and brightest performers, expect spit-take- worthy gags, epic stories, heartbreaking tales, and live improvised music at Bull Rush.

So gather your mates for a night of never before seen, totally made up, improvised comedy every Rāmere Friday.

Mess with the bull, feel the rush.

Since 2020, Bull Rush have been making it up as they go. With several seasons (Jingle Bull(Rush), Ghoul Rush, 1822) under their belt, these self-professed improv nerds know how to put on a bloody good show.

Winners of Best Improv Group at the 2024 NZ Comedy Guild Awards, among other accolades (not to brag).

A performance art and contemporary dance series about how anything goes at Myers Park, celebrating the unexpected!

Ever feel like life is one big performance art piece?

This site-specific performance is a playful, exploratory, and improvised dance trail from Myers Park to the heart of the city. It’s an exploration of where artists and nature intersect, where green spaces meet concrete, leading to the stunning sculpture Waimahara by Graham Tipene, and ending at the car park of Basement Theatre.

Enjoy this pre-show site activation with contemporary dancers and artists.

Created with the artists involved!

What if The Bard wasn’t just reusing a character name, but was instead inspired by one hopelessly romantic pirate looking for love in all the wrong places? Antonio! reimagines all of Shakespeare’s Antonios as one proudly queer pirate stealing hearts and booty on the high seas – that is, when he’s not in London, regaling his playwright lover William Shakespeare with tales of love and adventure.

Fed up with Will taking his stories but erasing their gay content, Antonio takes the stage with his band The Fools for Love to take the audience on a journey through the love stories that inspired The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and The Tempest.

Described as a “very active person with a very busy brain” by his psychiatrist and nominated for Outstanding Solo Performance at the New Zealand Fringe Festival, Sam is certified to make you laugh, cringe, cry, and feel strong feelings about words that actual humans have said with their mouths. Your mum loves him, your dad thinks he’s a bit much, you’re gonna think he’s just right. Get tickets now so you don’t have to tell your grandkids you missed this.

Get ready for a comedy experience that’s as unpredictable and funny as a clown on a unicycle—because when Janaye and Sean are in charge, it’s always a spectacle!

As their children get older, life gets more complicated and begins to test their relationship with each other and the people they love. For Joy, the struggle to show up for the sisterhood while trying to navigate her own life becomes unbearable.

Sela Faletolu-Fasi wrote ‘Love; Mum’ in 2023, from a goodbye letter she wrote to her 6 children. She knew they would never thank her for that letter, so she decided to write a play as a way of sharing her story, expressing hope and to let her children know they are the reason for everything. All five characters in ‘Love; Mum’ are a representation of her and the struggles she has faced in life and as a Mum.

This is a funny and yet heartbreaking story about motherhood, about women, and ultimately about the power of love and forgiveness to overcome it all.