Wake up from your holiday daze Tฤmaki Makaurau – itโs officially Summer/Pride season at Basement Theatre!
Fromย 7 Feb – 18 April, 20 shows plus heaps of weekly events of all your favourite regulars will be presented at Basement Theatre.
Basement is fresh from a dip in the moana, ready to serve you a Summer/Pride 2026 rich in expression, authenticity and a lot of newness. Weโre welcomingย new artists, new works, new communities, new ideasand new art forms to Basement Theatre for the Summer/Pride season, and we couldnโt be more hyped.
Thereโs not long to wait – weโll see you and your people down at Basement from 7 Feb for another season of boundary pushing and urgent storytelling this Summer/Pride xx
BASEMENT THEATRE 2026 SUMMER/PRIDE SEASON – 7 FEBRUARY – 18 APRIL
Pride Season – February
Bad Apple presents: Last Harvest, 7 February, Last Harvest is bad apple’s final hoorah. It’s a chance to reap all the remaining fruit before it goes to rot in the realm of online obscurity! With readings, roastings, celebrations and memories, this is your last opportunity to celebrate the life of our LGBTQIA+ journal.
Praise The Lord Play Reading,ย 7 February, Samesame But Different presents the third year of the Praise the Lord playwright residency in collaboration with Auckland Pride and Auckland Theatre Company, inspired by Robert Lord. As the opening event of the residency, we’re excited to host a reading event of a new work by a local queer writer.
Weโre Weird for Other Reasons,ย 10-14 February, A world-first theatre project entirely devised by members of the Ace/Aro/Aspec community. Presented by Ace-ssential Workers and Theatre of Love
Big Queer Improv Party 3, 14 February, Big Queer Improv Party is back for our annual celebration of queer joy, featuring a delightful cast of queer comedy superstars and surprise celebrity guests. Presented by Comedy Culture NZ.
Takapapa – An Indigenous Queer Film Night, 14 February, Woven through the theme of TAKAPAPA โ this indigi-queer film night weaves layers of identity, ancestry, memory, and connection that shape us across cultures, generations, and geographies. Produced by Maraki Productions.
Potluck: A smorgasbord of drag talent!, 17-21 February, A nightly feast of drag where the menu changes every evening. Expect a smorgasbord of talent, mouth-watering looks and sizzling performances. With a rotating lineup each night, no two shows are the same โ come hungry for spectacle, leave with crumbs of queer magic (and maybe a new favourite performer). Presented by Auckland drag king and producer Haute Dish.
404 Faโfa Not Found, 26-28 February, In this new dance work by Wiseman Mataiti and Leilani-Grace Tonu’u, a body runs multiple versions of itself: a butch queen, a liberated body, the body the algorithm rejects.
Summer Season – March-April
Motion Sickness, 3-6 March, Motion Sickness compares the end of the universe with the current political fire-storm of 2026. Using a score of pulsing electronic music, immersive, hypnotic visuals and breakneck-speed new writing, a2 Company is taking over the Beautiful Science Gallery for two nights to guide you through the three leading theories of the end of the world.
Before We Begin (Fundraiser Season), 5-7 March, Taskmaster meets Sex Education… Before We Begin returns for three nights only! After delighting audiences at Pride, the Before We Begin team are thrilled to be coming back to Basement and Tฤmaki Makaurau audiences before making their Australian premiere at Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Hamish Annan.
E Ipo, My Love, 10-14 March, An honest, heartfelt and at times hilarious look at what it is to be a Mฤori and Pฤkehฤ couple in Aotearoa New Zealand. Presented by Humble Cowboy Productions.
Warewaretia, 10-14 March, A one-woman solo show portraying 19 characters and the impact of a grandmotherโs journey with Alzheimerโs on her entire whฤnau. Presented by Wahanui Productions.
Talosaga, 17-21 March, Talosaga is a play about Selina Tasi’s favourite person in the world, her papa. Shared promises, jokes and mocks thread themselves into every moment of their lives. But when promises are broken, and grief settles in for a long stay, Selina finds herself face to face with some hard truths. And they don’t go down well. Especially since it’s her mama that’s dealing them out. Written and directed by Denyce Suโa.
Words in Motion: Moana and Mฤori Poetry with Tagata Atamai, 19-21 March, An evening of Moana and Mฤori poetry through a lineup of powerful performances from local artists of upu. This showcase will be a celebration of Indigenous storytelling and the ancestral wisdom that lives within the words we speak.
House of Ick, 24-28 March, House of Ick is bursting at the seams with outrageous characters, c*nty musical numbers, visceral messy sketches, and the best cringe you could hope for. Ginge & Minge (Nina Hogg & Megan Connolly) serve as your sickening hosts on the road to hot (but disgusting) enlightenment and show you around the wonderful characters that lurk within its shadows.
Two people on a stage set in a kitchen but there’s no cooking and we’re both wearing 1920’s suits (Working Title), 25 March. Presented by Ella Hope-Higginson and Barnie Duncan.
Buck Scourge: Living Nightmare, 26-27 March, Described as โbrain rot but in real lifeโ, Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin delivers their clown show all about play. Fresh from clown school, where they graduated with the illustrious Stupidest Face Award (joke?), this clown from Wellington, New Zealand has curated a show of tried and true stupid scenes. Presented by RUFF AS GUTZ SPECTACLES.
Milli, 7-11 April, A fiercely Mexican, fiercely queer solo that rips into machismo and the way our sacred corn gets stolen, packaged, and sold back to us. A performance that defends culture with the body itself. Presented by Alux Theatre.
Solus, 7-11 April, Two astronauts aboard a space station receive a message from home that a rogue planet is going to collide with Earth in 6 months time. The two are at odds on whether to make the 3-month journey home and live out humanityโs final days with their loved ones, or to remain on the mission and start over anew. Co-written by Arlo Green and Hannah Brown.
I was Born to Speak, 14-18 April, In a country where it feels like Te Reo Mฤori voices are still being silenced, now is the time to SPEAK UP! Join Billy Reynolds McCarthy as he blends spoken word poetry, theatre, and Kapa Haka to shine light on the silence Te Iwi Mฤori have felt for generations.
Selene, 16-18 April, A story about the goddess and the dark side of the moon. A new sibling show to the hugely acclaimed HELIOS, which toured Aotearoa in 2024. SELENE is an intimate theatre experience with a cinematic score and striking storytelling. Told by and made with Megan Drury. Presented by Wright&Grainger with Theatre@41 Monkgate | NZ tour produced by A Mulled Whine Productions.