Circa Six Pack and Circa Friends

NEW FOR 2013!!

Get total access to Circa Theatre with the Circa Six Pack!

See more theatre, on your own terms, for less.

The Circa Six Pack is six tickets (for the price of five!) and can be redeemed however you choose - use it for one ticket each to six different shows. Take a friend to see three different shows. Or take five friends to one show. Valid for a year from purchase, it is total theatre-going flexibility.

Available in the following prices:
Adult (25-64) $230Seniors (65+) and Students $190Under 25s $125

A fantastic gift idea for those theatre enthusiasts on your list!

To purchase, call the Circa Box Office on 801-7992 or stop by in person.

Please note, vouchers must be redeemed in person or over the phone - cannot be used for online bookings.

  Friends of Circa

Become a Friend of Circa

By becoming a Friend of Circa, not only do you receive great discounts to quality theatre, but you also make a huge difference to the ongoing existence of your favourite theatre! Contributions from Circa's Sponsors, Donors and Friends are invaluable to our actors, directors, designers, technicians, stage managers and publicists. It is this support that provides the basis for Circa assisting talented creative New Zealanders to produce high quality theatre experiences.

Each Friends subscription is $50 per annum and entitles you to:

• Two tickets at our Friends special price of $33 (normally $46) for the first two weeks of each production. The membership starts paying for itself after only two shows.
• Regular newsletters, with information on the latest shows, news of what is happening in the theatre, and profiles of some of our best-known actors, directors and other theatre practitioners.
• Special promotions and offers for Encore Restaurant at Circa Theatre.
• Invites to exclusive Friend of Circa events

To become a Friend, please call Circa's Box Office on 801-7992.

Mike and Virginia

Mike and Virginia co-playwright Nick Ward talks to drama on the waterfront about preparing the runway for ideas and the experience of writing with Kathryn Burnett.

Nick Ward.

“Where do you get your ideas from?” That is the question that every writer dreads. Well, this writer dreads it anyway. It’s not because I’m afraid of giving away my trade secret, not at all. I fear this question because I don’t have an answer. Ideas seem to spring out of the ether - it’s the closest thing I know to real magic.

Many years ago I remember hearing a very successful writer speak and he said he never has any ideas, he simply spends all his time preparing a runway for the ideas to land. At the time I thought he was just giving us a glib answer. However in my main years as a proper writer I have come to believe him. You have to ensure that runway lights are on and ground staff are in position - all in the hope that, out of the blue, an idea will arrive. 

You have to be open to ideas. In the case of Mike and Virginia, Kathryn Burnett and I didn’t have clue that there was a story was circling, waiting to touch down. The concept for the play started when we were taking a long car journey. Confined together in a small space with no chance to escape the interior of the car was either going to become an incubator or a bloodbath. With Kath and I it’s always a bit of both but with a healthy amount of laughter thrown in for good measure.   

Kathryn Burnett

On this particular journey we started having a conversation about our students as we were both teaching screenwriting at the time. I was convinced my students worshipped me (how could they not) and Kathryn was equally certain her students adored her (doubtful).  This quickly turned into a hilarious argument and by the end of the journey we both looked at each other and said - there’s a story in this. 

So were born Mike and Virginia, two film studies lecturers who hate each other and then the worse possible thing happens - they fall in love. It’s a romantic comedy about romantic comedies, so it gives us the chance to explore and deconstruct the way romantic comedies work and have a fun time doing it. Honestly we were laughing until we cried some days working on this show. However there’s always a fear that we might be having more fun writing the play than the audience will have watching it. 

We needn’t have worried. On the first read-through of Mike and Virginia we found ourselves surrounded by smiling faces, belly laughs and a few bittersweet tears. Our journey that started with a funny squabble in a car ended with a very happy audience. Ironically on closing night of the play’s first run a young woman approached me and asked me where Kathryn and I get our ideas from. For the first time in my life I had a firm answer to that question. I smiled and replied “We get them from being locked in a car.”  

Mike and Virginia

23 March − 20 April
Tues – Sat 7.30pm and Sun 4.30pm (no show Mon)
Circa Two, 1 Taranaki St, Wellington
BOOKINGS: www.circa.co.nz or 04 801 7992
TICKETS: $46/38/25
$25 preview Fri 22 March and Sun 24 March

Mike and Virginia is a fast-moving romp of a play from two of New Zealand's busiest screenwriters. Kathryn Burnett (The Strip; Amazing Extraordinary Friends; The Cult) and Nick Ward (Stickmen, Second Hand Wedding and Love Birds) who have set out to explore and subvert every romantic comedy convention in the book resulting in a love story that is smart, funny and surprisingly tender.

Starring Will Hall, Gentiane Lupi, Jennifer Martin, Stephen Papps and Perry Piercy 

Talking of Katherine Mansfield: 'I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.'

Catherine Downes shares her favourite Katherine Mansfield quotes, which collectively form the reason she created Talking of Katherine Mansfield.

'To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.'

'Here then, is a little summary of what I need. Power, wealth and freedom.'

'Katherine. How badly, how stupidly you manage your life!'

'When I look back over my life all my mistakes have been because I was afraid.'

'Love and Mushrooms. It takes a dreadful lot of toadstools to make you realise that life is not one long mushroom'

'Our own particular self...The moment of direct feeling when we are most ourselves and least personal'

'Risk! Risk anything! care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.'

'I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.'

'Let me take the case of Katherine Mansfield. She has led, ever since she can remember, a very typically false life. Yet, through it all, there have been moments, instants, gleams, when she has felt the possibility of something quite other.'

Talking of Katherine Mansfield is on in Circa Two until Saturday, 16 March. To book, call the Circa Box Office on 801-7992 or visit www.circa.co.nz.

About grandparenting ... You Can Always Hand Them Back

Director Jane Waddell:

I am not a grandmother myself but just after I started work on You Can Always Hand Them Back I received news that my friends and colleagues Carolyn and Ray Henwood had become grandparents. Carolyn and Ray were instrumental in the founding of Circa Theatre over 35 years ago.  Their son Dai is now well-known as a highly successful comedy performer. It has been Iovely to welcome Charlie Henwood into the Circa family and to be simultaneously working on this delightful entertainment all about grand parenting by Roger Hall and Peter Skellern.

Actress Lynda Milligan:

When Roger asked me to be in You Can Always Hand Them Back I was an experienced grandmother. When I read the script I realised how much my experience mirrored what he had written.  I have 2 grand children living in London and I live, in between my work commitments, with my 2 New Zealand grandchildren in Christchurch. There are other similarities too but perhaps I had better not mention them!

Actor George Henare:

I don’t have grandchildren but I do have lots of great-nieces and nephews, which is sort of the same, especially when it comes to baby sitting. The scenario runs something like this: “I’ll just be half an hour” says the mother.  Six hours later she returns and notices her gorgeous off-spring is sleeping and says it would be a pity to wake them and perhaps it would be good idea to leave them for an overnight stay. To which I immediately reply that it would NOT be a good idea!!!! Always happy to have them but always happy to hand them back.

QUOTES:

My grandkids believe I'm the oldest thing in the world. And after two or three hours with them, I believe it, too. ~Gene Perret

Grandmothers are just ‘antique’ little girls. ~Author Unknown

 A grandmother is a babysitter who watches the kids instead of the television. ~ Author Unknown

Never have children, only grandchildren. ~Gore Vidal

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. ~Pam Brown

Grandchildren don’t stay young forever, which is good because Grandfathers have only so many horsy rides in them. ~Gene Perret

When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window. ~ Ogden Nash

Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just You all day and now the day was complete. ~ Marcy DeMaree

If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren,
I’d have had them first. ~Lois Wyse

If becoming a grandmother was only a matter of choice, I should
advise every one of you straight away to become one. There is
no fun for old people like it! ~Hannah Whithall Smith

Grandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing
Old. ~Mary H. Waldrip  

 An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly. ~Gene Perret 

I don't intentionally spoil my grandkids.  It's just that correcting them often takes more energy than I have left.  ~Gene Perret

The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents.  You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.  ~Dave Barry

Few things are more delightful than grandchildren fighting over your lap.  ~Doug Larson

To a small child, the perfect granddad is unafraid of big dogs and fierce storms but absolutely terrified of the word "boo."  ~Robert Brault, 

Posterity is the patriotic name for grandchildren.  ~Art Linkletter

A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.  ~Lois Wyse

I wish I had the energy that my grandchildren have - if only for self-defence.  ~Gene Perret

You Can Always Hand Them Back is on now in Circa One until 30 March. To book, contact the Circa Box Office on 801-7992 or visit www.circa.co.nz.