Auckland Fringe is back to play at Basement Theatre this September! Vibrant and fearless independent makers present theatre, cabaret, post-human theatre, comedy, live music, clowning and dance in nine shows over three weeks.
You don’t have to be from here to make an Auckland work, we reckon. Our city of lava flows, and lively pockets of community invite rich and complex lenses from all. Anyone making art here in our current reality of funding cuts, a new government, and constant disruption in our city centre is an act of resistance and resilience. ARTISTS MAKE TĀMAKI - don’t forget it! To honour this call, Akl Fringe has named Basement as the Taha Puāwai of the festival. We’ll be the place where artists across the motu converge to celebrate their unique identities and let their crafts and styles can bloom.
Celebrate our city from 3-21 September with artists that will ground us radically into the whenua, and bring us the exploratory, risk-taking, calling out modern-day bullshit, existential chaos, and thought-provoking works that we can’t get enough of.
WEEK ONE
Eat, Sleep, Dance, Repeat, 3-7 September, be transported to 2017… the final year of Stage Challenge to try and understand what all went horribly wrong. Watch as Rachel Brebner alone tells, acts and dances the sordid tale of blood, sweat and confetti.
ASRA, 3-7 September, Using puppetry and audience participation, this documentary theatre production explores the experiences of Palestinian prisoners and the importance of thaqafah (ثقافة) or culture, such as literature, poetry, and songs, as practices of resistance and liberation.
Delightfool, 3-7 September, Jak Darling and Booth the Clown are here to provide a top-notch cabaret full of queer delight!
WEEK TWO
R&D At The End Of The World: Part One, 11-14 September, a scale model house sitting under the constant deluge of a rain machine will slowly be transformed over 4 evenings by the cast; Time, Earth, and Water.
Nicola Brown: Space Invaders, 12-14 September, join Dunedin comedian Nicola Brown in this award-winning solo comedy show as she navigates medical mayhem, swerving out of declarations of love from fish-wielding men online (who’ve failed to notice how gay she is), and grappling with the extraterrestrial chaos brought about merely by being a woman in 2024.
The Ballad Of The Duct Tape Cowboy and Six Shot Cinderella, 12-14 September, a story of obsession and wrath, sunsets and showdowns, told through the live musical stylings of the inimitable Laika Loveheart.
WEEK THREE
PURE GRIME, 17-21 September, award-winning performer Em Barrett immerses you in her strange and twisted dark comedy; all from the perspective of a fly.
We, The Outsiders, 17-21 September, an original documentary theatre piece created with real-life stories of migrant workers living in New Zealand.
PROWL, 17-21 September, Prowl Productions presents a new dance work by director Hayley Tekahika. He is feminine seduction. She is feminine rage. They are feminine sisterhood. The complexities of femininity.
