Kia ora Basement friends!
Mānawatia a Matariki! Happy New Year! We hope you are well, refreshed and ready for a stunning new year.
The Basement team have just spent some time away resting and reflecting on the last year and making aspirations for our future selves. This includes making progress behind the scenes with Basement’s new leadership team, and we’re really looking forward to sharing this news with you all soon!
The other topic you might be curious about is our annual Basement Christmas Show.
Last year’s stunning and outrageous season of Jingle Bellethon Telethon by Bea Gladding and Janaye Henry was a huge milestone for Basement Theatre. It marked the first Christmas Show that - rather than being a fundraiser for ourselves - was centred around some core objectives that we’ve been advocating for, including…
Fair pay for artists
Vital Voice artists leading the writing, directing, designing and performing
Open EOI callouts with artists being involved from the beginning right through to the end
And of course, for our supporters to have a damn good laugh-out-loud time
We are so proud to have achieved all of this, but it came at a cost… literally. With prices going up for everything and lower attendance across live events, the producing model of the past isn’t viable. And we are pretty firm in our position that we can no longer expect artists to work for next to nothing so that the venue can benefit. We really believe in the direction we took the Christmas Show last year; it embodied Basement’s values through and through. But it’s going to take a lot of brains coming together to figure out a viable plan for moving forward sustainably.
So after a lot of discussion, we have decided to put the Christmas Show on hiatus for 2024, so that we can ensure a long future for it. This hiatus year will allow us time to build a new model for the Christmas Show, that will honour the legacy of the show and achieve our vision for sustainable art-making in Tāmaki.
We know that for our avid Christmas Show fans this will be disappointing news, but don’t worry, we’ll still be open and we’ll be sharing some other high-spirited shows with everyone during December, and we look forward to sharing with everyone what those silly season ideas are in a few months time!
We want to thank everyone who continues to support Basement so loyally, and who are with us on the ride. Thank you so much for everything you do to help us support artists and make their experiences fair, sustainable and joyous.
Lots of love,
Basement xx
