Southern Lakes Festival of Colour Announces First Shows

Two international theatre shows will be part of the Southern Lakes Festival of Colour in April 2017.
 
The Southern Lakes Festival of Colour is today revealing a sneak peek at the programme for the festival, which takes place from April 4-10 2017.
 
From the United Kingdom comes Every Brilliant Thing and from Ireland, How To Keep An Alien. Both shows come to the Southern Lakes following seasons at Auckland Arts Festival and are part of the festival’s ‘Bringing The World To Wanaka’ programme.

Festival director Philip Tremewan saw the two solo shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015 and says he is delighted to be able to mount them in Wanaka.
 
“They’re both very intimate shows about love. They’re funny, heart-warming and beautiful. I know Festival of Colour audiences will love them.”
 
Every Brilliant Thing comes to New Zealand following three sell-out years at Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a superb 16-week run in New York.
 
The synopsis: You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’ – she finds it hard to be happy. You make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world: 1. Ice Cream, 2. Kung Fu movies, 3. Burning Things, 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose, 5. Construction cranes, 6. Me.
 
Written by celebrated playwright Duncan Macmillan and comedian Jonny Donahoe, the play was inspired by a short fictional story Macmillan wrote about a woman who, as a child, concocted a list of “every brilliant thing” worth living for after her mother had attempted suicide.
 
Edinburgh Fringe award-winning play How To Keep An Alien is Sonya Kelly’s  funny and tender theatrical memoir about falling in love and battling to secure a visa for her Australian partner, Kate.
 
The synopsis: Kelly meets stage manager Kate while working together on a play at an Irish castle and their “fling becomes a thing”. This madcap odyssey from the stony towns of Ireland to the Queensland bush tells Sonya and Kate’s story as they take on “the visa people”, scale mountains of paperwork, and travel the long and winding road of bureaucracy to prove their love.
 
Tremewan says at least two more international offerings wll be “bringing the world to Wanaka” for the Festival and the full programme will be revealed on Thursday 9 February.
 
Priority tickets to shows in the Southern Lakes Festival of Colour will be on sale from 7pm on Thursday 9 February and general public ticket sales will begin on Friday 17 February.


Feature image credit SWPR