Barbarians throw open Opera for Cuba Dupa Grand Opening

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BARBARIAN PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS:

GRAND OPENING
DIRECTED BY: JO RANDERSON
PRODUCED BY: GINA MOSS
DATES: 28th & 29th March 2015
VENUE: WELLINGTON OPERA HOUSE

Barbarians throw open Opera House doors for Cuba Dupa Grand Opening

Who or what will be onstage when the curtain goes up?

Thomas LaHood and Jo Randerson of Barbarian Productions. Photo Owen McCarthy 2015

Cuba Dupa festival is launching into being on the 28th and 29th of March and Barbarian is joining the celebrations by premiering a new work called Grand Opening, in a very exciting historical venue: the Wellington Opera House!

The Barbarians have been given the keys to one of Wellington’s most iconic performance venues - the Opera House - and as you’d expect, they’re turning the place upside down, throwing open the doors and letting everyone in. So come and join them!

Grand Opening is Barbarian’s contribution to the inaugural Cuba Dupa Festival, and while some secrecy needs to be maintained about the performance it will be characteristically bold and comical, involving a host of collaborators - some old friends, some brand new. Artists, community groups, eccentrics, outsiders, maybe even some celebrities. They’re taking the opportunity to give the Opera House an invigorating blast of fresh, progressive, FREE theatre, in an event that showcases the grandeur of the Opera House architecture.

“We’ve been dreaming about an opportunity like this for a long time: A chance to combine our passion for accessible, celebratory community events with our love of grand-scale theatricality,” says Barbarian’s dramaturge Thomas LaHood.

“The show is a massive logistical challenge. We’ve kept it short – only half an hour long – so people can keep enjoying the Cuba Dupa party. We want to provide our audiences with a wild ride!” says artistic director Jo Randerson. “We are biting our fingernails a bit – we’ve never quite done anything like it before. We can’t wait for people to see it!”

Barbarian has been dedicated to making waves with cult audiences at home and abroad since 2001. Since then it has grown into a progressive theatre powerhouse that collaborates with both international artists and local community groups to make complex, challenging works.

Last year Barbarian premiered four new works: a street kiosk for a company of Grim Reapers seeking help to change their image (Help Us Change), an intergenerational dialogue in song performed by choirs from age 6 to 80 (Sing It To My Face), a pop-up political hairdressing salon (Political Cuts) and an epic physical comedy about socio-economic privilege (White Elephant).

Now Barbarian is upping the stakes with Grand Opening, their most ambitious project to date. Dozens of artists and community collaborators are joining the company to fill the Opera House with exciting voices from all over Wellington. Over the next month Barbarian will reveal more information about our incredibly diverse collaborators.

So when you’re out celebrating Cuba Dupa style, come by the Opera House and see what’s lurking behind the curtain at Grand Opening.

ENDS

http://www.barbarian.co.nz

© Scoop Media