Matchbox is Back And Its Bingeing on Culture!

Matchbox is Back And Its Bingeing on Culture!

Co-presented by Binge Culture & Q Theatre as part of MATCHBOX 2018
YORICK!

Created by Rachel Baker, Joel Baxendale, Oliver Devlin, Melanie Hamilton, Isobel MacKinnon, and Meg Rollandi

Auckland’s trailblazing venue Q Theatre is proud to announce their seventh annual MATCHBOX season that promises to be their biggest yet. In 2018, MATCHBOX is changing gear and stepping up to continue delivering a showcase of five very unique and adventurous works on the leading edge of theatre in New Zealand. Diverse in their storytelling and ideas, these five pieces will offer a fresh and imaginative perspective into New Zealand life.

First up is Yorick! playing in Q Theatre’s Loft from June 12 – 23. Using Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a touchstone, Yorick! is an innovative theatrical event which sees four of New Zealand’s top performers strike out on an optimistic quest to understand mortality. Despite the potentially fearful subject, Yorick! is determined to keep the audience upbeat and the spectacle huge as the collision of music, dance and theatre push the individuals closer to their own mortal truth.

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From the fear of the unknown, the vastness of outer space and those bad jokes you inevitably make at funerals, Yorick! sends our reality into hilarious, moonwalking disarray and leaves us with the only certainty - our end is on its way. With songs.
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Yorick! is created in association with Wellington company Binge Culture who have been nationally recognised as a leading innovator in New Zealand theatre. Binge Culture have created a reputation for imaginative and boundary breaking works that often take place in unconventional spaces outside of the theatre, such as audio tours of supermarkets, five hour improvised break ups and whale beachings in Aotea Square. Playful, satirical and intellectually rigorous, their work is committed to forging new ways of engaging with the audience and giving them real stakes in each performance. The company have been successful internationally with a tour to New York in 2015 and seasons at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they were nominated for the prestigious Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation & Playing with Form.

- THE SCOTSMAN (UK)
“The performances are pure brilliance” - THE PANOPTIC (UK)
for Break Up (We Need To Talk)
“rich, sparkly, deep, intricate...a deliciously twisted vision...delivers psychological electric shocks”- EXEUNT MAGAZINE (UK) for Ancient Shrines & Half Truths

Joel Baxendale (All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever) will direct Isobel MacKinnon (creator of previous MATCHBOX hit My Best Dead Friend) and Rachel Baker(Silo Theatre’s Peter & the Wolf), who will be joined onstage by composer and musician Oliver Devlin to bring an extra dynamic dimension. Taking cues from musical theatre, the story is partially told through a suite of songs bringing death into the light in a whole new way. This is Binge Culture’s first foray into experimenting with the musical theatre form.

Past Matchbox shows have received widespread acclaim for their boundary breaking and evolutionary productions. 2017’s three show line-up included OTHER (Chinese), winner at the 2017 Auckland Theatre Awards for Most Original Production of the Year and Overall Best Production Award. Internationally staged and praised The Effect by playwright Lucy Prebble and national and international hit My Best Dead Friend created by Anya Tate-Manning (Hudson & Halls Live!) and Isobel MacKinnon (Best Director, 2015 NZ Fringe Festival and 2018 Auckland Fringe) also joined the bill.

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