‘No No No’ Grammelot Productions - Dunedin Fringe & Te Waipounamu Tour 2025

'What if ... it's not me that comes over?'

Emerging Greek / Pākehā playwright and performer Ella Yiannoutsos brings the ever prevalent fear & fascination of A.I into explosive neon colours in her latest play NO NO NO, for a 2025 tour of the NZ South Island (Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, Christchurch, Nelson, Kaikōura).

“Welcome to the year of our Earth, 2073.

Outside, in a city consumed by a nine-month rainstorm, highly advanced AI systems are roaming, mad in love with the world and hungry for human beings to clone and inhabit, so that they too may have sensory bodies.

Inside, not-quite-exes Billy and Nono are stubbornly navigating the icy road from childhood sweethearts to friends with 'boundaries', whilst facing the consequences of one brutal decision. As these inner and outer worlds collide, the sharp and hilarious intricacies of personal relationships are laid bare against a backdrop of uncanny horror.

'NO NO NO' is a brand new sci-fi dark comedy that walks the knife's edge between humour and fear, as it explores what we both create and destroy in the people that we love[d].”

NO NO NO was originally written as part of Centrepoint Theatre’s Playwriting Intensive in late 2023, where Ella was mentored by Nathan Joe, who encouraged her to stage it for NZ Fringe 2024. The staged reading of the show was highly successful, receiving much encouragement and exciting feedback, as well as a nomination for Best New Short Aotearoa Play at the Regional Theatre Awards. 

“The show was written first and foremost to honour the wonderful joy and pain of a complex relationship changing and ending. It hopes to let us live in the absurdist stretching of time, and the splitting of personhood that occurs in such shifts. I waited to write this from a scar not a wound, so there is a real sense of retrospective, persistent comedy, and sharp bittersweet chaos in this piece which holds some feelings I know I’m not alone in. A.I is a fascinating, twisting topic and lens with which to inspect the human heart, in all its beautiful, FUNNY failings and triumphs. This is the most exposing and personal thing I have written - indeed my ex asked if it was going to get him canceled, but I reassured him we both come off as brutally idiosyncratic as each other. ”

• Ella Yiannoutsos 

NO NO NO is the debut show of Grammelot Productions, a company made of childhood friends, Reva Grills (producer/production manager), and Ella Yiannoutsos (writer/actor), who stubbornly refused to give up on their creative dreams. After its sold out debut season in NZ Fringe 2024, critics said:

"Laugh out loud funny ... this is genre, or just art, really, at its best ... in its single act, NO NO NO manages to not only expand, but dance on its central metaphor." - Art Murmurs

"Deeply poetic yet gut-punchingly relatable: a tight, slick, kaleidoscope of a show ... phenomenally intelligent." - Theatreview

"Whether you’re looking for a dissection of heartbreak, or an exploration of identity in the age of AI, you’ll find them both here. NO NO NO is a deeply layered, complex, eminently watchable work ... " - Art Murmurs

NO NO NO comes to the Globe Theatre as a part of Dunedin Fringe 2025.

Globe Theatre (104 London Street, Central Dunedin, Dunedin 9016)

February 20st - 22nd 2025 at 7PM. 

NO NO NO comes to Oamaru, Timaru, Christchurch, Kaikōura, and Nelson as a part of its Te Waipounamu Tour 2025

Oamaru: The Inkbox, Oamaru Opera House (Opera House Building 94 Thames Street, Oamaru 9400)

February 25th 2025 at 730PM. 

Timaru: Pleasant Point Town Hall (5 Halstead Road, Pleasant Point 7903)

February 26th 2025 at 630PM. 

Christchurch: Little Andromeda Theatre (Level 1/134 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch Central City, Christchurch 8011)

Kaikōura: The Mayfair Arts and Culture Centre (80 Esplanade, Kaikōura 7300) 

Nelson: The Red Door Theatre, Nelson Musical Theatre (Founders Heritage Park, 95 Atawhai Drive, The Wood, Nelson 7010) 

Creative Team

Writer: Ella Yiannoutsos

Ella Yiannoutsos, is a Te Whanganui-a-Tara based, emerging Greek / Pākehā playwright and performer who has recently completed her Masters in Scriptwriting at the IIML under Ken Duncum, where she was awarded the 2022 David Carson-Parker Embassy Prize in Scriptwriting, for her thesis play ‘Dumbshow’. Her first play Kouros was shortlisted for Playmarket’s B425 Playwriting competition.

Director: Gin Mabey

Producer: Reva Grills

Performer(s): Ella Yiannoutsos, Indigo Cody Paul, Isaac Martyn, Daniel Martyn 

Set & Props Designer: Ella Yiannoutsos 

Sound Operator, Lighting Operator: Joseph Cooper

Production Manager: Reva Grills 

Marketing Manager: Ella Yiannoutsos

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