HOLE Returns for full Season at Circa Theatre

HOLE’s green-powered black comedy - eco-dynamite on stage!

Nominated by Circa Theatre for the Susan Smith Blackburn International Women Playwright’s Award

World-first, award-winning eco-powered theatre company Ice Floe Productions is back with the World Premiere season of its second black comedy HOLE at Circa Theatre November 20 - December 18 at 7.30pm.

Performed by a Stevie Hancox-Monk, Sepe Mua’au and Elle Wootton, with music by renowned composer and Antarctic Fellow Gareth Farr ONZM.

HOLE is an eco-powered black comedy about a scientist, an activist, a Navy SEAL, and one huge life-threatening ozone hole. 

Based on true life experiences, HOLE is set in the long Antarctica summer of 1986. 

New Zealand scientist Stella, Ioane, a US Navy SEAL from American Samoa, and Greenpeace activist Bonny, all have their own personal agendas which bring them to the ice. What unfolds is as dark, funny, and monumental as the discovery of the ozone hole itself. 

Stevie Hancox-Monk, Elle Wootton and Sepelini Mua'au return, after Circa’s development season, to inhabit the characters in this new version of Lynda Chanwai Earle’s epic play.  Also returning are sound designer Phil Brownlee and composer Gareth Farr 

Co-Directors Kerryn Palmer and Sally Richards have guided a deconstruction of the development workshop draft and are excited to share this constantly evolving production with an audience.  Not often utalised in professional theatre, the co-directing model is one that Sally and Kerryn have been refining over the past two years. They find that it provides opportunities for an open dialogue around the process, encouraging collaboration with actors and designers. With a lot going on in any rehearsal room, co-directors can manage not only the dramaturgy and staging, but also attend to the wellbeing of the whole group. It is a model that is proving successful for Sally and Kerryn as working Mums who are constantly juggling several arts and teaching jobs.  Kerryn notes: “ We find that we compliment each other and also always have each others backs. Directing can sometimes be a lonely job and having someone else to bounce ideas and challenges off is super helpful.” 

The second play in Lynda Chanwai-Earle’s Antarctic Trilogy, HOLE builds on the innovative use of renewable energy, designed by Graeme Ebbett, as used in the award-winning HEAT. HOLE’s set has been repurposed in collaboration with Antarctic Arts Fellows Jason O’Hara and Warren Maxwell from their interactive dance piece Where Memories Sleep. And is augmented by Isadora Lao’s Lighting design and Audio-Visual Design by Rachel Neser.

“HOLE explores the relationship between art and science…[describing] Antarctica as the heartbeat of the world, pulsing as the ice expands with the seasons. Poetry has a way to pull at the heart strings that raw science doesn’t...leaving us in awe of the raw beauty of our planet.” — Art Murmurs

ECO-POWER TO TELL THE TALE

Ice Floe Productions Tapui Ltd aims to transform public awareness around urgent climate change issues through drama and to build on the interface between our Arts and Science communities. Our team creates innovative eco-technology, such as specially designed LED theatre lighting and sound designs, to bring productions to life within theatre venues anywhere around the country. Our productions draw on a tenth of the power of normal theatre productions. 

“Human-induced climate change is affecting our food, livelihoods, security and our very existence... Scientists tell us we have a critical window – less than a decade – to act to prevent climate events that may be beyond civilisation’s capacity to adapt. The urgent response needed is not being matched by action.”  - TRACK ZERO (Arts Inspiring Climate Change)

Lynda Chanwai-Earle was 2019 IIML Writer in Residence, Victoria University. While researching and writing HOLE during her tenure at IIML, Lynda interviewed scientists  Rebecca Priestley Winner of the Prime Minister's Science Communication Prize (2016), Veronika Meduna, Editor at The Conversation NZ, and the real-life Greenpeace Activist on the Ice at the time, Dr Maj De Poorter

FREE PUBLIC FORUM / Q&A with these renowned Antarctic Scientists and HOLE's Key Creatives, after the show at Circa on 24 September, 2020.

The Antarctic Trilogy aims to tell dark, funny and moving stories that address critical issues around climate change. Her company Ice Floe Productions Tapui Ltd explores the interface between science and the arts by engaging with science communities and alternative energy solutions in each of their theatre productions. The team creates innovative eco-technology to bring their productions to life within theatre venues across the country. 

HOLE’s season runs from November 20 - December 18, with a preview on November 19, 7.30 pm at Circa Theatre’s Circa Two, 1 Taranaki Street. Presented by Ice Floe Productions Tapui Ltd, it is written by Lynda Chanwai-Earle, co-directed by Kerryn Palmer and Sally Richards with music by Gareth Farr ONZM. Tickets are $25-$52 and are available through www.circa.co.nz.

Written by Lynda Chanwai-Earle

Directed by Kerryn Palmer and Sally Richards  

Music Composed by Gareth Farr

Starring Sepe Mua’au, Stevie Hancox-Monk and Elle Wootton