BATS Theatre is New Zealand's

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 leading venue for the development of new theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 practitioners and plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

. Most of the productions at Bats Theatre are New Zealand works. Ninety per cent of its annual programme of 50 to 60 shows are New Zealand and world premieres.
Despite its small size, BATS has a significant effect on the country's cultural landscape and complements the work of the other larger venues in the capital, Circa Theatre and Downstage Theatre

Downstage Theatre

The Downstage Theatre is a theatre in Wellington, New Zealand, and the country's longest running professional theatre, established in 1964.The founders at the inaugural meeting in the Wellington Public Library on 15 May 1964 were actors Peter Bland, Tim Elliott and Martyn Sanderson, with...

. BATS is largely funded by Creative New Zealand

Creative New Zealand

The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government, investing in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes and developing markets and audiences for New Zealand arts domestically and internationally...

 and ticket sales. The name BATS is an acronym of Bane & Austin Touring Society.

History

Established in its present form by Simon Bennett and Simon Elson in 1989, the 100-seat venue is located in the central city of the country's capital, Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

. BATS began as a venue for the work of young and emerging writers, directors and actors, many of whom were graduates of Toi Whakaari

Toi Whakaari

Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School is New Zealand's National Drama School. It is located in Wellington, New Zealand Toi Whakaari offers training in Acting, Directing, Costume Construction, Entertainment Technology, Performing Arts Management and Design for Stage & Screen.The School offers the following...

, New Zealand's National Drama School.

A significant theatre programme started in the 1990s at BATS is the Young and Hungry season, showcasing new writers and developing theatre talent. The successful annual season has grown to other cities in recent years with Auckland Theatre Company

Auckland Theatre Company

Auckland Theatre Company is the largest professional theatre company in Auckland, New Zealand. It was founded in 1992 following the bankruptcy of Mercury Theatre, Auckland's original professional theatre company which had been the largest subsidised company in the country.The current artistic...

 recently presenting productions of the same scripts. BATS also runs the STAB season annually. The venue is billed as the 'heart' of Wellington's annual Fringe Festival. It also participates in the annual NZ Comedy Festival, hosting both local and international acts.

Experimental

The venue continues to be a home to much of Wellington's young and experimental theatrical talent, with titles such as On the conditions and possibilities of Helen Clark taking me as her young lover

On the conditions and possibilities of Helen Clark taking me as her young lover

On the conditions and possibilities of Helen Clark taking me as her young lover is a satirical book, published in 2005 with a new edition released in 2008, by the pseudonymous author Richard Meros, and an adapted play of the same name written by Arthur Meek and Geoff Pinfield.-Book:The book centres...

, The Intricate Art of Actually Caring and After Kafka. BATS has also hosted many works by Paul Rothwell, winner of the 2008 Bruce Mason

Bruce Mason

Bruce Edward George Mason, CBE was a significant playwright in New Zealand who wrote 34 plays and influenced the cultural landscape of the country through his contribution to theatre. In 1980, he was awarded the prestigious CBE.The Bruce Mason Award, one of the most important playwrighting...

 Award, including the premiere seasons of Deliver Us, Hate Crimes and The Blackening. The theatre's highest-selling show to date is Fitz Bunny: Lust for Glory (2007), based on long-running comic Brunswick by Wellington cartoonist Grant Buist

Grant Buist

Grant Buist is a New Zealand cartoonist and animator, who produced the cult New Zealand alt comic strip Brunswick from 1993 to 2003....

. BATS frequently hosts two or three different plays in one night.

Notable Performances

Many productions which started at BATS have gone on to gain national and international success, including Ken Duncum's

Ken Duncum

Ken Duncum is a leading New Zealand playwright and screenwriter. His scripts have won awards in theatre and television. His plays Cherish and Trick of the Light won best new New Zealand play at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in 2003 and 2004...

 Blue Sky Boys (1991), the farce The Sex Fiend (1989) by Stephen Sinclair and Danny Mulheron

Danny Mulheron

Danny Mulheron is a New Zealand actor, writer, and director who has worked in theatre, television and film.In 2008 he released "The Third Richard" a feature length documentary where he tells the story of his Grandfather, a Jewish German composer whose music was banned by the Nazis, rejected in New...

, Frangipani Perfume (1998) by Makerita Urale

Makerita Urale

Makerita Urale is a documentary director and a leading figure in contemporary Polynesian theatre in New Zealand. She has produced landmark productions in the performing arts. She is also a playwright. She is the writer of the play Frangipani Perfume, the first Pacific play written by a woman for an...

, and APOLLO 13: Mission Control

APOLLO 13: Mission Control

APOLLO 13: Mission Control is an interactive theatre show about NASA's failed Apollo 13 mission.-Premiere and tour:The show premiered in October 2008 at BATS Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand and has toured Hamilton and Auckland in New Zealand...

(2008) by Kip Chapman. Other successful New Zealand names in theatre and comedy have presented early works at BATS, including Flight of the Conchords

Flight of the Conchords

Flight of the Conchords are a New Zealand-based comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. The duo's comedy and music became the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007 on HBO, also called Flight of the Conchords.They were named...

, Duncan Sarkies

Duncan Sarkies

Duncan Sarkies is a New Zealand screenwriter, playwright, novelist, stand-up comic and short story writer.Sarkies grew up in the South Island city of Dunedin and is the brother of Robert Sarkies a New Zealand film director who is also a scriptwriter...

, So You're a Man

So You're a Man

So You're a Man were a five-man comedy troupe, who performed in the mid-90s in both New Zealand and Australia. Members were Bret McKenzie, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, actor Carey Smith and theatre director David Lawrence...

, The Naked Samoans

Naked Samoans

The Naked Samoans is a famous New Zealand comedy group made up of Polynesian entertainers, most of whom are Samoan. The group is noted for performing social humour and satire that attracts a broad audience, especially among white New Zealanders, without sacrificing the group's Pacific Island identity...

 and Maori playwrights Hone Kouka

Hone Kouka

Hone Kouka is an acclaimed New Zealand playwright. He has written 13 plays which have been staged in New Zealand and worldwide including Canada, South Africa, New Caledonia and Britain. Kouka's plays have won multiple awards at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, the 'Oscars' of New Zealand theatre....

 and Riwia Brown

Riwia Brown

Riwia Brown is a playwright and the award winning screenwriter of the cult classic movie Once Were Warriors from New Zealand. The Once Were Warriors screenplay, adapted from the book of the same name by Alan Duff, gained Brown the Best Screenplay award at the 1994 New Zealand Film and TV Awards....

.

Building Information

The Bats Theatre is located inside the Iconic Royal Antedilluvian Order of Buffaloes Lodge Building at 1 Kent Terrace Wellington City. The Building was Originally Built for the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows in the 1930s. It was Later owned by the Savage Club. In the 1970s the Buffaloes Purchased the Building and it has served as the site of their lodge temple for Wellington City based lodges ever since. Currently the temple is home to the Kia Ora Lodge No 28, which is the second oldest RAOB Lodge in Wellington having been founded in 1925. The Temple is also home to the Victory Lodge No 21 of the Grand Council section of the RAOB. Victory Lodge was established in 1944. The Lodge Temple was located on the Second floor of the Building and is often used for rehersal space for plays.

The building was purchased by film director Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson

Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...

 and Fran Walsh

Fran Walsh

Frances "Fran" Walsh, Lady Jackson, MNZM is a screenwriter, film producer and occasional musician. She is the spouse of filmmaker Peter Jackson. They have two children: Billy and Katie....

in 2011, and the theatre is expected to expand upstairs to incorporate the former Lodge temple.

External references

• Bats Theatre website