No one is quite sure when Colin slipped into improvising with WIT, one day it was as if he’d always been here. He’s played in comedy festival and fringe festival shows, and was part of the crew that took Attack of the Killer-B Movie to the 2018 Palmerston North Fringe.
Severin has been playing with WIT since 2017, initially as a musician but also as an improviser. He’s famous for his ability to noodle, although when he’s not striking a dramatic pose or a dramatic chord, he can be seen sharpening his wit as a professionally freshfaced standup comedian in bars all over town.
Gitta has been improvising and performing for years, taking part in Comedy Festival and Fringe Festival shows, as well as volunteering to help WIT and other theatre around Wellington. Her epic poems are justly renowned for being outstandingly epic.
Hedy has long enjoyed escaping from her very serious career in the Public Service to the wonderful world of improv.
She is a regular performer and show-host with a special affinity for Puppets, and was able to bring her next-level-geek knowledge to serve Attack of the Killer B-Movie. She is a sharp and ruthless operator on the lighting desk. Having served nobly on the WIT Committee, Hedy now dreams of owning a dog and of being able to fingerpick the ukulele. She enjoys long walks along Wellington’s south coast, but not on the beach because she doesn’t like the feeling of sand in her shoes.
THIS SHOW HAS ALREADY HAPPENED
(but there’ll be other great shows on soon)
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Beloved improv elimination competition Micetro is back for another bite of the cheese.
A crew of eager improvisers will again battle head to head using wit, spur-of-the-moment storytelling and risking everything for an the love of the audience. There’ll be songs! Drama! Pathos, bathos probably a bit of logos! A mix of seasoned improvisers and adorable newcomers and everyone in between will play their hearts out to decide who gets eliminated and who survives to be crowned ‘Micetro’.
All profits from the night go to support Little Sprouts – a charity which gives free life-changing baby boxes to babies in real need!
When: 7pm Sunday May 5th 2019
Where: Southern Cross Garden Bar Restaurant, 39 Abel Smith St, Te Aro, Wellington
We’ll be in the Guest Room – turn left past the bar at the back), so grab a delicious beverage of your choice before you come in to sit down. Note that because it’s licensed premises if you’re not a grownup you’ll need to bring a parent, and if you are a grownup but look under 25 you’ll need to bring some ID.
Tickets: $10/$5 concession. Pre-buy tickets on Eventfinda or door sales
Sorry, we just haven’t been able to pin down a training space for this week. Next week okay??
Oliver is an improvisor from way back. From playing and winning inter-school improv competitions to playing in the Comedy Festival with WIT, his love has always been the stage.
As well as being a performer in WIT shows including Gorilla, Micetro, Battle of WITs and representing WIT in the 2017 and 2018 National Theatresports champs, he independently devised and produced I Can’t Believe it’s Not Scripted, a musical improv show.
Among his many non-improv projects, Oliver devised and hosted a comedy pannel show “Headlines vs Headliners” which ran monthly during 2018, mixing standup comedians and improvisors in a topic-themed quiz format. He also wrote “We Are the Experiments” as part of the Memory Plays anthology staged at Bats in 2018.
In 2019 he volunteered to be a Co-Creative Director of WIT, and it’s going to be fun to see what he does with the role.
WITsters at the Library on a Tuesday
WIT was sad to learn that the lovely Wellington Central Library is now closed, at least for a good long while, for building safety reasons. This means that our regular Tuesday night training space, the oh so commodious mezzanine community meeting room is no longer available either.
For Tuesday 26th March 6-8pm we will be at 49 Courtenay Place, the Fringe home of the Scruffy Bunny. After that, well, the committee is making some phone calls! We’ll find another place to play, and let you know as soon as we can.
Sam was WIT’s official youth wing when he first joined WIT in 2015, leading us in workshops and taking part in shows where his hip knowledge of the current jive was much appreciated. A player in shows including Micetro, Gorilla and Attack of the Killer-B Movie he eventually matured into a modest beard and become part of the WIT establishment.
In 2019 he ran off to Auckland to be with his love, and we don’t blame him, really, but we do miss him. Visit us again soon Sam!
“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far” ~ H. P. Lovecraft
**** Note that The Scruffy Bunny theatre is now in its Fringe Fest special location: Courtenay Creative, 49 Courtenay Place, Wellington ****
In 1925 young fantasy writer Howie Lovecraft fled his Rhode Island home, tormented by the failure of his marriage and other personal demons. No one was sure where he vanished to for six long months, but once returned all agree he wrote stories that were richer and darker than anything he had ever written before.
Why? Well, we now know that he took a tramp steamer to the farthest reaches of the Southern oceans, and spent those lost months travelling the length and breadth of New Zealand. He spoke to farmers and fisherfolk, and former nurses at long-closed special hospitals. Most significantly he attended lectures at Wellington’s Masseytonic University, and interviewed members of the faculty in exhaustive detail. He gathered dark tales of twisted deeds and unnatural monsters, and learnt truths that no man may learn without descending into madness. This research was woven into the warp and the weft of tales he wrote and rewrote until his untimely death in 1937, albeit with many of the place names and historical events transposed to more American locations at his publisher’s request.
Long forgotten in a dusty attic, a leather-bound trunk of Lovecraft’s original heavily annotated notes mouldered, until unverified rumours of the trove’s possible existence reached the ears of researchers from Masseytonick University. Thanks to their hard work, some at the expense of their very souls, a selection of these unheard tales will be retold as part of the 2019 Fringe Festival.
Lovecrafted! will be improvised on stage by direct descendants of those interviewed by that nervous young American. By an amazing coincidence all are members of the Wellington Improvisation Troupe.
Tickets: available as doorsales, or through the Fringe website, $10 or $7 concession/with a Fringe Addict pass.
When:
6.30pm Sat 16th March
6.30pm Sun 17th March
6.30pm Mon 18th March
6.30pm Tues 19th March
6.30pm Wed 20th March
Where: The Scruffy Bunny Improv Theatre, Courtenay Creative, 49 Courtney Place Wellington
Would you like a copy of our posters to put on your work notice board, or just to keep and admire? Well, click right here for an A4 sized jpg file
Websites:
WIT Event Facebook Page
Fringe Festival Page – Tickets on sale from December 18th 2018