School Matinees at The Court Theatre happen multiple times each year and offer the chance for groups to attend with their school during the week at a special discounted rate.
Upcoming School Matinees
Every Brilliant Thing
By Duncan Macmillan
With Jonny Donahoe
Genre: Contemporary/Comedy/Intimate
Recommended age: 13+
School matinee: 1:30pm Thursday 2 May 2024
Run time: Approx. 80 minutes (no interval)
Sometimes the little things can create something big and beautiful.
A child attempts to bring his mother out of depression by making them a list of every brilliant thing in the world. Decades pass, the list grows and what was once a game eventually becomes a new way of looking at the world – a world where there is joy to be found in every corner of our world if we can open ourselves to the possibility.
If you had to make a list, where would you start?
#1 Ice cream
#2 Water fights
#5 Things with stripes
#25 Wearing a cape
#314 The way Ray Charles sings the word ‘you’
#319 Laughing so hard you shoot milk out of your nose
#823 Skinny Dipping
#9998 Watching someone watch your favourite film...
Ticket price is $20 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz
Mr and Mrs Macbeth of Heathcote Valley Road
Written and directed by Gregory Cooper
Starring Mark Hadlow and Lara Macgregor
Genre: Farce/Aotearoa/Comedy
Recommended age: 13+
School matinee: 11am Friday 7 June 2024 & 11am Wednesday 19 June 2024
Run time: Approx. 2 hours (including 20 minute interval)
“Collisions, conflict, calamity and comedy”
Jo and Tom Macbeth are experienced professional actors who have a reputation as Shakespearean specialists. It is the opening night of a production of Macbeth, 30 minutes before curtain-up. In the dressing room, something major has happened. Not great timing.
Crisp, sharp dialogue, revelations and discoveries on both sides provide moments of emotion, accusations, and crackling synergy. With a crisis just before the interval, disaster seems imminent. The second half is filled with every actor’s nightmare - being in the wrong play at the wrong time, especially when Taika Waititi is in the house casting for his Amazon-funded film version of the Shakespearian tragedy.
Enjoy a rollercoaster ride of comedy, drama, poignancy, and explosive conflict, as these two stage dynamos reveal the highs and lows of partnerships, on and off the stage. Mr. & Mrs. Macbeth of Heathcote Valley Road will appeal to all, including people who hated Shakespeare at school.
Ticket price is $20 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz
Fun Home
Music by Jeanine Tesori
Book and Lyrics by Lisa Kron
Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel
Genre: Musical/Drama/True Story
Recommended age: 16+
School matinee: 11am Tuesday 20 August 2024
Run time: Approx. 1 hour 30 minutes (no interval)
Adapted from Alison Bechdel’s 2006 best-selling graphic memoir of the same name, Fun Home is a Tony Award-winning musical by the celebrated musical writing duo, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron. Fun Home is funny, heartfelt, and moving, with an incredible score.
Graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to tell the story of the volatile, brilliant, one-of-a-kind man who was her father. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home (the “Fun Home”), her growing understanding of her own sexuality, and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father’s hidden life. Alison is embodied by three actors of different ages and is in turn, funny and heartbreaking.
Threaded throughout with sensational musical numbers, Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your past and your parents through grown-up eyes. After a smashing 2013 season at The Public Theatre in New York it moved to Broadway and the West End where it continued to be a sensation. It has since played around the world to great acclaim.
Ticket price is $25 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz
Something Rotten! Returns [FULLY BOOKED]
Book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell
Music and Lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick
Conceived by Karey Kirkpatrick and Wayne Kirkpatrick
Directed by Benjamin Kilby-Henson
Musical Direction by Richard Marrett
Choreography by Kira Josephson
School matinee: 11am Friday 5 July 2024
Run time: 2 hours 35 minutes (including 20 minute interval)
It’s England 1595 and playwright brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom can’t compete with the rockstar popularity of a certain William Shakespeare. Desperate to out-Bard the Bard, Nick consults a soothsayer and learns that the next big thing in theatre will be a MUSICAL—a play where "an actor is saying his lines, and out of nowhere he just starts singing"—but “nothing’s as amazing as a musical!”
The Bottom brothers set out to write the world’s very first musical, Omelette, while caught in a bitter battle with Shakespeare. Meanwhile, Nick’s wife Bea is disguising herself as a man and Nigel has fallen in love with Portia, a puritan’s daughter. Filled with wordplay, musical, historical, and Shakespearean references, Something Rotten! is a hilarious celebration of musical theatre with something for everyone.
Ticket price is $25 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz
Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream
Written by Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis
Performed by Jacob Rajan and Jon Coddington
Genre: Sentimental/Aotearoa/Puppetry
Recommended age: 13+
School matinee: 11am Friday 20 September 2024
Run time: 1 hour 20 minutes (no interval)
Having enchanted audiences in North America and at the Sydney Festival, The Court Theatre is delighted to welcome the latest production from legendary Aotearoa theatre company, Indian Ink: Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream.
Take a wild ride to paradise with Indian Ink’s powerful new play about impermanence – of life, love… and ice cream! This glorious production is inspired by Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, Denial of Death, and the vibrant, life–filled chaos of India’s most cosmopolitan city, Mumbai. Jacob Rajan delivers a dazzling solo performance as he channels seven characters, weaving the afterlife and a dash of Bollywood disco into the real-life mystery of India’s vanishing vultures. A man trying desperately to avoid death is flung between limbo and his past where a rebellious young woman holds the key that may guide him to paradise. Infused with serious laughter, exquisite puppetry and inspired sound design this show is guaranteed to melt your heart.
Ticket price is $20 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz
A Doll's House
By Henrik Ibsen
In a version by Christopher Hampton
Genre: Iconic/Classic/Drama
Recommended age: 13+
School matinee: 11am Wednesday 16 October 2024
Run time: 2 hours 20 minutes (including 20 minute interval)
The play centres on an ordinary family—Torvald Helmer, a bank lawyer, his wife, Nora, and their three little children. Torvald supposes himself the ethical member of the family while his wife assumes the role of the pretty and irresponsible little woman in order to flatter him. Into this arrangement intrude several hard-minded outsiders, one of whom threatens to expose a fraud that Nora had once committed without her husband’s knowledge in order to obtain a loan needed to save his life. When Nora’s act is revealed, Torvald reacts with outrage and repudiates her out of concern for his own social reputation. Utterly disillusioned about her husband, whom she now sees as a hollow fraud, Nora declares her independence of him and their children and leaves them, slamming the door of the house behind her.
Famous for “the door slam heard around the world” and as a ground-breaking example of theatre realism as well as proto-feminist work, A Doll’s House stands as one of the most important plays in the theatrical canon.
Ticket price is $20 + 2% booking fee, and there will be a short Q&A after the show as well as an education pack provided.
To book a school group to come to one of these matinees, or if you have any queries about the production, please email the Education and Outreach Team at education@courttheatre.org.nz