Winners announced for seventh annual Auckland Theatre Awards

The Auckland Theatre Awards' seventh annual ceremony has seen the acknowledgement of the outstanding work of theatre makers across the city.

Presented on 7th December and chosen by a panel of six industry professionals, the cermony's top honours was the illustrious Excellence Awards.

Simon Wilson, Awards judge and Editor-at-large of Auckland website Metro, explained his input into the judging process.

Writing on the Metro website, he explained "we gave the awards for excellence. Not for effort. We were clear on that.

"And when we talked about what made theatre excellent, it was far more than craft skill. We looked for innovation.

"For theatre work that made us rethink what we were, as audience members, and what theatre is capable of.

"When we saw that – with everything from Tony Rabbit’s brilliantly subversive pandas to Hudson & Halls Live!’s hilarious and deeply rewarding examination of what we are as New Zealanders – we felt blessed."

EXCELLENCE AWARDS
Achieving excellence across all aspects of the production:

The Book of Everything, Silo Theatre co-production with Auckland Arts Festival
Little Shop of Horrors Live, Live Cinema
All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever, The Playground Collective
Hudson & Halls Live! Silo Theatre
Achieving excellence in set and lighting design
A Doll’s House, Tony Rabbit

Achieving excellence in sound design and composition
Thomas Press

The Lifetime Achievement Award
George Henare CNZM, OBE – Actor

Mr Fahrenheit Publicity Best Newcomers
Christine Urquhart, set and costume designer
Jordan Keyzer, stage manager and producer
Gaby Solomona, actor

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS
The HACKMAN Cup for Most Original Production: All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever, Playground Collective
Mangere Arts Centre Award for Best Ensemble: The company of The Book of Everything
The Auckland Actors Award for Best Death: Rose Matafeo in Rose Matafeo is Finally Dead
The Elephant Publicity Award for Best Poster: Ernest Rutherford: Everyone Can Science!
The Gail Cowan Award for Best Viral Marketing Campaign: The talking light bulb in All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever
The TAPAC Award for Best Entrance: Kate McGill & Frith Horan in The Best Possible Album Party that Anybody has Ever Been to
The Equity New Zealand Award for Best show by Emerging Artists: Alice Canton in Orangutan
The Playmarket Award for Best line in a Kiwi Play: 'She doesn’t have a phone in her car – t’s not Star Trek', Hudson and Halls Live!
The Johnson & Laird Management Award for Best Accent: Luci Hare, Lysistrata
The APRA Award for Best Music: Gareth Hobbs, All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever
The Kathryn Rawlings and Associates Award for Best Comeback: Ben Crowder directing Sit on it again
The South Pacific Pictures Award for Best Technical F*#k up: Declan Greene’s note before Eight-Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography
The Actors Program Award for Best Nudity: Edwin Beats in Not Psycho
The Sharu Loves Hats Award for Best Pash: Eli Kent and the mannequin in All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever
The Pantograph Punch Award for Best Critic: James Wenley
The Tour-Makers Award for Travelling Hero: A Boy Wonder

The judging panel was made up of Wilson, producer Angela Green, playwright Sam Brooks, actor and director Jason Te Kare, costume designer Elizabeth Whiting, vocal coach Linda Cartwright.

Image: The Book of Everything, Silo Theatre co-production with Auckland Arts Festival

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