There are several VUW connections to the development season of Lynda Chanwai-Earle’s new play HOLE which opens at Circa Theatre on Tuesday 22 September.

Lynda wrote the play while she was 2019 writer in residence at the IIML (International Institute of Modern Letters), drawing inspiration from several VUW scientists including staff at the Antarctic Research Centre. HOLE’s stage manager Sam Tippet is VUW Theatre Technician and a graduate of the MFA (CP) in Theatre. All three cast members – Stevie Hancox-Monk, Elle Wootton and Sepe Mua’au - are graduates of the VUW Theatre Programme, and Sepe is SEFTMSAH Māori and
Pasifika Support Tutor. The play is directed by David O’Donnell from the Theatre Programme. In 2008 David directed Lynda’s HEAT, the first play in her Antarctic trilogy.

Set in the year 2000 during an Antarctic winter, HEAT focussed on a love triangle between two scientists and an emperor penguin, played by a naked, body-painted actor. HEAT was presented as an eco-play, and toured New Zealand in 2010-11 powered entirely by four solar panels and a wind turbine (the same technology used to power the Antarctic hut in which it was set). HOLE uses this technology to be performed entirely off-grid, experimenting with sustainable theatre production practices including a completely re-cyclable set. HOLE is set in the mid-1980s, about the time that scientists discovered the hole in the ozone layer, French agents sank the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland and Greenpeace established World Park Base in Antarctica. The play’s environmental themes are reflected in the relationships between a New Zealand atmospheric chemist (Elle Wootton), a Dutch Greenpeace expedition leader (Stevie Hancox-Monk)
and a U.S. Navy Seal (Sepe Mua’au).

HOLE will be performed at Circa Theatre 7.30 pm 22–26 September.
Bookings on Circa's website.