Sam Brooks
Sam is an award-winning playwright, journalist and lip-sync artist. His award-winning plays include Wine Lips, Queen and Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys, which was published by Playmarket NZ Play Series . His writing has been published by NZ Herald, Metro, The Spinoff and The Wireless.
Everything By: Sam Brooks
Director Ben Henson's bold Auckland Theatre Company mainstage debut opened last Thursday. Sam Brooks reviews.
Sam Brooks reviews Cock, a co-presentation between Silo Theatre and Auckland Live.
Sam Brooks reviews Auckland Theatre Company's production of Amadeus
"You're six years old. Mum's in hospital. Dad says she's done something stupid. She finds it hard to be happy." The premise of Every Brilliant Thing is deceptively simple, but Sam Brooks finds it profoundly, and deeply affecting.
FEMSLICK, is one of those rare works where we are well and truly welcomed into the house of the makers. The show is the vision of the artist Akashi Fisiinaua and brought to us by FAFSWAG, an arts collective based in South Auckland that celebrates queer brown bodies, contemporary art and cultural restoration.
Apart from that unfortunate Pop-Up Globe.
Sam Brooks on how a German absurdist comedy unravels our unstable relationship to change, and reveals more about the New Zealand psyche than we realise.
Call of the Sparrows has all the hallmarks of a debut full-length play, with all the strengths and flaws implied by that label, writes Sam Brooks.
Sam Brooks reviews Vanilla Miraka, the new show from Hayley Sproull that dovetails two difficult, and deeply personal, processes in a form-defying solo show.
Sam Brooks reviews Hook-Up Boys, a new collection of vignettes at The Basement that lacks in diversity and variety in its form just as much as in its content.
Silo Theatre's brilliant production of Kate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks' Medea shifts the focus of this classical Greek story to the children and digs into truths upsetting and relevant.
A rock musical about our country’s most famous suffragette continues The Auckland Theatre Company’s string of successful musicals. That Bloody Woman’s tremendous cast and energetic production more than make up for the flaws of the book.
The first opera performed at The Basement Theatre aims for deconstruction, but a lack of accessibility prevents an understanding of what Dido and Aeneas: Recomposed is deconstructing in the first place.
Auckland Theatre Company's production of To Kill A Mockingbird has the strong bones of the original, but a dated adaptation struggles to flesh the novel out to its true potential.
"To define Otherness you must know what Other is." We talked to theatre-maker Alice Canton about what drives her to make work and her experiences as both a biracial person and a biracial theatre-maker, and how this informs the world of White/Other.
Miss Jean Batten is a new play that revolves around the tempestuous life and record-breaking achievements of New Zealand-born aviatrix Jean Batten. We talked to performer and co-producer Alex Ellis about what drew her to Batten and why New Zealanders should be more proud of her.
The Wholehearted covers a breadth of experiences but lacks the depth to fully communicate their meaning.
A critically-acclaimed and darkly comic adaptation of Titus Andronicus returns for a season at the Pop-Up Globe - and you can’t afford to miss it.
Waves offers two experiences - one enhanced with the programme, and one that takes place without it - and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
The James Plays - the grand, seven-hour trilogy of performances currently on at the Auckland Arts Festival - are less Game of Thrones, more Downton Abbey, writes Sam Brooks.
Sam Brooks reviews Desiree Burch's Tar Baby - an important, hilarious and angry show about race and our role in it.
Sam Brooks interviews Julia Croft about her feminist theatre show If There's Not Dancing At The Revolution, I'm Not Coming
Sam Brooks on Silo Theatre's Hudson & Halls Live!, an original commission that dips into the lives of two iconic TV personalities from the 80s.
Sam Brooks reviews Bullet Heart Club's The Deliberate Disappearance of My Friend, Jack Hartnett
Sam Brooks reviews Fallout: The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior
Sam Brooks reviews Chris Parker's No More Dancing in The Good Room
Sam Brooks talks about how to bring creativity into bringing spectacle to the stage in Singin' in the Rain.
Sam Brooks on The Book of Everything, Silo Theatre's first production for 2015
Sam Brooks on how the Best Actress award still puts baby in a corner.
