Theatre

The 2012 Dunedin Theatre Awards will enlist the power of 1000 minds.

Audiences will be required to suspend disbelief and engage their imaginations a little more than usual when the Remarkable Theatre stages its new series of plays without costumes, props, or even a stage.

A play first performed in the playwright's bedroom in front of 15 friends and relatives arrives in the Lakes district later this month as part of a national tour.

Wakatipu audiences will be kicking off their Sunday shoes this week as more than 65 Wakatipu High School pupils take to the stage, performing Footloose.

Two sold-out shows in Wanaka by Oscar-nominated actor Sir Ian McKellen have raised tens of thousands of dollars towards the restoration of Christchurch's earthquake-damaged Isaac Theatre Royal.

A trip to the Waitaki Aquatic Centre in Oamaru left British actress Miriam Margolyes slightly puzzled this week, after a resident informed the former Harry Potter star that the works of Charles Dickens was "too highbrow" for the town.

Young playwright Aaron Blackledge has an agenda, reports Marjorie Cook, in Wanaka.

Tickets for the opening night tonight of an original laugh- and song-packed stage production have almost sold out, and the Wakatipu stars could not be happier.

Theatre lovers can expect a lot of laughs and topical New Zealand themes when the hit satiric play Le Sud plays tonight and tomorrow night, writer Dave Armstrong says.

In the appendix on page 17 of Creative New Zealand's "Review of Recurrently Funded Organisations" it is written in black and white: "Support is available for at least three theatre companies to create and present high-quality New Zealand theatre: one in each of Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington".

The Fortune Theatre is on a roll, with a string of hit shows and sold-out houses reviving the venue's fortunes.