SAM TRUBRIDGE DIRECTING/DESIGN
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Sam Trubridge is director of NZ performing arts company The PlayGround NZ Ltd. With this company he has directed and designed shows at Sadler's Wells (UK), La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (New York), Teatro Studio di Scandicci (Florence), The Auckland Arts Festival (NZ), and Hastings Opera House (NZ). The company also presents The Performance Arcade - an annual festival of live art and performance on Wellington Waterfront, since 2011. For full information about upcoming and previous productions run by The PlayGround NZ visit: www.theplaygroundnz.com
PRODUCTIONS
Ecology in Fifths
Te Whaea National Centre for Dance and Drama, Wellington, NZ (2020)
Toitoi, Hastings Opera House, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival, Hastings, NZ (2020)
H Guthrie Smith Centre, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival, Tūtira, NZ (2020)
SLEEP/WAKE
The Print Factory, Wellington, NZ (2008)
Auckland Town Hall, Auckland Arts Festival, NZ (2009)
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York, USA (2015)
The Restaurant of Many Orders
Sadler's Wells Lilian Baylis Theatre, London, UK (2004)
Te Whaea National Centre for Dance and Drama, Wellington, NZ (2005)
Teatro Studio di Scandicci, Florence; Officina Giovani, Prato; Istituto Giapponese di Cultura, Rome, Italy (2007)
The Stage Space
Wellington Airport, Wellington, NZ (2011)
The Performance Arcade
Aotea Square, Auckland, NZ (2011)
Wellington Waterfront, Wellington, NZ (2011-2023)
New Zealand New Performance Festival
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York, USA (2015)
Deep Anatomy
As part of the PSi Fluid States programme, Long Island, The Bahamas (2015)
NZ Ltd
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THE RESTAURANT OF MANY ORDERS
(directing and performance design)
The PlayGround NZ Ltd
Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells, London, UK (2004)
Te Whaea National Centre for Dance and Drama, Wellington, Aotearoa NZ (2005)
Teatro Studio di Scandicci, Florence, Italy (2007)
Oficina Giovane, Prato, Italy (2007)
Istituto Giapponese di Roma, Rome, Italy (2007)
NZ National Exhibit, The Prague Quadrennial, Prague (2007)
This international performance project investigated introduced the 1924 fairy tale by Kenji Miyaawa to five cities around the world, each time connecting with local histories, current events, and the particular architecture of each venue. As the work migrated between locations it was able to reflect and link certain archetypal concerns of those years, from US military prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, New Zealand’s own race relations with the Treaty of Waitangi tribunals, and Italy’s relationships with immigrant populations. In each space the audience were arranged around the playing space at long banqueting tables, to become an important scenic component of the performance. This scenic involvement became a social implication within the themes of the performance as the simple story of hunger and cannibalism unfolded around them. This production’s innovation in performance design, audience complicity, and site-responsiveness earned it sell-out houses and excellent reviews wherever it was shown. It was chosen for exhibition in the NZ National Exhibit for the 2007 Prague Quadrennial.
Principal collaborators: Tracy Zanelli (choreography and dance), Alessio Romani (producer), Bevan Smith (composer), Dorit Schwarz (choreography and dance), Mark Tintner and Geraint Rees (performers, UK), Tommaso Taddei and Carlo Salvador (performers, Italy), Kitty Owen (lighting design, UK), Laurie Dean (lighting design, NZ), Marco Falai (lighting design, Italy).
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SLEEP/WAKE
(directing and performance design)
The PlayGround NZ Ltd
In collaboration with sleep scientist Philippa Gander
The Print Factory, Wellington, Aotearoa NZ (2008)
Auckland Town Hall, Auckland Arts Festival, Aotearoa NZ (2009)
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, New York City, USA (2015)
Winner: Gold, at the Designer's Institute of NZ Best Awards 2009, and 3 NZ Fringe Festival Awards 2008
World Stage Design 2010, Seoul, South Korea
This award-winning production used science and performance to peel back the layers of consciousness on stage. Critics have praised the stunning visuals, choreography, and composition of this work – which features moving walls, projection, somnographic machinery, beautiful lighting, and many surprises. Through the languages of movement, image, and science a unique journey begins: into the unknown territory of sleep, where we spend one third of our lives. The show is staged on a custom-built set that forms an integral part of each performance. Critical to the experience is the live-operation of the technical elements of set design, light, sound and AV. Moving walls, projections, somnographic machinery, liquids seeping across the stage, and the play of light in the space are all live performances that are synthesised with the movements of the performers.
Principal collaborators: Elizabeth Barker and Maria Dabrowska (choreography and dance), Clare Needham (producer), Bevan Smith (composer), Marcus McShane (lighting design), Rowan Pierce (AV design assistant), James Conway-Law and Claire Middleton (performers, Wellington), Jamie Burgess, Joshua Rutter, Elise Chan, and Kristian Larsen, (performers, Auckland), Arthur Meek, Amelia Taverner, Elise Chan, and Debbie Fish (performers, NYC).
“HIGHLY ORIGINAL, MULTILAYERED, OUTSTANDINGLY EXECUTED” - Natalie Dowd, Theatreview, 2008
“The science comes from Dr Philippa Gander […] The rest belongs to the Playground. Both deserve applause for the intelligence with which art and scence have been brought together to satisfy the id and the ego” - Gilbert Wong, Metro Daily, 2009
"I would recommend this show to anyone. Trubridge and his collaborators are to be commended for pursuing such an ambitious vision. The result is a highly challenging, experimental and exciting production, rendering science as amenable to expression through performance. There are moments of humour, surprise and pathos. The production will be fresh and unique every night due to its highly volatile elements. Don’t miss it.” - Helen Sims, The Lumiere Reader, 2008
"Trubridge plays a trick wherein he sets up a few conventions – a boxed room, a narrative opening monologue – and allows the audience to fall into the pattern of watching performance in a familiar way. But as the dreamscape devolves into an unsettling frenzy, the conventions of what a theater space looks like – are the walls supposed to stay standing? Are you supposed to have light flashed in your face? – get broken down too." - Dani Lencioni, CultureBot, 2015
“The many things scientists are learning about the layers in the sleeping, dreaming brain were taken as starting points for a visionary theatre piece… there’s so much intriguing and thought-provoking material to contemplate on the nature of sleep, perchance to dream, that I’ll certainly be going back for another draught.” - Jennifer Shennan, Dominion Post, 2008
“There is wonder, humour, questioning, comfort, challenge, quirks of expectation and even reality in an amazing live video link to London (Is it real? Is it not? Am I dreaming?) Trubridge’s interior realm of dreaming makes fascinating and evocative theatre.” - Dierdre Tarrant, Capital Times, 2008
“This is a rich piece of theatre art with rich collaborations woven into the tapestry of the whole; an intriguing dance between science and theatre.… Really worth seeing.” - Lyne Pringle, Theatreview, 2008
“Sleep/Wake demonstrated clever use of simple devices to powerful effect. The abstract appeal of the set is engaging and unexpected”.- The Designer’s Institute of NZ, 2009
“The Australasian Sleep Association applauds The Playground's production of Sleep/Wake. Through narrative, movement and digital imagery it informs about the nature of sleep, challenges and disturbs as it captures the tension between the competing priorities of sleep and wakefulness and powerfully evokes the surreal world of the dreaming sleeper”.
- The Australasian Sleep Association, 2009
‘Sleep/Wake demonstrates the collaborative ingenuity of The Playground NZ. The show is best appreciated as performance art; considered as a poetic combination of live performance and sensory stimulation it is skilful and compelling’. -Alison Walls, Theatreview, 2015
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ECOLOGY IN FIFTHS
(directing and performance design)
The PlayGround NZ Ltd
Development Season for Blow Festival, Massey University, Wellington, Aotearoa NZ (2010)
Te Whaea National Centre for Dance and Drama, Wellington, Aotearoa NZ (2020)
Hastings Opera House, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival, Aotearoa NZ (2020)
H Guthrie-Smith Centre, Hawkes Bay Arts Festival, Tūtira, Aotearoa NZ (2020)
World Stage Design 2022, Calgary, Canada,
Ecology in Fifths is a dance and design based production integrating musical composition, choreography and set design. This orchestration of performing elements reflects upon the ecologies that we inhabit in our everyday lives, illustrating how microcosmic events can have a significant effect upon global crises. This stunning work looks at H Guthrie Smith’s (1921) Tutira: The Story of an NZ Sheep Station, an obsessive account of the NZ ecology that is now a recognised classic in environmental science worldwide. An elevated platform of grass becomes the stage wherein suburban rituals, pastoral tragedies, and earthy reveries unfold to the rhythm of an immersive sound-scape by NZ composer Bevan Smith. Seated on four sides of this structure, the audience is enveloped in the ecology of the work constructed through dance, music, and performance design. Piece by piece the NZ myth of a ‘clean green and natural landscape’ is unravelled to reveal the environmental tensions that lie underneath our grassy paddocks and forest canopies.
Principal collaborators: Sean Macdonald (choreographer), Bevan Smith (composer), Marcus McShane (lighting design), Malia Johnston (rehearsal director), Brydie Colquhoun, Luke Hana, Emmanuel Reynaud, and Hannah Tasker-Poland (dancers), Elizabeth Barker, Anita Hunziker, Alex Leonhartsberger, and Joshua Rutter (dancer/choreographers in 2010 development season).
“To be in the presence of this work is a privilege” – Rosheen Fitzgerald, HBAF review, 2020
“A magnetic, muscular movement performance evoking our primal relationship to our rural landscape” – Mark Amery, The Big Idea, 2020
“The impact and strength of this work is a tribute to the vision and concept of director Sam Trubridge and his collaborators and team” – Deirdre Tarrant, TheatreView, 2010
“Thought provoking and devastatingly stunning” – Kim Buckley, TheatreView, 2020