Don't leave town till you've seen the world

Elizabeth Hawthorne will star in the production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Photo / Tim White

From the campgrounds of New Zealand to the streets of contemporary Italy, Auckland theatre-goers can see the world without leaving home next year, in an eclectic assortment of comedies, drama, home-grown and international works.

The theatre year begins on January 19 with Short + Sweet, the world's largest 10-minute theatre festival held across Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, brought to Auckland as part of The Edge's Stamp programme, which helps new and emerging artists to get their work on stage.

The Stamp season for the first half of the year also includes Jonny Brugh's The Second Test, a piece originally developed at the PumpHouse about the 1953 NZ cricket team, and the "unromantic" comedy I Love Camping, written by Sophie Henderson and Curtis Vowell.

A new New Zealand story opens Auckland Theatre Company's season, with Dave Armstrong's "wickedly revisionist satire", Le Sud, about what might have been had the French claimed and settled in the South Island in 1838.

The comedy theme continues in March, with Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Colin McColl and starring Elizabeth Hawthorne as Lady Bracknell. ATC creative director Colin McColl promises a new take on Wilde's classic, saying it will be a "subversive" look at the English aristocracy set in the 1960s. Ken Duncum's Horse Play claims third spot in the company's season. In it, two of our most eccentric men of letters, James K Baxter and Ronald Hugh Morrison, clash over horses, women, booze and the nature of the creative act. Musicals - or at least plays with a toe-tapping theme - look to be big mid-year. ATC stages the comedy Stepping Out in June, with Annie Whittle, Sandra Rasmussen, Jason Te Mete and Goretti Chadwick.

Peach Theatre recreates the mean streets of Victorian London at the Maidment, when it breathes new life into the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. Sondheim fans are in for a double treat, with Silo Theatre putting on Assassins at the Town Hall Concert Chamber in July.

The Bard isn't omitted from programmes, either. In July, emerging Dutch director Willem Wassenaar joins designer Andrew Foster to work with ATC on Romeo and Juliet. From Italy, ATC goes to the United States in Tracey Lett's multi award-winning comedy August: Osage County, about where and how the American Dream became a nightmare.

The company's grand finale aims to transport audiences to 1930s Berlin. Cabaret, directed by Michael Hurst, will be staged in the Salon Perdu Spiegeltent, where ATC wants to recreate its very own Kit Kat Klub.

ATC general manager Lester McGrath hopes the Spiegeltent will provide a medium-term solution to the company's venue problems. He says finding venues are the bane of his life.

The Basement begins the year with Harold Pinter's The Lover, followed by Patrick Marber's Closer. Its programme includes a two-week season of six original NZ theatre and dance works including Green Room, The Posing Project and The Idea of America.

Drowning Bird Plummeting Fish and Animal Hour, a double-bill from Wellington's Binge Culture Collective, will be presented in April followed by a new devised work called Broken China, from the Almost a Bird Theatre Collective. The NZ International Comedy Festival checks in during May, followed by Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V Royal. Stamp returns with The Intricate Art of Actually Caring by Eli Kent in June, followed by innovative theatre-makers The Rebel Alliance with Gravity Hotel.

In July, ATC's Young and Hungry Festival returns to The Basement for its second year in Auckland, as well as Red Light Winter, Mojo, My Name is Rachel Corrie and The Pitchfork Disney later in the year.

Nowhere does the expression "watch this space" apply more aptly than at Western Springs' Tapac. Under the management of veteran theatre practitioner Margaret Mary Hollins, the Auckland Performing Arts Centre has a packed schedule of new, independent and community shows.

SmackBang Theatre is now Tapac's resident company. It stages Ken Duncum's Flipside in March, Raising the Titanics, a commissioned work by award-winning playwright Albert Belz about Maori show bands in June, and Shakespeare's Othello in October. Ngati Productions, a Maori theatre subsidiary company of SmackBang, stages Ngamanurere by Renae Maihi in June.

Hollins says other shows planned for the centre include The House of Bernarda Alba, written in 1936 by Fredrico Garcia Lorca, and The Idea of America in September.

Tapac is also opening its doors to community-based theatre groups, Prayas and African Pacific Productions. Hollins says the two companies, with a loyal following among Auckland's Indian and African communities, need help to develop their work.

The kids don't miss out, either. Tim Bray Productions will present four shows at the PumpHouse Theatre for the young ones. Much-loved children's author Tessa Duder is adapting her award-winning book Alex for the stage, a production aimed at older children.

The company will tour Joy Cowley's Snake and Lizard to the Bay of Islands Arts Festival in February. Phineas Phrog has three shows planned for the Bruce Mason Centre: Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid and Puss 'n' Boots.