In March, the Tim Bray Theatre Company launched a fundraiser to help it stay afloat. Today, it announced its closure - not due to financial pressures but founder Tim Bray's battle with incurable cancer.
The struggling arts sector faces another blow with the closure of Tim Bray’s children’s theatre company as he undergoes chemotherapy treatment for a rare form of cancer.
Children’s theatre champion Tim Bray, whose shows have entertained royalty and hundreds of thousands of children over the past three decades,is battling incurable cancer and has announced his company will be closed.
The final curtain will fall after a three-week season of The Santa Claus Show ‘24, which opens on Sunday at the PumpHouse Theatre in Takapuna, the company’s historic home venue on the shore of Lake Pupuke.
Bray, 60, recently began chemotherapy treatment for desmoplastic small, round cell sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer more commonly seen in children and young adults.
In a statement released today, he said efforts had failed to find a successor to run the Tim Bray Theatre Company, a registered charitable trust.
“Combined with my current health challenges, I do not have the energy or capacity for the essential handover and training required.”
It’s yet another blow for the arts sector, after the closure of Capital E’s touring National Theatre for Children late last year and the youth-based Young and Hungry Arts Trust in 2022.
Founded in 1991 by Bray, who’s also the artistic director, the Tim Bray Theatre Company has staged more than 100 original productions – surpassed only by Auckland Theatre Company in terms of audience size.
The then-Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall (now King Charles and Queen Camilla) were in the audience for a Queen’s Jubilee celebratory performance of Hairy Maclary in 2012. A few years earlier, an adaptation of A Lion in the Meadow was performed for author Margaret Mahy at her 70th birthday.
This December will mark the 20th anniversary of The Santa Claus Show, a popular annual production. It will also be the company's final sign off.
Known for both its playfulness and innovation, the company memorably created a version of The Wind in the Willows where the cast performed scenes at different locations in and around the theatre. An irascible Mr Toad drove a real vintage car and the actor playing Otter emerged from the lake in a black wetsuit.
Bray, who was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal, has been a passionate advocate for making the magic of theatre accessible to children. His company pioneered the introduction of NZSL-interpreted performances and more than 7000 people attended a free show last year through its Gift a Seat programme.
“I know that children need and deserve top-quality performing arts experiences to be great people in the future, and imaginative and free,” he says, in a video clip released earlier this year as part of a fundraising campaign.
Over the years, Bray and his team have weathered some difficult times. In 2020, they were 10 days away from opening a production of Joy Cowley’s picture book Greedy Cat when New Zealand went into lockdown because of Covid.
However, the company’s trustees have emphasised the closure has not been driven by financial reasons.
A career in the performing arts wasn’t originally on the cards when Bray graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Science, but his first job was as an actor and he’s followed that path ever since.
The Tim Bray Theatre Company began life as The Central Theatre, in the space now occupied by the Basement Theatre, behind the Auckland Town Hall. A character actor and stand-up comedian, Bray has also written adult solo shows, but younger audiences have always held his heart.
“Despite the huge increase in technology, screens and instant entertainment,” he told the Herald in a 2016 interview, “children today still richly respond to the stories, characters, humour and poignancy of live theatre as they did when I started.”
The 20th anniversary edition of The Santa Claus Show is to run from December 1- 22 at The PumpHouse Theatre, created for children aged 3-8. The season includes NZSL-interpreted and audio-described performances, as well as a “sensory-relaxed” option for neurodivergent audience members.
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior feature writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
