Smash-hit Hysterical lands at MTG: Laura Vodanovich

Hysterical, a show by award-winning poets Carrie Rudzinski and Olivia Hall, plays in Century Theatre on October 11.

Laura Vodanovich is MTG director.

Tonight we have Nuit Blanche here in Ahuriri/Napier. As usual we expect to see the cultural sector of the city buzzing with people out having fun.

Specifically at the museum, we will have our ever-popular black light activity, where anyone can come and use highlighters to decorate one of the pre-prepared designs and then pin them up to see how they look under black lights.

This fun activity leads to a wall full of beautiful designs that is lovely to see. The designs this year have taken their inspiration from a community collaborative artwork.

The Paint My Heritage project was run by the South African community to celebrate their Heritage Day (September 24) and their two homelands, South Africa and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Each participant was given a small portion of the artwork to paint and then all the pieces were brought together to create the final design. You can see this colourful, collaborative artwork in the museum foyer at the entry to the black art activity.

In the Century Theatre, locally made and internationally award-winning short film Opia will be screening throughout the evening. This short film was created by writer/director Cosmo Calman and used an entirely Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawke’s Bay crew from actors to editing. His film, centred around modern graffiti and street culture, won the Best Editing award at the Busan New Wave International Short Film Festival in South Korea. We hope you enjoy seeing some of our amazing local talent on the big screen.

In our front foyer, we have a beautiful, large-scale botanical work by local artist Cinzah Merkens on the wall.

Upstairs, a new exhibition, “Earth & Fire: conversations in clay”, showcases ceramic works from the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust’s collection.

If you haven’t experienced the new earthquake gallery, Shockwave: Hawke’s Bay’s Great Quake, 1931, then this is the perfect night to explore this redeveloped exhibition. It includes our shake house, which is kindly sponsored by Toka Tū Ake Natural Hazards Commission. This enables you to experience an earthquake without the risk, while also learning how to keep yourself, your whānau/family and home safe.

After Nuit Blanche, we have other great arts and culture events coming to the museum. Working in collaboration with the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival, and alongside our Hidden in History: Trailblazing Women of Hawke’s Bay exhibition on October 11, we will have Hysterical in the Century Theatre.

This smash-hit theatre show by award-winning poets Carrie Rudzinski and Olivia Hall was crowned Best New Aotearoa Play (Wellington Fringe Awards) and Outstanding Performance Poetry (Auckland Fringe). Described as theatre that every woman will relate to, it tackles the everyday realities of shame, rage, body politics, supermarket meltdowns, and the myths that still tell us we’re “too emotional” to be taken seriously. Equal parts fierce, funny and fearless, this looks too good to miss.

On October 16, we have Show Me Shorts 2025: The Sampler. This ever-popular film programme shows inspiring and thoughtful stories, including a boxing nun, an AI robot, a dedicated teacher, a Palestinian man trying to return home, an out-of-depth dad at a twirling competition, and a maniacal ice-cream seller on the beach. Looks like a great mix.

Then on October 30, we have the opening night for our newest film treat, the British & Irish Film Festival. This festival runs from October 30-November 9 and is full of great films to make you laugh, cry and pause. We are showing a sneak peek of the trailers in the Century Theatre tomorrow at 11.30am, so why not come along and see what this festival will have to offer.