Little theatre's big success

Charlie McDermott starred in SiLo's sellout 'Shopping and ****ing'.

Over the past year, Shane Bosher, artistic director of the SiLo Theatre, has confounded the expectations of some for the little theatre tucked behind the Auckland Town Hall. Under his stewardship, SiLo has gone from a quirky performance space with an erratic track record to consistently producing must-see theatre for an increasing number of theatregoers.

This year was the SiLo's most successful since its inception in 1997. More than 21,000 people passed through the doors, 8000 more than the previous year, and the subscriber base is steadily growing.

Two SiLo plays, Shopping & ****ing and The Women, were among the hottest tickets this year, selling out long before their seasons ended. Three other plays were also sellouts: Under Milk Wood, Indian Invaders (as part of the Comedy Festival) and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. The SiLo Theatre is now the place to go.

"When I started, the SiLo had a developmental philosophy but it really didn't happen in practice," Bosher says. "It was very much a venue for hire, where people came and lost money, doing plays that weren't ready to be seen.

"I sat down and looked at my own start as an actor and realised that the times I had learned the most were when I was working on a really fantastic play with actors much more experienced than myself.

"I put a programme policy in place where new playwrights would work with an experienced dramaturge and director, a new director would work on a proven play, new actors with an experienced director, and so on." Bosher began to implement the policy rigorously and believes 2004 has confirmed its success.

Last year, the theatre was refurbished with a traverse stage, where the audience is divided and face each other across the performance space.

Bosher has done his time in the seats, watching his audience. "I've been fascinated to watch the audience mix this year. At the start of the year, we had Sara Wiseman and Scott Wills in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. I think Sara has a strong following and a high profile from her television work, and she brought in people who had never been to the SiLo before.

"In 2003 we did The Country Wife and Remuera descended. When I was programming 2004, I wanted something in the same vein, so we had Caryl Churchill's Cloud9, which did respectable business from the same sort of people."

Then came Import, a festival of contemporary works, including Shopping & ****ing, Closer, Bash and Tape. Its success took even Bosher by surprise.

"Shopping & ****ing almost sold out before opening night. I thought it would be the content which rattled the cage, but it was the title that sold the tickets. I thought it would be a predominantly gay audience, but there were plenty of heterosexual couples in their 40s.

"The next three plays in the series brought in a whole lot of people who had never been to the theatre before, people in their 20s whose experience of theatre had been limited to school productions or big shows like Mamma Mia. These people started to come back again and again. In Import, they started to see themselves and their lives on stage."

Earlier 20th-century works have also been popular, as Under Milk Wood and The Women proved. "I have never seen a production sell like The Women. We still had two weeks to go in the season and were sold out."

But the year was not without its problems. The theatre was the subject of talkback diatribe after a leaflet drop for Shopping & ****ing that unintentionally included pensioner housing. And Bosher has fielded several complaints about the violence in the latest play, Mr Kolpert, where - by the end of the performance - the stage is covered with food, fake blood and vomit.

"I didn't anticipate the reaction to the violence to be as charged as it has been," says Bosher, who directed the play.

"The violence is like a Tarantino movie, but there you are distanced by the screen. Because of the nature of the SiLo it is so close it is palpable and quite confrontational.

"Although we've staged it as cartoon violence, some people can't stand it."

The size and resources of the theatre are not without their frustrations. "A lot of work we want is simply not available to us - we just can't get the rights," Bosher says. "But I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved on such little resource. The SiLo doesn't have shows playing to 10 people any more. People have come to expect a certain standard."

Bosher has big things planned for 2005, which will be his final year at the SiLo - he is moving overseas, wary of complacency.

The theatre is spreading its wings. The first play of the year, New Zealand's first theatrical production of A Clockwork Orange, will be performed in a warehouse adjacent to the theatre, the first time the SiLo brand has been taken outside the theatre walls. It will be the largest production Bosher has taken on, with a cast of 17.

In October, the SiLo will take The Women to Downstage in Wellington, and Bosher hopes to bring the play back to a bigger venue in Auckland.

Colin Mitchell and Caroline Bell-Booth, directors the SiLo has fostered in its developmental programme, will present their new offerings. Mitchell is directing his own adaptation of the Patrick Suskind novel Perfume for the AKO5 Auckland Festival, and Bell-Booth will direct the Kenneth Lonergan play This Is Our Youth.

Danielle Cormack will star in a production of Badjelly The Witch, Jennifer Ward-Lealand in Burn This, and there will be a series of developmental works by new directors.

As his swansong, Bosher hopes to direct Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, which would be the SiLo's first musical. "I want to keep people guessing about the SiLo. I don't want us to become predictable. I've programmed some stuff unlike anything the SiLo has presented before. I'm totally confident about A Clockwork Orange, but not sure about some of the productions planned next year. I figure that's a good place to be. I want to rattle the cage."