KEY POINTS:
What: Murder by Chocolate
Where and when: Herald Theatre, Sep 21-29; no shows on Mon or Tues
Fuelled by coffee and chocolate - not to mention the sweet taste of success - rising Kiwi theatre stars Alex Ellis and Phil Ormsby take another bite out of Auckland this month.
The duo caused a stir with their first production, last year's manic comedy Biscuit and Coffee about one woman's obsessional hunt for the perfect cup of coffee.
That was partly because of Ellis' stand-out solo performance, but their raw verve also won them fans.
They wrote, produced and directed the show, then hopped in a $400 van, aptly nicknamed the biscuit tin, and staged it in 40 towns throughout New Zealand in cafes, former cinemas, town halls and theatres.
The food theme continues with the latest production, Murder by Chocolate, but Ormsby and Ellis don't have a food fixation.
"We told people the next show would be a murder mystery and joked it would have to be about chocolate so we could get a sponsor but then people started asking us, 'when is the chocolate show coming up?"' says Ellis. "Originally, there was one joke in the script about chocolate but it just sort of took over."
Murder by Chocolate attracted a sponsor; none other then Cadbury, which meant Ellis and Ormsby found themselves at Dunedin's Chocolate Carnival in July after performances in Wellington, Tauranga and Whakatane.
Ellis plays romance writer Felicia Fargo, who wants the literary world to take her seriously. Felicia decides to pen a crime novel only to find the murders she depicts - all by chocolate - start happening in real life.
True to classic whodunnits, she seeks to untangle a web of lies and plot twists to uncover the killer's identity but doing so means facing her own chocolate demons.
Ormsby shares the spotlight with Ellis, playing five support characters. They have worked out how much chocolate can comfortably be consumed on stage, particularly in a scene where gluttony takes over and the duo gorge.
"We learnt pretty early on that we couldn't use chewy caramel chocolates because they take too long to chew and swallow," says Ellis.
"It meant we had two boxes of these types of chocolate. When we left Wellington, after the shows, we were like, we've had enough chocolate for now but by the time we got back home to the Bay of Plenty, both boxes were empty. Chocolate really is addictive."
It seems audiences find their quirky brand of theatre addictive, too. Numbers have grown 20-25 per cent since Biscuit and Coffee while a bigger budget allows more sophisticated marketing.
Rather than doing the bulk of publicity, marketing and ticket sales themselves, Ellis and Ormsby, who has quit his day job, have contracted some work out meaning they are free to concentrate on creating theatre.
While Ellis and Ormsby joke that Murder by Chocolate contains nuts, they are clearly not the nutty ones.
They are working on a third show, looking at ways to keep growing audience numbers and planning tours around New Zealand with the new show and Biscuit and Coffee, and looking to Australia.
"After all," says Ellis, "one of the main reasons we started this was so we could travel at the same time as working and taking theatre to rural towns and centres.
"We haven't been on the road for a while and we are getting itchy feet."
