What: I Heart Camping
Where and when: Basement Theatre, February 24-March
Just over a year ago, blond, lithe and simply gorgeous actress Sophie Henderson sauntered on to the Basement Theatre stage in The Reindeer Monologues, near-naked apart from an itsy bitsy, teenie weenie bikini. Not yellow polka dots but faux deer skin befitting her role as doe Vixen.
Men in the audience gasped and gaped, wide-eyed with delight; women gasped and gaped, wide-eyed with shock. More than a few elbows were dug into ribs. If her bold appearance was the only glimpse one had of Henderson, it might have been tempting to dismiss her as exploiting her looks rather than talent.
But Henderson is something of a theatrical wunderkind. Masterful performances in Silo Theatre shows The Little Dog Laughed and The Scene have made her one of the most promising new actors in Auckland.
I Heart Camping marks her next step. Henderson and actor boyfriend Curtis Vowell have formed the Yes Please Theatre Company to write, produce and star in a play about that most New Zealand of summer traditions: camping.
William (Vowell) decides to surprise Samantha (Henderson) by taking her to the campground she and her family visited every summer when she was a child. But there's a hitch or two. Samantha is lying about loving the place; William is lying about being a camping expert. William and Samantha are about to find out they don't know each other as well as they thought - if they can ever escape their fellow campers and well-meaning locals played by the versatile Michelle Blundell and Brett O'Gorman.
"The central theme is deceit and that the truth will always come out, especially when people are out of their normal environment," says Henderson, soon to be seen as a regular character on TV's Outrageous Fortune.
She and Vowell describe I Heart Camping as an "unromantic comedy" designed to appeal to anyone who has ever pitched a tent, which is something they have done often during recent months as research for the piece.
"There's a lot of comedy in camping," says Vowell. "It's not really 'getting away from it all' at all. You have to bring so much stuff, in summer at many campgrounds there are hundreds of other people and you can't just relax because there's always something to do."
The I Heart Camping set aims to reflect that. There's a tree, a real tyre swing, a huge picnic table and Vowell and Henderson get to pitch the tent and cook dinner over a gas burner.
Henderson, new to camping, never went as a child and says that may be why she appreciates it more now - although a winter trip almost put her off. "We went camping in the middle of winter. We got there as it was getting dark and starting to rain and we had a new tent."
"Which the campground owner had to help us put up," adds Vowell, "after she moved us away from where we intended to pitch the tent which, she told us, was the area the dogs use as a toilet."
The kind-hearted campground owner may see herself in one of the many eccentric but recognisable characters William and Samantha encounter during their getaway.
While the characters are an amalgam of people they've met on camping trips, the story itself had its beginning three years ago when Henderson and Vowell met on the Silo Theatre's Ensemble project.
Co-director Oliver Driver told the project's 12 newcomers to team up with someone they didn't know to devise a scenario and then improvise it for the group. Henderson and Vowell turned to one another and decided their improvised story would be about camping.
Veteran theatre practitioner Cameron Rhodes, who once tutored Henderson and Blundell, agreed to direct the play because the characters appealed to him and the story made him laugh.
"It's a great premise and despite the fact that camping is so popular, I can't remember another play about it," says Rhodes.
"It's also very relevant given, you know, the economic climate and all because camping is a very good recessionary holiday. You can pitch your tent and stay for ages at a campground and it's relatively cheap."
