The players

Kim Chapman, centre, during rehearsals for his play, Apollo 13: Mission Control. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's called Fresh Produce but it has nothing to do with farmers' markets or the current vogue for home-grown vegetables.

Instead, it epitomises the blossoming of live theatre in Auckland. The mini festival of new New Zealand theatre, written and performed by actors you may not have heard of, begins next month at the shabbily chic Basement Theatre.

Across town, Flipside, a play about the capsizing of the Rose-Noelle and the crew's epic 119-day battle for survival at sea, begins theatre company SmackBang's 2010 season at The Auckland Performing Arts Centre.

Meanwhile, performing arts outfit Hackman heads to Sydney next month to stage Apollo 13: Mission Control, where the audience gets to play the parts of Nasa staff rescuing three astronauts from space.

So many names, so many shows. The script for live theatre in Auckland is being rewritten thanks to a growing number of actors, writers and directors who are starting their own theatre companies.

Growing up in a New Zealand where all they remember is the post-Rogernomics economy, the artists behind these emerging companies are blending creativity with commerce - and while theatre won't make them rich, it is adding immeasurably to Auckland's cultural maturity.

Theatre is being taken out of conventional venues and into the streets, pubs, art galleries, Scout halls and even former grain silos. With more people making theatre, more local stories being written and performed and more places to see them in, the net effect is that going to the theatre is hip. "The younger people who come to the theatre now treat it like going to a gig; it is one more entertainment option for them rather than seen as something akin to going to church," says theatre stalwart Michael Hurst.

"Theatre is a vital part of us listening to us." Auckland Theatre Company (ATC) and Silo Theatre are the city's two biggest professional companies but there's a plethora of smaller outfits with names like Catalyst, The Emergency Room, The Rebel Alliance, SmackBang, Flaxworks, Peach Theatre Company, Phundmi, Co Physical Theatre, Easy Company, Massive, The Dust Palace, Yes Please and Fingerprints and Teeth. Some enjoy phenomenal success.

Indian Ink was started by Justin Lewis and Jacob Rajan in 1996. Its award-winning plays - Krishnan's Dairy, The Candlestickmaker and The Pickle King - have travelled the world and been seen by around 170,000 people. Its latest production, The Guru of Chai, will be performed in private homes, perhaps signalling the start of a different trend. What's new, say industry veterans, is the number of can-do emerging companies and the variety of work performed.

So, too, is widespread recognition from local councils about the importance of the arts. A string of international reports have detailed how the "creative industries" are a powerful way to enhance a city's identity, create jobs and make it a more desirable place to live.

Auckland City has thrown its weight behind the eagerly-awaited Q Theatre, which includes flexible staging and seating for 350-460. The council has gifted the buildings and will provide running costs and land on a long-term lease.

To date, $9.2 million has been committed, as well as an agreement in principle for an operational subsidy once Q opens next year. The council also provides funding through its Creative Communities and Arts Alive initiatives and development programmes like Stamp, which offers performers practical help with such as venue hire, marketing and technical support. The emphasis is on fresh and contemporary work with a strong New Zealand flavour.

Sally Barnett, producer of development programmes, says those who receive Stamp support may be emerging or established artists who want to try something new. "We work in partnership and share some of the risk, which is very important to the growth and development of theatre.

Without this sort of support, theatre practitioners might be reluctant to try new things and that limits the growth of the creative sector." Chapman can't speak highly enough of the help his company has received, especially when it debuted in Auckland last August.

"Stamp really helped with the technical side of the show which meant production values were higher. Being part of the programme means credence with funding organisations like Creative New Zealand to do other work. Stamp continues to work with you after each show so you build up a relationship. I am a massive champion for it, it's an awesome thing."

The show is heading to Sydney on March 19 for a week of performances, thanks in part to contacts made through Stamp.

Do Aucklanders mind their rates dollars going to the arts? A Colmar Brunton survey released in 2009 suggests not: 79 per cent of Aucklanders agreed the arts help define who we are as New Zealanders, 71 per cent felt their community would be poorer without the arts - an increase from 65 per cent in 2005 - and 55 per cent agreed they can't live without the arts.

In part, independent theatre companies are a spinoff from the region's more lucrative television and film industry. With a greater number of advertisements, television series and feature films shot here, there's a strong incentive for actors from around the country to head north for better-paid screen work.

While the money and exposure is good, it's irregular and temporary work, sometimes creatively limiting and, of course, often dependent on having the right look at the right time.

Determined to forge enduring careers in an industry not noted for stability or longevity, setting up theatre companies gives actors a focus for artistic endeavours and a measure of control over their careers.

Catalyst Theatre is one of the newer players, having staged its first production in 2008. It was started by Unitec graduates Sam Berkley, Ora Simpson, Ben Van Lier, Kura Forrester and Jonathan Hodge who decided to write their own plays because they couldn't find local contemporary scripts that spoke of and for their generation.

"Having a company gives you a sense of control over your destiny," says Hodge, 32, who graduated from Canterbury University with a degree in management science and operations research. Tired of life in the so-called "real world", Hodge gave it away to study drama.

Pragmatic and polished, he puts skills gained in his previous life to use keeping an eye on the bottom-line for Catalyst.

"Bigger companies have bigger overheads and, out of necessity, need more marketable actors. No one can blame them for that. They are businesses and it doesn't make good business sense to use an entire cast of unknown actors or more alternative scripts all the time."

Catalyst's debut production, A City of Souls, was based around the often drunken, drug-fuelled and hollow experiences of a group of 20-something New Zealanders unsure of what to do with themselves once school and university were over. It garnered positive reviews, broke even and convinced them a second show was worthwhile.

Its follow-up play, TWACAS (The West Auckland Cardigan Appreciation Society), written by 25-year-old Sam Berkley, completes a 10-day run next Saturday.

Some young theatre stars are even convincing their more well-known counterparts to join them. The celebrity support can bring huge benefits, as Natalie Medlock and Dan Musgrove have discovered.

The pair graduated from Wellington's Toi Whakaari - New Zealand Drama School in 2007 and moved to Auckland the following year. Between jobs with established theatre companies and TV commercial appearances they stay busy writing, producing and starring in their own shows.

Last year, they talked themselves into the assignment of a lifetime. Working with the Basement Theatre, they wrote the controversial Christmas comedy, Christ Almighty, which turned the traditional Yuletide nativity story on its head. It featured a rotating cast, where characters are played by a different actor every night.

A similar production, American cult comedy The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, had sold out at the Basement in 2007 with profits used to improve its in-demand facilities.

Christ Almighty was also a fundraiser, it was rude and raucous and it gave actors the chance to let loose for a one-night-only performance. Known celebrities and newcomers alike queued to join.

The first cast meeting was more like a who's who of New Zealand's arts and entertainment scene with performers like Antonia Prebble, Alison Quigan, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Oliver Driver, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Angela Bloomfield, Michael Hurst, Sara Wiseman, Shane Bosher, Lisa Chappell, Robbie Magasiva, Amanda Billing and Danielle Cormack among the line-up.

"I remember thinking, 'these people, who have often been our role models, are going to be reading these words we've written' but you have to get over that or you freak yourself out and don't write anything," says Musgrove.

The pair has been overwhelmed by the backing they've received from the city's theatre stalwarts; Hurst posted positive comments of their first show, Blinkers and Spurs, on the website theatreview.co.nz and urged others to support them.

Hurst's "helping hand" highlights an important feature of the theatrical landscape. It is benefitting from the hard work the earlier generation put in.

Auckland now has a strong tier of seasoned theatre veterans who willingly share knowledge and assist mid-career actors and young graduates with feedback on scripts, directing their shows or even appearing in them, and generally just being there to give advice.

In 2007 and 2009, Silo ran the Ensemble Project to put aspiring actors through their paces under the direction of Hurst and Oliver Driver.

Among those who took part were Medlock, Musgrove, Jonathan Hodge, Sophie Henderson, Curtis Vowell and Michelle Blundell. Henderson, Vowell and Blundell, along with friend Brett O'Gorman, have taken the next step in their respective careers and formed the Yes Please Company to write, produce and star in the "unromantic comedy" I Heart Camping.

Cameron Rhodes, arguably the country's best character actor, a busy theatre director and former tutor of Henderson and Blundell, directs. Vowell - he's the dishy barman on the KiwiBank TV ads - says the genesis for I Heart Camping came during an exercise for the Ensemble project.

Given that so many New Zealanders go camping, he and Henderson figured it was about time someone wrote a play about it. "And we're not the kind of people who can just sit around and wait for the phone to ring. That would do our heads in," he says.

Meanwhile, ATC has the only theatre-based literary unit in the country dedicated to developing new New Zealand work. It has been responsible for the production of dozens of plays, a number performed by smaller independent companies.

Its education unit has done much to encourage young practitioners through workshops, a summer school "theatre boot camp", work experience and internships while its school matinee performances help cultivate new theatre-goers.

One of the biggest hurdles facing theatre companies without a permanent base - and that includes Auckland Theatre Company, not just the independents - is finding somewhere to perform. Necessity being the mother of invention means many have used alternative venues.

Phundmi Productions staged its first production, Shakespeare Unbar'd, at the Dog's Bollix Irish pub partly because they had seen another show there and liked the atmosphere. "With Shakespeare Unbar'd, our aim was to make theatre for everybody, the person in the street who doesn't usually go the theatre," says Phundmi co-founder Liesha Ward Knox, daughter of musician Chris Knox.

"Being at the Dog's Bollix was hilarious because, on the one hand, there were theatre people and our friends sitting politely watching and, on the other, there were the regulars standing at the bar yelling and heckling. It was a wonderful feeling to make theatre for people in their own environment." The arrival of the Basement Theatre has been one of the biggest shots in the arm for local theatre.

For 10 years, the Basement was the Silo Theatre but it left in 2008 to become resident company at the bigger Herald Theatre. Now the space provides an affordable venue to stage more alternative style work. "If someone wants to put on a show here, they can do it without having to worry it will fail and they will lose their house," says Charlie McDermott, the Basement's general manager.

"They might just lose their car instead...," jokes Silo's artistic director Shane Bosher, who has been helping the Basement's management team find ways to deal with a surfeit of bookings.

But McDermott, himself an actor, says most shows sell well despite limited marketing and their sometimes offbeat nature.

"The Silo made it a cool venue to go and, by extension cool to go to the theatre," he says. "It's great because of its intimacy [seating just over 100 people] and there's a bar so I think there will always be a market for this space."

The Auckland Performing Arts Centre (Tapac) in Western Springs offers a new opportunity. Managed by theatre producer, director and actor Margaret Mary Hollins, it's employed SmackBang as resident company and signed up a couple of other smaller outfits, including Phundmi, for shows.

"I think Margaret Mary saw it as a way to breathe new life into Tapac but it's also breathed new life into SmackBang," says company spokesman, Charlie Unwin, of the new partnership.

"Having a home means we can concentrate on planning ahead, achieve higher production values, run a development programme and compile better funding applications."

As a company on the rise, Unwin and business partner Tainui Tukiwaho want to create opportunities for new writers as well as celebrate New Zealand's theatrical mainstays.

It will stage five productions this year, all local works or ones with a decided Kiwi spin - like Othello in English and Maori. It will also offer a schools' programme, aimed at providing students access to a selection of plays throughout the year and the chance to meet cast, writers and directors and discuss the creation and performance of the piece.

It's all part of a theatre scene which keeps actors acting, writers writing and directors directing - and audiences watching.