Sophie Henderson in Silo Theatre's 2014 thriller Belleville. In September, she plays the lead role in The Writer, marking 25 years since the groundbreaking company was founded. Photo / Andrew Malmo
Feature writer - Canvas magazine
It's 25 years since Silo Theatre erupted on to the Auckland arts scene. Six stars who made their name with the fearless, ground-breaking company share their scandals, secrets and success stories with Joanna Wane.
A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES Playwright Toa Fraser, Bare (1998, 2007-2008)
I was working as an usher at a movie theatre in Newmarket at the time. It was a colliding pot of contemporary Auckland voices in the late 90s and I used that in the play, which is a real slice of life with different characters telling their stories from diverse points of view. I wasn't good with titles in those days, but the idea was that it was a bare stage with two actors and no props, done as imaginatively and inexpensively as we could. That ethos has guided me in everything I've done since, even on quite large productions.
I'd work at the cinema on Saturday nights 'til closing time, and hang around next door at Burger King, where I used to eat every day. The only exception to that was the Continental Noodle House in Durham Lane. The day after Bare premiered, I overheard some people a couple of tables over talking about this great play they'd seen the night before. At that moment I knew it was time to hand in my resignation to the movies. It was a complete turning point in my life.
Silo was the perfect fringe venue and [founder] Sharyn Duncan fostered this cool underground vibe. I remember my cousin Gareth turning up in his school uniform, playing Spacies in the corner, and me — 23 years old — arriving at the Basement early to smoke a cigar on the porch outside. Within a few days, it was pretty clear Bare was going to be an iconic play. A year after that, I followed it up with No. 2. If Silo didn't exist, I wouldn't have a career - and it's largely thanks to Sharyn for that."
RAZING THE BAR Actor/bartender Toni Potter (2003-2019)
"I first met Shane Bosher [Silo's artistic director 2002-2014] straight out of drama school when I did a Fringe Festival show in 2001 down in Wellington at Bats. I think he hated it. A couple of years later, I was in Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love with Edwin Wright, Mia Blake, Mike Edward and David Van Horn at the Basement for Silo's first subscription season, which absolutely went off. It was packed out almost every night and the theatre was so hot the ceiling was sweating.
Shane needed some people to work behind the bar; that's where I first met comedian Justine Smith. We became fast friends. She used to chase me around the car park pretending to be a zombie. I have an irrational fear of zombies. The toilets used to leak and a pool of poo water would overflow into the car park if we had a packed show.
We were all young actors working for co-op money — you'd end up with $150 after two months of hard work — but we had so much fun. We'd put down the garage door [after a show] and carry on the party. It was just outrageous! Obviously there are some things I can't repeat. Has anyone told you about the time Laff [long-time publicist Michelle Lafferty] set off fireworks in the stairwell?
MURDER MOST FOUL Director Oliver Driver, The Goat (2005)
A married man [Michael Hurst] has an affair with a goat, but it's not a fetish or played for comedy. It's love. He can't explain it. His wife [played by Hurst's real-life partner Jennifer Ward-Lealand] can't comprehend it. The hurt is so powerful she wants to punish him and takes her revenge by killing the goat. In the final scene, she drags in its carcass.
It was brutal — and it had to be. People needed to feel the horror of what she'd done. We found a taxidermist who made us a goat that looked as if it had just been freshly killed and a blood bag was placed inside a secret cavity so that when Jennifer lugged it in, blood smeared across the floor. It looked so real, people literally thought we were slaughtering a goat out the back every night.
Every now and then, you get the perfect crew, the perfect cast, the perfect material and the perfect idea of how to stage it. It's like this magical alchemy in a way. Plus the acting was just off the chain. We were in the round, with seats on all four sides, and 100 bulbs hanging from the grid, with the audience sitting just three feet away. When the lights turned on, you were right there inside the destruction of a relationship.
Silo has created a lot of actors, directors and playwrights who've gone on to do amazing things. At the end of the season, the goat — we thought of her as a she — was sent down to do a production elsewhere. I'm sure she's still going strong and has had a very good career.
THE NAKED SAMOAN Actor Fasitua Amosa, Take Me Out (2006)
Take Me Out is about a major league US baseball team whose star player comes out as gay halfway through the season. So it deals with toxic masculinity and homophobia and how the team unravels after that revelation. Most of the action takes place in the clubhouse, and a lot of scenes are in the showers. We all knew we were going to have to get naked, within touching distance of the front row.
In my first TV gig, The Insider's Guide to Happiness, my character stripped down and jumped off a pontoon. So I was like, "Yeah, bring it on!" You want to look presentable and I knew I needed to lose 20 kilos by the time the play started, but Shane organised a photo shoot a couple of weeks after we got cast. I think they ended up having to photoshop my love handles!
That was the first time I'd played a lead character for Silo on the main bill. We all got to level up as actors, working with material like that — a Tony Award-winning show that's been on Broadway. I wouldn't get a role like that now. I'm not gay. I'm not black either. Back then, approximation was close enough. Things are very different now.
CHERRY BOMB Artistic director Sophie Roberts, The Blind Date Project (2019)
The premise is that a woman [Natalie Medlock] is on a blind date in a bar. Neither she nor the guest actor on the night knows who's going to walk on stage. There's no script and the director is directing from offstage, via their cell phones, live in front of the audience. All the performers came with fleshed-out back stories and some kind of juicy secret we'd tease out over the course of the show. It's a true first encounter, with chaos baked into it and all the adrenalin of a first date.
There are so many great memories from that season. Adam Rohe came on stage soaking wet, in motorcycle gear and holding a potted plant. But the image seared into my memory is the night with Virginia Frankovich, who'd had a baby and was still breastfeeding at the time. When she got out her breast pump [during their "date"], Natalie thought it was fake — when she saw milk actually coming out, she was completely shocked.
Virginia poured the breast milk into a martini glass and Yvette [Parsons], who played the bartender, put a cherry on top and slid it across the bar. Without missing a beat, Natalie picked it up and downed it in one. It was one of those moments where everyone in the room gasped.
LIVING BY THE PEN Actor Sophie Henderson, The Writer (2022)
The central idea of the play is freedom of female expression and the cost of making great art when you're a woman. I play a writer who's really restricted in her artistry by capitalism, by patriarchy, but mostly by this problematic director she's trying to get out from under. I've been working full-time as a writer for the past five years, so it feels very close to home to me. There are certain bits where there will be no acting required, because it's exactly what I want to say.
I always wanted to work with Silo — these fearless, uncensored, brand-new pieces that ask big questions about the world. Interrogating the present, imagining the future, or saying "Isn't the past really f***ed up, guys?"
The day after I finished drama school, I auditioned for The Ensemble Project [2007], which is where I met my husband and long-time collaborator, Curtis Vowell. This is the ninth show I've done with Silo now. They go to places other companies fear to tread. I can't imagine anyone else programming The Writer, this dangerous piece about power and sex and art. People are going to love or hate it, with nothing in between.
* The Writer, by British playwright Ella Hickson, is on at Auckland's Q Theatre from September 1 to 18 (qtheatre.co.nz).