SILO 2026: LIFE, TURNED ALL THE WAY UP

Five plays. Five worlds. Five unforgettable date nights.  

Silo Theatre has unveiled its 2026 programme, the first season under Artistic Director Sophie Henderson. Five bold, brilliant plays across a myriad of genres deliver a punch to the live arts in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Each play offers something completely different: from a time-bending romance to a laugh-out-loud comedy, a puzzle of a psychological thriller, a messy family drama bursting with betrayal and desire, and a coming-of-age story that is both fierce and tender. Diverse in voice, they share one thing: they lead the vanguard of contemporary theatre. These are plays that demand to be felt. This is the kind of work that makes Silo, Silo: the kind of work that will crack you open, turn you inside out, and keep you talking.

Henderson’s debut programme brings together an exceptional line-up of Aotearoa’s finest: Stacey Leilua, Morgana O’Reilly, Beulah Koale, Arlo Green, Jarod Rawiri, Chris Parker, Anapela Polata’ivao, Stephen Lovatt, Sophie Roberts, Tom Sainsbury and the return of Arts Foundation Laureate Shane Bosher – Silo’s visionary first Artistic Director.

Many of these artists have worked together before and will reunite here on new ground.“I’m so thrilled to be celebrating some of my favourite artists – the ones I’ve admired for years, alongside new voices making their Silo debut. And among them are long-time collaborators whose creative chemistry is already alive and sparking,” says Henderson.

“This season is about the space between people – the magic between actors and audiences, and between the artists making the work. That tiny live charge you only get when you’re all in the room together. That’s the feeling I’m chasing for my first season at Silo.”
 
THE 2026 SEASON
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
By Arthur Miller
9 April – 3 May | Q Theatre, Rangatira
Directed by Anapela Polata’ivao | Starring Stacey Leilua, Beulah Koale, Arlo Green
Winner of multiple major theatre awards, including three Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, and two Drama Desk Awards for Best Revival, A View from the Bridge is one of Arthur Miller’s greatest works. It’s been forty years since Auckland last saw Miller’s Brooklyn tragedy, and its return is long overdue.

Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman, lives by his own rules until two immigrant cousins arrive. When one falls for his niece, tensions ignite, and pride and obsession drive the story toward devastating consequences.

Directed by long-time Silo collaborator Anapela Polata’ivao, this raw and unflinching production explores migration, identity, and belonging, asking how far we’ll go for love and what happens when we can’t let go.

PLAYFIGHT
By Julia Grogan
14 – 30 May | Silo Hall, 3 East Street
Directed by Brita McVeigh | Starring Mirabai Pease, Liv Parker
Winner of the ETPEP Award (2020) and Summerhall Lustrum Award (2024), Julia Grogan’s Playfight is a fearless, funny, and unflinching portrait of girlhood. Following a smash-hit Edinburgh season, this marks the New Zealand premiere of Grogan’s acclaimed debut.

Under their tree, fifteen-year-olds Keira, Zainab, and Lucy navigate friendship, desire, and shame as they grow into adulthood. It starts with a game and a dead possum. It ends with someone getting hurt. Described by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as “a blinding, sucker-punch of a play,” Playfight explores what happens when no one teaches you to look after yourself, leaving you to figure it out with your friends, your instincts, and the internet.

Following this season, Silo will take the play to schools across Tāmaki Makaurau, sparking vital conversations.

CONSTELLATIONS
By Nick Payne | Adapted by Nī Dekkers Reihana
2 – 19 July | Q Theatre, Loft
Directed by Nī Dekkers-Reihana | Starring Jarod Rawiri and Renaye Tamati
Winner of the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best New Play (2012) and Olivier Award for Best Revival (2022), Constellations comes to Aotearoa for its first Indigenous production, adapted by Nī Dekkers-Reihana through a te ao Māori lens.

Set under the stars of Matariki, an astrophysicist and a beekeeper meet at a barbecue, drawn together by curiosity and connection. Their relationship unfolds across infinite realities, blossoming, faltering, and transforming in ways both tender and devastating.

Grounded in Aotearoa and alive with the spirit of renewal, this achingly romantic love story explores the fragile balance between choice and fate, reminding us that every moment contains endless possibilities.

JOB
By Max Wolf Friedlich
3 – 20 September | Q Theatre, Loft
Directed by Shane Bosher | Starring Stephen Lovatt
The less you know, the better. JOB is a secretive, gripping play that keeps audiences tense and guessing at every turn.

A tech-savvy woman faces a therapist in a seemingly routine psych evaluation after an incident. She insists she’s fine. He listens. But what should be simple spirals into power, panic, and doubt. Funny, devastating, and impossible to forget, JOB draws audiences in and makes them complicit in its twisting, unpredictable story.

Nominated for Best New Play at the Outer Critics Circle Awards, this slick, cleverly crafted “drop-tower ride” (Vulture) will leave you questioning the characters, and yourself.

MARATHON
By Nic Sampson | Commissioned by Silo Theatre
12 November – 6 December | Q Theatre, Rangatira
Directed by Sophie Roberts | Starring Morgana O’Reilly, Chris Parker & Tom Sainsbury
Winner of Best Newcomer at NZICF 2014 and nominated for the Billy T Award (2015) and Fred Award (2016), Nic Sampson brings his sharp, anarchic comedy to Marathon, based on a true story and drawing inspiration from his hit solo show of the same name.

On a blistering August afternoon in 1904, 32 athletes entered the Olympic Marathon in St. Louis, Missouri. Only 14 finished. What followed was a perfect storm of incompetence, betrayal, cheating, wild dogs, and rat poison. From a brass worker in Birmingham to a postman from Cuba in dress shoes and woolen trousers, the hopefuls had no idea what they’d signed up for.

Celebrating spectacular failure, Marathon finds heart and hilarity in sporting disaster, spun with influences from Benny Hill, Monty Python, and Blackadder.

Tickets and full season details at silotheatre.co.nz 

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