Latest news with #TrentDalton
Scoop
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Prepare To Fall In Love: Trent Dalton's Love Stories Comes To The Civic, Auckland, This October
Press Release – 818. Auckland Live, in association with Auckland Writers Festival, proudly presents the New Zealand exclusive season of Love Stories — the critically acclaimed stage sensation by Trent Dalton, direct from standing ovations and five-star raves in Australia. This heart-expanding theatrical gem plays just five performances at The Civic, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from Thursday 16 October to Sunday 19 October. Adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong (the creative team behind the smash-hit page-to-stage adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe), Love Stories invites audiences into Dalton's world: a city street corner, a battered Olivetti typewriter, and a single question posed to strangers passing by – ' Can you please tell me a love story?' ' In a time when we need joy more than ever, Love Stories lifts the spirit.' – Arts Hub From strangers to soulmates, parents to children, friends to lifelong companions, the stories collected and celebrated in this remarkable production traverse the full spectrum of human love. Weaving real-life encounters with music, laughter, movement, and tenderness, Love Stories is an unforgettable tribute to the beauty, fragility, and fierce resilience of the human heart. 'It dives into the chaos of love – the joy, the pain, the laughter, the heartbreak … sending you back to the streets feeling just a little more alive' – The Guardian Trent Dalton reflected on the production's journey from the streets of Brisbane to The Civic in Auckland: 'Early this year, the extraordinary gang from Auckland Live walked me into that hallowed Civic theatre in the heart of that glorious city. They showed me exactly what it will feel like to walk into Love Stories come showtime. The theatre ceiling literally shimmered with a blanket of stars. That theatre – that city, their writer's festival – embodies everything the play is about … community, dreams, storytelling, connection, love in all its tricky and wondrous forms. I kinda lost my mind with the joy and possibility of it all. It's a dream come true for me, to create a piece of art that adds to a history of NZ culture – theatre, books, film, music, art – that has inspired me since I was a teenage writer wannabe who could only dream of having something he wrote travelling across the ditch, all the way to paradise. Thank you Auckland Live, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you dear Auckland!' Daniel Clarke, Director of Performing Arts at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, leading Auckland Live commented: 'I saw the very first pitch of this work at idea stage and knew that it would be a winner. And it has been. Thousands of people across Australia have seen this play since its world premiere at Brisbane Festival. This is a beautiful work, full of heart and innovatively staged; we can't wait to share this stunning production with the audiences of Aotearoa. It is the perfect spring show – love will be in the air!' Love Stories was originally commissioned and produced by Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The production features additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann, with choreography by Nerida Matthaei, design by Renee Mulder, lighting by Ben Hughes, and original music and sound design by Stephen Francis. Don't miss this moving celebration of humanity, connection, and the stories that bind us. Presales are on now, ahead of the general onsale on Thu 3 July, 9 AM. With just five performances, audiences are encouraged to book tickets early to secure their seats for this strictly limited season. For more information, go to Auckland Live is the premiere organisation for performing arts, culture, entertainment and events in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As Aotearoa New Zealand's largest performing arts entity, we proudly present a programme of live arts and entertainment across our iconic venues: Aotea Centre, The Civic, Auckland Town Hall, The Cloud, Shed 10, Viaduct Events Centre, Bruce Mason Centre, and Aotea Square. Auckland Live is part of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, a Council-Controlled Organisation.
Scoop
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Prepare To Fall In Love: Trent Dalton's Love Stories Comes To The Civic, Auckland, This October
Auckland Live, in association with Auckland Writers Festival, proudly presents the New Zealand exclusive season of Love Stories — the critically acclaimed stage sensation by Trent Dalton, direct from standing ovations and five-star raves in Australia. This heart-expanding theatrical gem plays just five performances at The Civic, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from Thursday 16 October to Sunday 19 October. Adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong (the creative team behind the smash-hit page-to-stage adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe), Love Stories invites audiences into Dalton's world: a city street corner, a battered Olivetti typewriter, and a single question posed to strangers passing by - ' Can you please tell me a love story?' ' In a time when we need joy more than ever, Love Stories lifts the spirit.' - Arts Hub From strangers to soulmates, parents to children, friends to lifelong companions, the stories collected and celebrated in this remarkable production traverse the full spectrum of human love. Weaving real-life encounters with music, laughter, movement, and tenderness, Love Stories is an unforgettable tribute to the beauty, fragility, and fierce resilience of the human heart. 'It dives into the chaos of love – the joy, the pain, the laughter, the heartbreak ... sending you back to the streets feeling just a little more alive' - The Guardian Trent Dalton reflected on the production's journey from the streets of Brisbane to The Civic in Auckland: 'Early this year, the extraordinary gang from Auckland Live walked me into that hallowed Civic theatre in the heart of that glorious city. They showed me exactly what it will feel like to walk into Love Stories come showtime. The theatre ceiling literally shimmered with a blanket of stars. That theatre - that city, their writer's festival - embodies everything the play is about … community, dreams, storytelling, connection, love in all its tricky and wondrous forms. I kinda lost my mind with the joy and possibility of it all. It's a dream come true for me, to create a piece of art that adds to a history of NZ culture - theatre, books, film, music, art - that has inspired me since I was a teenage writer wannabe who could only dream of having something he wrote travelling across the ditch, all the way to paradise. Thank you Auckland Live, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you dear Auckland!' Daniel Clarke, Director of Performing Arts at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, leading Auckland Live commented: 'I saw the very first pitch of this work at idea stage and knew that it would be a winner. And it has been. Thousands of people across Australia have seen this play since its world premiere at Brisbane Festival. This is a beautiful work, full of heart and innovatively staged; we can't wait to share this stunning production with the audiences of Aotearoa. It is the perfect spring show - love will be in the air!' Love Stories was originally commissioned and produced by Brisbane Festival and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The production features additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann, with choreography by Nerida Matthaei, design by Renee Mulder, lighting by Ben Hughes, and original music and sound design by Stephen Francis. Don't miss this moving celebration of humanity, connection, and the stories that bind us. Presales are on now, ahead of the general onsale on Thu 3 July, 9 AM. With just five performances, audiences are encouraged to book tickets early to secure their seats for this strictly limited season. For more information, go to Auckland Live is the premiere organisation for performing arts, culture, entertainment and events in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. As Aotearoa New Zealand's largest performing arts entity, we proudly present a programme of live arts and entertainment across our iconic venues: Aotea Centre, The Civic, Auckland Town Hall, The Cloud, Shed 10, Viaduct Events Centre, Bruce Mason Centre, and Aotea Square. Auckland Live is part of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, a Council-Controlled Organisation.
News.com.au
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Trent Dalton reveals Boy Swallows Universe origin story and his next ‘murder-mystery' project
Fans of Boy Swallows Universe,get keen – the star Australian author behind the global streaming hit has a new novel coming out, and it is his most intimate project yet. Revealing he has just finished writing Gravity Let Me Go, which wraps together themes of true crime and relationships, Trent Dalton acknowledged feeling 'profound gratitude and crippling dread' because 'this might be the most personal book I've ever written'. Dalton also shared a little-known story about the humble origins of his semi-autobiographical 2018 debut, Boy Swallows Universe, which became a No1 bestseller and was turned into a TV smash by Netflix last year. He said as a young journalist two decades ago he had tried writing a book, largely to distract himself from the 'troubled nocturnal ramblings' of his eccentric rental housemate, a British WWII veteran 'who conversed at length with his ginger cat every night after six VB tallies'. 'I called this book Armour. The title came from the fact my three older brothers and I were obsessed with the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,' Dalton wrote in The Daily Telegraph. 'All the streets where we grew up in this particular Housing Commission cluster of Bracken Ridge, Brisbane, were named after Arthur and his knights … I always thought it was so hopeful and optimistic that a place bursting daily with innumerable social sores was named after such romantic and noble figures of mythology. 'I feverishly devoted 40,000 words to Armour before I wisely realised it was a load of garbage and I swapped bad writing for reading the works of good writers and, after doing that for 18 years, I turned the bones of Armour into my first novel, Boy Swallows Universe.' That storywas an award-winner at home and topped the streaming charts in the US. Dalton revealed he has only watched the show in full once; however he has repeatedly viewed the closing scene, because it reminds him of the one thing he longed for as a child, in vain: that his estranged parents 'might one day be able to live together'. 'Then Netflix came along and turned that book into a series and added on a scene at the end that showed me exactly what such a world might have looked like,' he wrote. 'Maybe I think if I watch that scene enough times I might be able to convince myself that it's real.' The new novel, Gravity Let Me Go, will be published in late September by HarperCollins. Like Dalton, its protagonist is a married father-of-two and a journalist. And like three of his other hits – Boy Swallows Universe, Love Stories and Lola In The Mirror – it is also set in Brisbane. He told The Daily Telegraph: 'It's a marriage story buried inside a murder-mystery … my aim was to write something that might feel familiar to the eight-million-plus married people in this country and to the 70 per cent of Australians who live in the suburbs, while also being my version of a rattling noir-ish whodunit.'
