2025
Artistic Director’s Message

So, a bit of a brief update about where we find ourselves during this economic time of hardship. Massive gets about 50% of our needed annual budget from Creative New Zealand (CNZ) and Foundation North. The rest we have to find. We go to a multitude of charities and other funding sources. We get a wee bit from generous philanthropic giving. We have just found out that our Foundation North funding has been halved for 2025, so as you can imagine this has a huge impact on what we are able to sustain and plan for.

Unfortunately, during these hard economic times, a lot of the other funding sources have either been turning people down as they have smaller amounts and more demand, or giving much smaller amounts. This, plus CNZ not being able to increase or offer inflation adjusted funding, means things are tight. We are hoping this might improve through into 2026, but we can’t rely on this, nor are we planning for this.

We get a small percentage of revenue through box office, our Massive Making in Schools programme and workshops for teachers in schools.  But as you know, a very important and essential part of our kaupapa is to offer most of what we do in the development space and our learning and training initiatives for free. To be clear, these cost Massive but are free to participants.

Why? Because we believe that there are enough economic challenges to people, especially rangatahi, without charging them to explore and develop their creative capability. We don’t bide with the idea that ‘people value things they pay for.’ This has been at the basis of our kaupapa since forever.

However, despite all the reduced funding news, Massive Theatre Company is thriving and is determined to thrive, to continue to be curious and to foster and develop as creative artists, no matter what the economic and political times present. It’s similar to how we decided to approach the Covid lockdown years. The benefit of us being a company of people means we focus on connection, belonging and finding ways to keep being creative.

I have always said that as long as we have people, a large-ish room for us to work in and access to music, we are good to go. Massive has always been a company that focuses on the wonder of people and made them the centre of the theatre we create. One of our favourite sayings is ‘restriction is liberating.’ Work with what we have and see what we can create as a result, and be joyous in this.

So, these times mean we focus on what we believe to be essential to keep our kaupapa alive and well and which doesn’t endanger the longevity of our company. We have always been and will remain a fiscally responsible company.

In making choices when our budget is smaller we decided to not produce our annual ‘large’ theatre-based productions in 2025. Massive would normally produce a new emerging artists’ production (this year it was Te Ao Hou at Te Pou Theatre, last year it was Heart Go… BOOM! at Basement Theatre), and either a new professional production or one that has premiered and now tours (this year it was our new production I LOVE YOU G at Te Pou Theatre, last year we toured Half of the Sky by Lennie James around the North Island).

You can understand that for a theatre company not to publicly produce any theatre in a year is a big call. BUT as I have mentioned we need to see what keeps our creative engine running and not risk the longevity of the company by being fiscally risky.

In 2025 we will develop a new professional work, Sideways into the Light. This will be written by Scotty Cotter, and the cast is Lennie James (UK/USA), Mark Mitchinson and Kura Forrester. I will direct it. We are unsure when we can premiere this work, hopefully 2026. But In order to have something to premiere we have to keep developing this new work and build on our current momentum.

A major part of our focus will be continuing to offer the Massive pathways for both emerging and professional artists so that they continue to thrive. This is essential to us. People need to play, connect, belong, keep their creative selves in action and continue to learn. This is a lifetime pursuit as a performing artist.

I am keenly reminded of this recently as I have been teaching all over the motu (Tāmaki Makaurau, Pōneke, Rotorua, Ōtautahi, and Ōtepoti) with both school drama/dance teachers and performing artists who teach. The constant resounding feedback has been how great it was to play, to do, as voiced by one participant: ‘Yesterday brought me so much joy, curiosity and energy!’

Our beautiful Massive whare is a gift at this time. We have space all day every day. So despite the diminished funding, we are still able to offer a substantial workshop program both in Tāmaki Makaurau and some of the regions we love to be in.

These workshops are the engine to our company so that we can keep the learning continuing to people of all ages (14-70). These workshops are all free to participants or a koha asked for.

At the heart of our company, we have our most astounding emerging artists’ company, Massive Nui Ensemble (MNE), who are together February-December. They perform regularly and are probably our most ‘match fit’ company members because they are constantly at work. Just a note that this is free to all members of the ensemble.

In 2025 we will also be offering two new initiatives because we have our whare. One is called The Office of Curiosity and the other is Curious Lab.

The office of Curiosity is for anyone within Massive (and anyone who might hear about this and like the idea). It will be a monthly three hour session focusing on people joining me in reading, watching or listening to material that feeds their hearts and minds. I have a collection of articles and books that has been building on my desk, which I keep hoping to have time for. Well next year I am making time, and I suspect others have similar piles they want to make time for. We may just all read, listen or watch alongside each other and be together in this pursuit. Equally I am thinking it will be nice to share anything we are discovering with others in the room and see what that brings. Sort of like a ‘loose’ book club might do.

Curious Lab is more physically active and creates a space for self-directed performing work to take place. This is aimed more at our professional, older Company members, who often find that in working on acting, directing jobs etc. they don’t get that time to explore and discover in the creative space as much as they would like. They might want to have a go at directing a group devising something or work on a monologue they have always wanted to do. They might bring some writing which they want to test out with others or write in the room with ideas from the resource tables.

It’s self-directed so people can do what they feel pulled towards. I will be there to share anything useful and ‘hold’ the group as they ebb and flow with their pursuits. We will share work when people want to.

Within all of this is something we introduced this year called Morning Tea with Massive. This is a monthly invitation to all Tāmaki Makaurau based performing artists and companies to join us for a cuppa and some morning tea kai between 9am-10.30am at our whare. We wanted to keep creating ways for people in our community to connect.

There is no agenda, and you can pop in for 5 minutes, grab something to go or stay for the full time. People bring people from out of town, their dogs or whānau. It’s another way to connect. Although our common ground is our mahi in the performing arts, we absolutely don’t have to talk about this. Our whare is big enough that actually if you don’t really want to talk to anyone today but do want to be around people you can do this. So, you can sip your coffee and sit quietly somewhere, letting the hum of conversation be a comfort for you.

So, you can see that we are thriving. We will keep thinking on other ways to thrive together. We are a company that is very responsive to each other’s needs and ideas, so who knows what else will reveal itself from our 2025 endeavours and become a part of the Massive ‘weaving.’

Although times like these are tricky and can be stress provoking, they are also times for reminding ourselves of what is at the heart of it all and what is important about what we fundamentally do as performing artists. How can we keep engaged and alive to how we see and reflect the world? How can we do this together? In these times can be great moments of discovery and I look forward to this.

Mauri tū

Mauri ora

Sam Scott
Artistic Director