The MiNDFOOD Season of Mrs Warren’s Profession – the fourth show in Auckland Theatre Company’s 2018 season and playing at the ASB Waterfront Theatre from 1 – 16 May - will be a liberating evening of smart comedy, social commentary and sophisticated scandal.

New Zealand’s queen of the stage and screen Jennifer Ward-Lealand will lead the cast in this re-vamped production directed by award-winning theatre-maker Eleanor Bishop.

Written in 1893, George Bernard Shaw’s play was originally banned by the censors for its subject matter and the hypocrisies it exposed. What continues to shock is how old taboos stay topical and how little things have changed.

Celebrated New Zealand theatre-maker Eleanor Bishop (Body Double, BOYS, Jane Doe) has recently returned from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she completed her Masters in Directing at the Carnegie Mellon Institute.  Eleanor will be applying a contemporary lens to centuries-old questions of sexuality and empowerment as she directs this rarely performed classic.

Vivie has recently graduated from Cambridge and has returned home to New Zealand, determined to make it in a top law firm. (In the age of Jacinda, anything is possible!)

When she finds out her mum's been a sex worker, she is forced to question all her assumptions about women, power and making money. Is it still a man's world? In the #metoo era, is it enough just to "lean in"?

This show will by no means be a ‘traditional’ telling of Mrs Warren’s Profession - director Eleanor Bishop says,

“Sex work has been decriminalised in New Zealand since 2003, but we very rarely get to hear from sex workers themselves. In this production, Liz, Mrs Warren's sister, is played by writer/performer/sex worker Hadassah Grace who wrote from her personal perspective during the Chiefs Stripper scandal of 2016.”

Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Dirty Laundry, Lysistrata, Rupert) will lead the formidably talented cast including Stephan Lovatt (Home & Away, Billy Elliot the Musical, Macbeth), Cameron Rhodes (Housebound, Lord of the Rings, Lysistrata) and Jack Buchanan (When Sun & Moon Collide, Jekyll & Hyde, Catching the Black Widow). They will be joined by Karin McCracken (Body Double, Jane Doe) and Twanda Manyimo (Ghost in the Shell, Meg, Belleville) and Hadassah Grace who will be making their ASB Waterfront Theatre debuts.

Designer Tracy Grant Lord (Billy Elliot the Musical, Guys & Dolls) will use her signature sophisticated aesthetic to paint the picture of the upper class bourgeoisie in New Zealand’s Coromandel, bringing the world of Shaw’s classic into 2018.

With Kardashian and Sheryl Sandberg references a-plenty, Eleanor Bishop’s Mrs Warren’s Profession will be a hilarious night of scandal and intrigue, but ultimately, audiences will be asked to consider the world of women and work today.

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