The Bitching Hour
Your favourite poetry bitches are back. How We Survive Productions presents The Bitching Hour: the poetry reading that swiped right on a late night talk show.
Join your hosts Olivia “The Baby” Hall and Carrie “The Bitch” Rudzinski for a hilarious hour of poems, laughs, and absolute brilliance. Special guests! Fresh poems! Tea spilled!
Watch these hot messes try to keep it together just one month before they take their smash hit Hysterical to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Support artists! Buy a ticket! Buy all the tickets! Buy the most expensive ticket! Bitch your heart out!
“The two biggest bitches I’ve ever seen.” - The Moon
“Literally won’t stop talking shit.” - Our partners
“The best show we’ve ever done.” - Us
Coming to Basement Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand June 2023.
Hysterical
Fierce, feminist, and f*cking funny.
Women are frequently told they are too emotional – too hysterical – to be taken seriously, to be leaders of countries and companies, to be believed when pointing to their own hurt. Hysterical challenges these myths with poetry that confronts body politics, systemic sexism, and weeping uncontrollably in the supermarket
Hysterical intertwines social issues and personal stories to create a performance that is both confronting and accessible, powerful and needed. By weaving their voices together in duet, Rudzinski and Hall deliver a powerhouse performance encouraging the audience to laugh, cry, and experience emotion together.
Winner of Best New Aotearoa Play at the Wellington Fringe Awards and Outstanding Performance Poetry at Auckland Fringe Festival.
Hysterical has toured to Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, Nelson, Golden Bay, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Check Tour Dates for upcoming performances!
IN THE PRESS - Hysterical
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"It’s a deeply raw, vulnerable show. In places the poets are near tears, fury and hurt near the surface. But Hall and Rudzinski are also very funny (because, newsflash, women are hilarious). They flick through sarcasm, wit, absurdity, asking us to eye-roll our way through the dumpster fire with them. "
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"Rudzinski and Hall revel in the messy and chaotic, the ugly and exhausted. They manage to transform rage into comedy that sings with sass. Hysterical is an intimate and emotive piece that inspires a poetic outlook in us, urging us to appreciate all aspects of life, all the moments we are reminded we are alive, and all the people who make it beautiful."
"We are among friends; in this safe space, we are taken to some places that make us laugh, make us wonder, and make us a little angry. As they say, “If you’re not hysterical, then you should be!”
How We Survive
Lift Women’s Voices. Burn The Patriarchy Down.
How We Survive is a feminist spoken word performance featuring internationally acclaimed poets Olivia Hall and Carrie Rudzinski. This two woman show presents a powerful and honest narrative on what is to be a woman living and surviving in 2019.
How We Survive powerfully addresses social issues ranging from rape culture to body image to Hermione as a feminist role model. How We Survives's poems carry a switchblade and a hallelujah in the same breath.
Hailing from New Zealand and America respectively, Hall and Rudzinski blend their voices into a powerful performance promising to heal, nurture, and spark discussion.
How We Survive toured New Zealand between 2016 - 2019.
IN THE PRESS - How We Survive
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"If you’ve ever wanted to feel empowered, heartbroken, and loved all at once, then Olivia Hall and Carrie Rudzinski‘s How We Survive is the show for you!"
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"Successfully falling short of perfection, Hall and Rudzinski have created a near-masterpiece of imperfection – a window into the specific worlds of two women, raw flaws on show, unabashed and rightfully unapologetic."
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"How We Survive is more than simply polemic or a cry for social justice.The poems, often presented in shared duet, are laced with humour, healing, tenderness, nurture, love, loss, insight, wisdom and common sense."