The Bitches' Box - Emma Newborn & Amelia Dunbar Photo: Daniela Aebli
The Bitches’ Box is back and for the first time, the show will be venturing to urban centres.
“World famous in rural New Zealand,” Emma Newborn and Amelia Dunbar have been working together for more than 10 years. They first met at an event which paired up strangers from different creative backgrounds, and were given 10 days to come up with a 10-minute concept. The idea? Two dogs on a farm, in heat, having a frank conversation.
As they say, it’s just “two women pretending to be dogs.”
That fortuitous meeting led to both a close friendship and a 12-year collaboration which has seen four different iterations of the show.
Throughout August, the team will be travelling a brand new show, Episode Four, to Hamilton, Arrowtown, Hastings and Christchurch; regions in which the show has built audiences over the years, in a bid to finish making their feature film.
“This is us going back to our roots,” says Newborn. “Lots of recognisable rural characters and revisiting some of our favourite characters.”.
Newborn and Dunbar have taken their show into woolsheds, bringing locals together. A bar and BBQ would be set up, serving as a way to fundraise for either a local school or a group.
“It created this community get-together so it wasn’t simply come in and watch a show but come in, check in with your neighbours, check everyone’s OK. People would often stick around afterwards,” explains Dunbar.
The Bitches’ Box became both a theatre and well-being event.
During one tour in Wairoa, Newborn recalls a man who’d fashioned a sign on raw wood with horse shoes, bashed into shape to spell out ‘Bitches’ Box’.
“When you take something like that to a community - the way that community welcomes you in, never ceases to amaze me and moves me,” says Newborn.
But with Covid and lockdowns, live touring became impossible and the pair set their sights on the silver screen. They’ve now partially made Sons of a Bitch and are back touring to continue fundraising. While the film felt like a hard sell initially, Dunbar says their work translates well to film and they were particularly keen on ensuring it didn’t feel like a screen version of the stage show.
Inspired by their second stage show, it’s a usual day for two country dogs named Jack and Russell on their Canterbury farm. But they find themselves trapped in a therapy session with freshly shorn sheep, led by an intimidating ram - played by Josh Thomson. To appease the baas, the two dogs recount their adventures to the big smoke - Ashburton describing the diverse dogs they met and begin to confront the truth of what happened there.
Like their live shows, the story is told entirely from the perspective of the dogs.
The Bitches’ Box will be touring from 17 to 25 August and they have set up a PledgeMe campaign to continue funding for their feature film.
