Aaron Tindell
Aaron’s dedication to music theatre was instilled whilst working with Raymond Hawthorne and a cast of theatre stalwarts in The Sound of Music at the Mercury Theatre as a young teenager. As a result, Aaron has never been far from a musical theatre production. Aaron completed his acting training at Unitec in 2005, and to satisfy his passion has performed in many local theatre productions usually cast in the side-kick role: Le Fou in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (2006), ErnstLudwig in Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret (2006), Carmen Ghia in The Producers (2009). Aaron’s dedication and motivation has been noted by Jennifer Ward-Lealand, who invited him to assist her on the Silo production of The Mystery of Irma Vep (2007) featuring Oliver Driver and Michael Hurst, as well as the Last Tapes production of The Last 5 Years (2012).
This experience exposed an insight to the audience experience combined with the directors vision, which Aaron has explored in many productions as a director: The Red Chair (2007), Nunsense (2007), Storybook – a devised Gothic horror mini-musical revue in a cabaret setting (2009), Sondheim’s Into The Woods (2012), and Bare: The Pop Opera as part of the 2015 Pride Festival.
After several visits and attending over 40 productions, meeting with directors, theatre producers and creatives, Aaron believes Cabaret is the way to grow and enrich the depth of performer recognition and talent in order to grow and develop a professional musical theatre industry in New Zealand.
Recognising a need for greater commercial understanding, Aaron completed a commerce degree majoring in innovation and entrepreneurship along side a marketing major, concurrently with a Masters of Arts in Arts Management (Whitecliffe College of Art and Design). During which time he established Dionysos Limited (2010) and the Dionysos Charitable Trust (2012) specifically for the development of high quality music theatre experiences. Aaron is the lead producer and artistic director, directing The Red Chair: Obsess + confess (2012) and If I Only Had A Heart (2014). Aaron along with Brendan Talbot, established and produce monthly, Hotspot and produced the sell-out season of Twisted: The story of a royal vizier in 2015, the first production company internationally to stage a StarKid parody. Aaron’s most recent project was providing Hotspot artists with the unique opportunity to learn from performing their original cabaret over 5 performances, in Hotspot: With Pride for the 2016 Pride Festival.
Looking towards the future, Aaron is motivated towards the growth and development of Hotspot not only in Auckland, but also as a creative vehicle for performers nationwide. He is especially humbled to see performers sharing their creativity on the Hotspot stage and watching short cabaret acts become full productions in their own right.