Shameless Plug is a series where we turn things over to creatives. In exchange for plugging their project, they have to spill their guilty pleasure, biggest inspiration, personal motto and a few other secrets. Today, Tane Te Pakeke-Patterson and Gisele Proud, actors and theatre makers, share their hot takes about leaving a show in the interval.
Tane Te Pakeke-Patterson (Kai Tahu, Kāti Hateatea) is a performer, creator, director and teaching artist born and raised in Ōtautahi. Since graduating from UNITEC’s acting degree, he has performed in Massive Theatre Company's ‘Heart Go… BOOM!’ (2023), directed his first play ‘Oi Fred!’ (2023) and presented his interactive performance piece ‘Let Loose!’ at TinyFest in 2024. He and fellow creative Tom Webster make up the two halves of Humble Cowboy Productions, an emerging theatre company dedicated to creating original work in Aotearoa.
Gisele Proud is an actor, creator, theatre and film maker who graduated from Unitec in 2023 with a Bachelor of Performing & Screen Arts, majoring in Acting. Originally from the UK, she grew up in various cities across Aotearoa, and is now based in Auckland. Her onscreen roles include Irina in Workmates (2025) and a lead role in the upcoming independent feature film Smoky. Gisele is a keen writer, director and devisor and is a member of the Equity Youth Committee, an initiative to assist creatives aged 18 to 35 to have fulfilling careers.
Here is the couple's Shameless Plug.
Tane: My personal motto is the whakatauki “Kia kawea tātou e te rēhia!” which means “Let us be taken by joy and entertainment!”. It’s been a guiding light for me for years now. I strive to bring joy and entertainment to everything I do and make, as having fun in life is one of the most important things to me.
Gisele: It’s a long one, but the quote “I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.” I often find that I can get stuck thinking about all of the different possibilities, and this quote calms me. Whatever path I take, then that is the right one for me.
Gisele: My favourite arts space has gotta be Basement Theatre. I think the hire-for-nothing program is so important, especially for early career artists to be given the support to get their foot in the door, take risks and grow in their artistry. I’ve worked there in many different roles, and I’ve always felt so welcomed and supported by their team, and I know as an audience member I will always find some fresh, exciting works to enjoy.
Tane: My favourite is the Massive Theatre Company Whare. I’ve played countless games of four-square and speed charades there, lost track of how many laughs I’ve had in the space. From rehearsing to teaching to working to events, it’s been my go-to creative space and Tāmaki home. Massive took me under their wing around the time I graduated, and I owe so much to their generosity as a company.
Gisele: An artwork I wish I had made is The Most Naked by Hannah Tasker-Poland. I LOVE that show. I love how it blends different disciplines so seamlessly and how it portrays and discusses the female body and eroticism so cleverly. It’s playful and weird and silly and unsettling and raw and vulnerable. It was a very cathartic experience for me as an audience member, and I am deeply inspired by it.
Tane: It’s a solid tie for me. The first is “The Trial” by Maribor Puppet Theatre (an amazing Slovenian show we saw at a theatre festival in Italy that featured absolutely incredible puppetry and comedy), the next show I’m making is heavily, heavily influenced by it. My second pick is Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars. If I ever got into music creation, I would make an album that had a different genre for each track.
Tane: My guilty pleasure is Teamfight Tactics. It’s a very nerdy video game (think chess, but it's 8 people battling each other), and I am currently in the top 500 players in Oceania. When I’m not re-rehearsing the show, I am either playing or studying TFT. It’s taking over my life.
Gisele: Rupaul’s Drag Race (USA). Although I don’t really feel that guilty about it! I have watched every season, all the All Stars, kept up with it since I was 14, and I even sat Tane down to watch all the old seasons (minus All Stars 1, we don’t need to go there…iykyk) and that led to him watching 13 seasons in one year… whoops.
Tane: My all-time favourite album is Fantasy by Mariah Carey has been my go-to singing-my-lungs-out-in-the-car CD for years now. Absolute classic.
Gisele: Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier. No skips whatsoever.
Tane My hot take on theatre is that more people should be making original work!! I understand and agree with the importance of classics still being performed in the modern day (though you don’t need to set them in the modern day 👀), but I want to see more cool, weird contemporary things from people. I love seeing people’s tastes. Actually, that previous point is my real hot take: I do not want to see Shakespeare set in an office building for the billionth time.
Gisele: My hot take is that it's okay to leave at interval if the show isn't for you. I don’t think it should be seen as rude or unprofessional, because if you are really not enjoying a show to the extent that you don’t want to stay to see how it pans out, that's fine! Maybe it just wasn’t your taste or maybe you think it was poor quality. That's okay! It doesn’t mean that you dislike the artist or have anything against the work. I just don’t think that a culture where we stay and clap politely and tell each other that it's great when it's a work we don't believe in, is helpful to a healthy arts sector. I would love for more openness in discussions about craft, about why we like or dislike something. I believe that hiding our feelings does a disservice to the artist and to yourself as an audience member. Obviously, there’s a time and place for this!! But I don’t think that as artists, we should be offended if our work isn’t for someone.
Tane: My closest collaborator is Gisele. Everything I’ve worked on since we got together has had her input in some form or another. She’s always answered my questions and doubts about everything, and the conversations we’ve had about our craft over the years have shaped so much of my artistry. It’s great having someone around that you love and trust who also has a totally different view on things at times. The questions and challenges that come from her have opened my mind in ways I never thought possible. There are parts of her in everything I create.
Gisele: Mine is Tane. So cheesy, I know, but it's true! And it's the same for me in the sense that for everything creative I do, whether it’s a seedling of an idea, an acting role I need advice on, something for a project, he is the first person I will go to. I think it's really special to be able to collaborate with someone who just gets you and the way you work. We are quite different at times, but I think that we balance each other out. We talk about everything to do with the arts, and I think we’ve scared some of our mates with how intense we get when we discuss a show we’ve seen, or something we are working on. Through our discussions, I have grown so much as an artist. He truly is my rock – both creatively and personally.
Tane: The best advice I’ve received was “Be in the room!”. I was told this by multiple tutors while training, and it’s paid off 100 times over. During training, it was about being in class to learn as much as possible, but once I graduated, it became about being in whatever space interests me. It’s led to meeting so many incredible people, and the opportunities have found their way from there. You learn and gain so much from being in a variety of spaces, and even just listening has helped me enormously.
Gisele: In my first year of training a guest tutor came in and told our class, “young actors – you want it all and you want it now, but you need to remember that you are not running out of time”. This advice has really stuck with me. I have so many big dreams and goals and things that feel so important and pressing and immediate, but trying to do it all at once is just the path to overwhelm and burn out. There is plenty of time, no need to rush.
Tane: Something I love about being in the arts is getting to play! One of my favourite things, not only in the arts but in life, is playing. Playing games, playing with mates in the form of bits and jokes, playing with the audience. I am very competitive and love warm-up games or finding a funny bit and seeing how far you can take it before it no longer works. Working in the arts allows me to do this and have it be a huge part of the process, which I absolutely adore and am so grateful for.
Gisele: I love exploration! The freedom that being in the arts gives, and the ability to follow what intrigues you or what you are passionate about. I love when I’m making or rehearsing something, and someone comes up with a great idea and it's like “amazing, that's a brilliant idea, lets keep searching anyways”. A big thing for me is a motto of “no mediocrity”, it's important to me to challenge myself to keep searching and exploring within my artistry, and not to settle just because an idea is good enough. Being in the arts is so joyful and I love being research and play and explore so freely.
Our shameless plug is our upcoming season of E Ipo, My Love at Basement Theatre from March 10-14. After making the show together in 2025 as part of Hagley Theatre School’s Theatre Creation Course and having toured it to Italy in September last year, we’re so excited to be able to share it with Tāmaki audiences for the first time. Get your tickets here.
