Trygve Wakenshaw (SGCNZ NSSP 1999)

Trygve (pronounced Trig-vee) is an award-winning performer. He grew up in Hastings,as one of four children, and is the only one in the family to display a passion for theatricality. Soccer was more fun to play if you could devise funny ways of slipping over on or near the ball. (His two brothers are very good at sports, picking up the slack which Trygve left behind).

Trygve moved to Auckland after high school and began several years of backstage work, bar work, stand-up comedy, flat whites and rollies, opening night parties, schmoozing, flirting, Shakespeare, acting, clowning, circus, goofing, devising, and a little bit of local access music television. With his best friend in the whole wide world, Barnie Duncan, he made slapstick comedy theatre shows regularly for short seasons across New Zealand.

Trygve went to Paris to study with Philippe Gaulier and had a wonderful time living in France, though shamefully his mastery of the French language is still poor to non-existent.

After his aquatic-themed trilogy of solo shows (SQUIDBOY, KRAKEN and NAUTILUS), Trygve joined forces first with his best friend Barnie again to create Different Party – an office comedy – and then with his one year-old son Phineas Wakenshaw in Trygve vs a Baby, aiming to answer a question that has plagued mankind since the dawn of time: what’s more entertaining – a world famous mime, or a standard baby?

Trygve now lives in Prague, Czech Republic and travels the world performing.