Figure 1.--These boys are engagedcin a dress rehersal for the school play at Southwell Preparatory School.
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Figure 1.--These boys are engagedcin a dress rehersal for the school play at Southwell Preparatory School. |
Full-scale drama productions are a popular annual event where students can experience the discipline of rehearsal and the excitement of the opening night. Theatresports provide a less formal forum for dramatic performance. Various schools receive national recognition for the high calibre of their Shakespearean or other specialized drama productions.
Allanah is an enthusiastic thespian who has been involved with many aspects of drama, both within the school and in the wider community. In Cashmere High School's major production, West Side Story, she won the coveted role of Anita, performing with all that Puerto Rican beauty's energy and zest. The August holidays saw a complete change of image as Allanah took on the role of Meg, a nice but scatterbrained witch who could never get her spells right, in the Canterbury Children's Theatre production of The Meg and Mog Show. Since then, Suffrage Year performances have been fitted in around Allanah's studies, and she looks forward to performing under the stars in Summer Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
Allanah enjoys the audience response and adrenalin rush that go with live performance, and plans to gain as much experience as possible over the next two years, when she will be old enough to enter the New Zealand School of Drama. We wish her well.
Lymphad, Cashmere High School, 1993
The theatre sports teams have participated in a variety of events this year, some competitive but most arranged for the enjoyment of participants and spectators alike.
The Bayfield competition saw the honours shared between two talented teams, and our players have been responsible for the invention of several new games--not easy in an activity overflowing with original minds and lateral thinkers! The rest of you may think we are mad but we have a lot of fun and look forward to new recruits next year.
Lymphad, Cashmere High School, 1993
Simon Holtham, Hayden Mackley, Josh Cameron, Philip Martin
1997. A year of opportunity. A year of decision. A year of enchanted
tropical islands, ethereal spirits, mental monsters, warped wizards, possessed
princes and pure princesses. 1997 was a year of Shakespeare.
It all began as a midsummer's night dream, and passed through much ado
about nothing, through to what some would say was a comedy of errors, to a
final finished product that proved all's well that ends well. Following a recent
popular revival of Shakespeare with great films such as Romeo and Juliet,
Richard III, and Twelfth Night, we were inspired to repeat the 1995 trip to
the Secondary Schools‘ Shakespeare Festival in Wellington. With a group of
fifteen, roughly equal amounts of boy and girl, measure for measure, we
began as a loose group of wide-eyed aspiring thespians, and evolved into an
elite team of highly-trained dramatics (some over-dramatics). Under the
brilliant directorship of Miss Fitzgibbon, we adapted Shakespeare's
bittersweet ‘tragicomedy' The Tempest, into a 20 minute dynamic theatre
production of drama, music and lights.
The Tempest, when intensely psycho-analysed, betrays prominent
characteristics of Freudian homogeneity, intertwined with self-evident conflict
of spiritual and physical elements. In a surreal microcosmic stage setting, the
play explores worldly themes of revenge and redemption, control and chaos, greed and selflessness, liberty and servitude, ethereality and tangibility, the merging of good and evil, and the overruling influence of an unseen force in our lives. Loose eh, coach? Anyway, in order to take an entirely fresh and new look at the play, as well as showing Shakespeare's timelessness, we gave the play a kind of Sixties Science Fiction theme, in the
tradition of programmes like Star Trek and Lost in Space. Thus, the island
became an uninhabited planet in a far-flung galaxy, the ships became a star-fleet, the swords became phasers, and the tempest became an asteroid storm.
After many long hard nights (more than twelve) of practising and fund-raising ventures, including several performances in Oamaru in the last week, we finally left for Wellington on Queen's Birthday Weekend. It was a winter's tale of a long trip up in the vans and on the ferry, everybody getting to know each other rather too well, and we finally stepped off the boat into the wind and the driving rain of the capital. To cut an extraordinarily long and
incredibly interesting story short (we're going to make a film out of it), we spent the next two days watching other plays, attending workshops, socialising, shopping, shrew-taming, and praising Burger King, as you like it. The workshops, on various aspects of acting, directing, dance and music, were invaluable, and the brilliance and innovation of the other Shakespeare plays showed us that while our school has come a long way in drama in the
past three years, the standard in other schools around the country is very high, and improvements need to continue.
Anyway, it was never a dull trip, with a tempestuous ride back on the ferry,
and more dramatics among the cast of truly Shakespearean proportions.
We'd like to take this chance to thank GAP student Chris
The Waitakian, 1997.
This year for the first time in many years, the school has staged a fullkngth drama. The play was called "Unman, Wittering and Zigo", by Giles Cooper. The story is set in a boys' school in England. Mr Marris and Ms Rennison-Reed decided to jointly direct the play and preoarations began back in the first term. Auditins were held in June and it was good to have a number of people trying for each of the main parts. Rehersals began just before the end of Juneand we initially rehersed during lunchtimes and on Sunday afternoons, alter adding other times as we moved closer to the production dates. The cast members worked hard to larn their lines and perfet their moves. The scene in the classroom, though difficult to do right, were some of the most enjoyable to practice. By August the intensity was increasing and because we were only able to move into the gym at the end there was a rush to complete the set which was finally completed on the day of the first performance. A number of staff and students worked on the set, the costumes, lighting and sound. It was a fairly complex set as it was built on three levels but all came together successfully at the end. The play was successfully staged over three nights on August 22, 23, and 24. On the first night we turned people away after having put in 30 more seats. The first performance turned out to suffer a little from first night nerves and one or two scenes had their moments. By the second night we were over all the first night nerves and we did a really tight performance to a full house. The third night was also very good though some of the cast had been in hard games of rugby that morning which made the energy levels somewhat less. Overall as a cast and crew everyone had worked hard and in the process had a lot of fun. We gave drama a higher profile in the school and showed some very talented students. Thanks to all who made it a success -- actors and backstage crew and a special ghanks to Emma Beals from Firls' High who came into an all male cast and did the one female part in the play. Hopefully drama will become part of the school's annual calendar.
R. Marris, Frances Douglas Memorial College, 1996
