SGCNZ NATIONAL SHAKESPEARE SCHOOLS PRODUCTION 2020
University of Otago College of Education, Dunedin
02/10/2020 - 03/10/2020
Production Details
Welcome to SGCNZ’s 2020 NSSP performance… the culmination of a week of intensive workshops and rehearsals.
“Like an old tale which I will have matter to rehearse…” The Winter’s Tale V ii
The performances should be considered works-in-progress, with the process being more important than attempting to unrealistically achieve a brilliant finished product in this short time.
Huge appreciation to the intensive work of our Directors: Clare Adams, Katie Boyle and Alexander Sparrow.
Residential Course: Tolcarne Boarding Residence, Dunedin
Saturday 26 September 4pm – Sunday 4 October 10:30am
SGCNZ NATIONAL SHAKESPEARE SCHOOLS PRODUCTION 2020
Performances: University of Otago College of Education
Friday 2 October 6:30pm
Saturday 3 October 7.30pm
The Merchant of Venice
Director: Katie Boyle
Student Costumier: Paige Kendon
Assistant Costumier: Charlotte Campbell
Student Composer: Grace Mora
SYNOPSIS: The merchant Antonio finds himself in murky water when his loan to the wealthy Shylock cannot be repaid due to some ships gone abroad. Shylock in return demands an outrageous sacrifice of a pound of human flesh, and meets Antonio in the court, crying for justice. All this so Antonio’s lavish friend Bassanio can court the rich heiress Portia. Luckily for the boys, Portia has a couple of things up her own collared sleeve.
Includes religious revilement, cross-dressed courtship, and the ultimate lesson on reading the fine-print. With time, this infamous play has delved into the grey void of who is on the moral high ground. Re-live some of the most quoted monologues of all time. If thou hast eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, and passions, no doubt you will enjoy The Merchant of Venice.
CAST:
Portia 1: Shalom DeSouza
Portia 2: Jenna Feldtman
Portia 3: Grace Hancox
Portia 4: Charlize Vitero
Bassanio 1: Joshua Kemp Whimp
Bassanio 2: Joseph Sutherland
Antonio 1/Salanio: Boaz Mellor
Antonio 2/Salarino: Sione Teutau
Shylock 1: Rebecca Weatherly
Shylock 2: Caleb Arkwright
Shylock 3: Peyton Morete
Gratiano: Michaela Bremner
Nerissa: Lara Chiswell
Jessica/Duke : Lola Kidd
Lorenzo: Tom Grant
Launcelot Gobbo/Balthasar/Tubal: Ashley Taylor
King John
Director: Alexander Sparrow
Student Costumier: Paige Kendon
Assistant Costumier: Charlotte Campbell
Student Composer: Grace Mora
SYNOPSIS:
This rarely-performed history is the funniest play Shakespeare wrote. Move aside A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this is the real deal. It’s also, in parts, one of his most moving works.
Enter King John. Unpopular monarch. People questioning his legitimacy to reign. Power-hungry hopeless case in need of guidance (and a conscience). He’s gained the throne with the backing of his mother, Queen Elinor, but… King John’s much younger nephew, Arthur, is challenging him for the throne – pushed by his mother, Constance. With France and various English noblemen insisting Arthur is the true King of England, King John may have to go to great lengths to stop everything falling into the hands of his enemies.
This is a fast-paced political intrigue with killer laughs. Powerful women holding the strings. A hapless king and prince struggling to keep up. Torture, deaths, history, and some jokes in unbelievably bad taste. What more could you ask?
CAST:
King John #1: Jack Munro
King John #2: George Kenward Parker
King John #3: Georgia Moynihan
King John #4 / Chatillon / Bigot: Sarah Clare Judd
Arthur #1 / Peter: Emma Sutton
Arthur #2: Keegan Delaney
Hubert #1: Cody Batty
Hubert #2: Caleb Collier
Hubert #3 / King Philip: Mitchell Jones
Bastard #1: Blossom-Kate Garbutt
Bastard #2 / Lewis / Second Executioner: Greta Balfour
Elinor / First executioner / Monk / Prince Henry: Lily Moore
Constance / Messenger: Lara Chuo
Austria / Pembroke: Anisha de Silva
Salisbury / Third Executioner: Ethan McGrath
INTERVAL
Much Ado About Nothing
Director: Clare Adams
Student Costumier: Paige Kendon
Assistant Costumier: Charlotte Campbell
Student Composer: Grace Mora
SYNOPSIS:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
Join us in a hot and steamy Aotearoa summer, as we witness the giddiness of the game of love, tempered by conspiracy and deception.
Leonato’s house is a happy one, which he shares with his young daughter Hero and clever niece Beatrice, as well as Beatrice’s aging father Antonio. When the boys return home from war, the household is turned on its ear by the instant attraction between Hero and Claudio and the constant bickering and flirting between Beatrice and Benedick. Meanwhile dark plans are being hatched; Don John convinces Claudio that his love Hero has been unfaithful the night before her wedding.
What will become of poor Hero? Can the foolish Master Dogberry and his posse be of any help? When will Beatrice and Benedick realise they are meant for each other?
CAST:
Don Pedro: Charlie Butler
Don John: Tamaragh Potter
Claudio: Jake Fanstone
Benedick: Logan Forsyth – Levi Hemi
Leonato: Oliver Price-Walker
Hero: Nikki Shields
Beatrice: Florence Cater | Annie Parkinson
Antonio/2nd Watch: Jacynta Scurfield
Margaret: Kathryn Martin
Ursula/Verges: Lacey Davison
Borachio: Hayley Searancke
Love Guru/First Watch : Ollie Blyth
Conrade: Kaydin Ryan
Dogberry: Rio Futschek Ryan
Song
Music & Lyrics: When I Grow Up from Matilda by Tim Minchin
Taught by: Arlie McCormick, accompanist Kane Wheeler
Rehearsed by: Sarah Clare Judd & Ollie Blyth, assisted by Clare Adams
Performed by: Full Cast
Waiata ~ Putiputi Kareihana
by 28th Māori Battalion
Taught & rehearsed by: Annie Parkinson
Performed by: Full Company
Haka ~ Tika Tonu
by Waimarama Pūhara
Taught & rehearsed by: Annie Parkinson & Tamaragh Potter
Performed by: Full Company
Youth , Theatre ,
Promising talents revel in irony, humour, clowning, music and dancing
Review by Helen Watson White 03rd Oct 2020
What on earth inspires so many people, young and slightly older, to gather during a pandemic and play kings and clowns and love-crazed fools, dancing around on bare boards wearing unisex garments and mouthing off in iambic pentameters? Well, Shakespeare of course. In Dunedin, UNESCO City of Literature, and Wellington, city of the late Sheilah Winn (who funded a building for Downstage Theatre), the mass learning of lines by teenagers has become quite a thing, because of the resurgence of interest in Shakespeare since American actor Sam Wannamaker said he’d rebuild the Globe.
Although London’s reconstructed Globe Theatre didn’t open until 1997, a strong New Zealand connection was made before then through the Globe Hangings Project, for which Dawn Sanders was Project Manager. In 1991, she was urged by Wannamaker to establish a Shakespeare Globe Centre in this country, which she did; then in 1992 began the annual Sheila Winn Shakespeare Festivals for high school students, which are ongoing – now with the University of Otago as co-sponsor.
This year, because of Covid-19, the festival was entirely digital, school groups sending in sample videos to be judged, from which the festival judges chose a group of nearly fifty of the best performers for this National Shakespeare Schools Performance (NSSP). During an intensive week of live-in theatre workshops and rehearsals, students were assigned their parts in the three Shakespeare plays selected to be staged, with some given support roles like music and wardrobe.
It being doubtful whether either the week-long training or the resultant show would go ahead, it is something of a miracle that everything came together tonight. I’m so glad it did. Now, however, there’ll be a further period of virus-related uncertainty as the Centre selects 24 young people from these productions to travel to London, to study and perform in the Globe and at Stratford-on-Avon for three weeks next July.
Because of this scheme, culminating in the in-situ course specifically for New Zealanders (called SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company), there has been a steady stream of influence from the London Globe on theatre practice in Aotearoa. Some 122,000 students have so far taken part in the festivals alone, the centre counting among its alumni actor Melanie Lynskey, MP Chris Bishop and the Prime Minister and Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Jacinda Ardern.
Many of the practices coming from the rebuilt Globe and its inclusive philosophy are evident tonight. Part of the programme is performed with the lights up, approximating the open-air Globe, which uses no lights at all. Further, the casting is colour-blind and gender-blind, although many of the actors are given licence to celebrate the different cultures from which they came. The proscenium arch in the College Theatre prevents the face-to-face communications with the audience that are common to shows in both the Globe and Pop-Up Globe, but at one point somebody ‘dries’ (no shame in this when they’ve had only five days to prepare) and one of the actors turns to the audience for assistance.
One of the things that is, for me, most characteristic of the London Globe, is its constant use of music to underscore the narrative and convey the tone of whatever text is being put across. The scenes from Much Ado directed byClare Adams are given a wholistic treatment: flutes, ukelele, trumpet and even bagpipes add colour and comedy to scenarios that also feature physical clowning and dancing.
Perhaps because of this underlying awareness of physical processes, the actors in Much Ado are much better at projection, in an auditorium where quite a few lines are lost. It is also this piece, after deciding on a Pasifika setting and theme, that follows through with lavalavas, jandals and Hawaiian shirts and a most ingenious use of props: palm-fans, a chilly-bin and decorated surfboards.
The Merchant of Venice shows up some promising talent; King John finds irony and humour in great men’s inadequacy; but it is Much Ado that makes my day. That, and the wonderful harmonized waiata (‘When I grow Up’ from Matilda and 28th Māori Battalion’s ‘Putiputi Kareihana’), then a ground-shaking haka (‘Tika Tonu’), performed with the utmost commitment by a unified cast.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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