Director and Massey artist in residence Vanessa Stacey and A scene from ‘The Tempest’

Summer Shakespeare ‘not to be missed’

Record crowds have attended the first Summer Shakespeare shows in The Square. Reviewers have also raved about The Tempest production, calling it “a theatrical experience not to be missed”. Director and Massey’s artist in residence Vanessa Stacey says the cast and crew are delighted with the reaction from the first shows. “I’m buzzing. The cast are glowing, they are just killing it.” More than 360 people attended the first show, with Saturday night “crazy with 450 people” and another 360 on Sunday.

Ms Stacey says the annual production has always had a loyal following but this time she wanted to engage with youth and “shake things up”. The show is in the style of a steampunk rock opera – and her ambition has paid off. She says while the reviews have been fantastic her favourite response was from a group of teenagers that told her the production was “choice and better than TV”. The new location in The Square – after ten years in the city’s Victoria Esplanade – also encouraged people who normally wouldn’t attend a Shakespeare play to come along, or stop and watch as they walked by.

Ms Stacey praised her talented cast and crew for their hard work and enthusiasm and thanked the community for its support. “It’s really lovely doing community theatre and doing it with people who love it. It’s been inspiring for me and reignited my passion.”

The final shows will be held on Friday and Saturday this week.

Last year’s Summer Shakespeare production of Much Ado About Nothing won four awards this month at the Globe Theatre Awards Night in Palmerston North including best production and best direction.

Watch the trailer of The Tempest here

Associate Professor Angie Farrow

Blue balloon dream a winner for Massey playwright

A short play involving the magical, transformative qualities of a blue balloon, by Massey University’s Associate Professor Angie Farrow, has won first prize in a Canadian international playwriting competition.

Dr Farrow, who teaches drama and creative processes in the School of English and Media Studies at the Manawatu campus, took out first prize in the Toronto-based InspiraTO Theatre Contest last week.

Her 10-minute play, The Blue Balloon, was selected from among 400 entries worldwide.

The play – metaphorical and surreal – is about a relationship breakdown, and sees the grieving male protagonist releasing a blue balloon that engulfs his city and its inhabitants. The balloon is a liberating presence, prompting characters to think, say, feel and do things they hadn’t thought possible.

The story, inspired by a writer Ronald Bartlheme’s The Red Balloon and influenced by the likes of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, takes an imaginative punt on the existential notion of how to free the human psyche so it can revel in pure visionary, expressive wonder.

“The blue balloon is a metaphor and is antidote to the usual constraints, rules and conventions that prevent us being more expansive, and more truly alive,” she says.

Dr Farrow says she loves the idea of short theatre tackling bold, challenging ideas in a short space of time. And she reckons the short play might be entering its heyday, with busy lives and short attention spans demanding artistic satisfaction in smaller chunks.

Describing short plays as “haiku theatre where you say big things in small spaces,” she says her success is particularly pleasing because there are so few competitions for playwrights.

“It’s a frustrating area in that sense. There are dozens of competitions for short stories, but for theatre there are very few – they are like gold,” says Dr Farrow, who has written 10 short plays, including prize-winners such as Tango Partner, Falling and Lifetime.

The Blue Balloon will premier in New Zealand in Palmerston North’s Darkroom Theatre on April 15 as part of a showcase of six of Dr Farrow’s short plays, and the week after at Wellington’s new Bats Theatre. It will be staged in Toronto in June as part of the InspiraTO Theatre Festival.