Student Drama: Do the Rules Apply?

November 19, 2019

In this guest post, Murray Edmond reports on three recent student productions in Auckland and wonders what rules apply when we think about student work.  Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen, a version by Colin Teevan, University of Auckland 2nd year drama production, directed by Sara Brodie, at The Drama Studio, University of Auckland, 19-22 Sept. 2019. Animal, by Arlo Green, an […]

SCENE BY JAMES: So now we know what’s happening with the Maidment Theatre

November 2, 2016

[RIP Maidment] In his update to staff, the University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon announced today that the Maidment Theatre is to “be closed permanently and eventually demolished”. Opened in 1976, the Maidment had been closed indefinitely since December 2015 after it was deemed an earthquake risk. Until today, the university had been silent on its future. McCutcheon’s internal email […]

REVIEW: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (AUSA Outdoor Summer Shakespeare)

February 26, 2015

A strong and vital theme [by James Wenley] British Shakespeare great Simon Russell Beale (who toured here as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale alongside Ethan Hawke) was recently quoted in The Observer arguing that it is fine to take liberties with Shakespeare. “You can do what you like with it – as long as you make coherent, emotional sense… I see […]

REVIEW: Pericles (Summer Shakespeare)

March 12, 2014

Shakespeare Strikes Back [by James Wenley] The notion, for a Shakespearean nerd such as I am, to attend a Shakespeare play that I had never read or seen before was a thrilling one. It’s like getting a new Star Wars movie or a new George R.R Martin novel, except this time its 400 or so years later. There was something rather […]

REVIEW: King Lear (Summer Shakespeare)

March 4, 2013

Game of Thrones [by James Wenley] When I consider King Lear I think of the high grand tragedy, the demands of the title role and the master actors who have played him, and I conjure the harrowing image of the old man against the storm on the heath. It was pleasing to be reminded that the play begins (where it […]