Whanganui has part to play in presenting Shakespeare

Whanganui High School students performing in A Midsummer Night's Dream during the regional Shakespeare festival in Whanganui in April.
Photo: File.

Students from Whanganui High School and Whanganui Girls' College will take part in the annual Shakespeare Festival over Queen's Birthday weekend.

Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand's National University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival will be held in Wellington.

Students from Whanganui Girls' College have been selected from the regional festival to tread the boards with their 15-minute scene from Richard III and their 5-minute scene from The Comedy of Errors.

Vincent Collins, a student at Whanganui High School, will also attend the festival as a finalist in the SGCNZ/Adam Foundation Shakespeare DVD Competition and a commended in the SGCNZ/Adam Foundation Shakespeare Poster Competition; while Rachel Graumans, student at Whanganui Girls' College, is a highly commended in the SGCNZ/Adam Foundation Shakespeare Static Image Competition.

There will be a weekend of workshops in stage combat, voice, puppeteering, mime and many more topics plus performances and lectures.

Overall, there will be 45 five and 15-minutes bites of Shakespeare performed over the weekend, including witches with cultural twists, jealous sisters, ghosts, lovers, conspirators and royals.

A major focus of the festival is the development of leadership skills, inquiring minds, articulate young people with the ability to think laterally about how to present Shakespeare with the currency that resonates with their own lives and others around them.

For the sector of the older generation who were taught Shakespeare dryly, attending the festival is a revelation and places a new aspect on why it is relished by the young today.

By Staff Reporter
Wanganui Chronicle 29/5/17