Bests of the Fests

"It's been an amazing, life-changing experience that I will most certainly cherish forever," commented Morgan Hopkins at the conclusion of Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ National Shakespeare Schools Production (SGCNZ NSSP) 2014.Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand will this year hold its prestigious week-long residential course, SGCNZ’s 2015 NSSP at the Silverstream Retreat, in Stokes Valley, Lower Hutt, Wellington from 4.00pm Sunday 27 September to 10.30am Monday 5 October 2015.Forty-six secondary student actors and directors were chosen from SGCNZ's 2015 Regional and National University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festivals (SGCNZ UOSWSF), joined by winners of the SGCNZ/Bernina Shakespeare Costume Design Competition and SGCNZ/Morrison Music Trust Shakespeare Music Composition Competition Winners. The latter two will be the Student Costumier, who will be given $100 to purchase items and/or fabric to create indicative costume items to differentiate often shared roles. The Student Composer will also work closely with the directors and write and perform (often with other talented NSSPers) items to create the mood of each scene's setting.All will do Workshops all together for half of each day and for the other half, work in their pre-allocated three groups with a high calibre Director. Each group will rehearse 40 minutes of the play selected by their Director - Pericles directed by Peter Hambleton, As You Like it director Rachel Henry and Much Ado About Nothing directed by Perry Piercy. These will be performed in a public performance in Expressions [Theatre] Upper Hutt on Saturday 3 October at 7.30pm and one in the Legislative Chamber at Parliament on Sunday 4 October at 4pm.Leading Tutors of the Workshops include Sir Jon Trimmer taking a Mime session, Michael Wilson, teaching them skills around recording an actual radio play he has written, historical talks, singing and stage combat. Each provides skills for the young people not just to become theatre practitioners, but also to take into whichever workplace of their choice.The whole SGCNZ NSSP troupe will be continuously assessed during the entire week by all staff involved. Twenty-four students will be selected to be members of SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company to travel to the UK in the July school holidays in 2016.The SGCNZ YSC 2015 performed at a special function hosted by the NZ High Commissioner, HE Sir Lockwood Smith, to great acclaim. Later in the week, they had the rare chance to perform rehearsed scenes from As You Like It on the Globe Stage. These opportunities will be repeated next year for SGCNZ YSC 2016 in the commemorative year of Shakespeare's death 400 years ago and 25th anniversary of the founding of SGCNZ by its CEO, Dawn Sanders.For the first time, there will be students from a Maori Immersion School, Te Wharekura o Mauao in Bethlehem, Bay of Plenty, and one from Te Aro o Te Kura Pounamu - The Correspondence School, who is HomeSchooled."Knowing the future of New Zealand is in the hands of these outstanding young Kiwis augers well for all concerned," said Dawn Sanders.For further information contact Dawn Sanders, SGCNZ CEO: shakespeare.et.al@gmail.com