Sophie Baron (Year 11) has been selected to join the prestigious SGCNZ 2019 Young Shakespeare Company to attend the Shakespeare’s Globe International Actors’ Fellowship.

Nationally over 5000, mostly Year 13 students, competed regionally for the 48 spots in the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival New Zealand finals, but only 24 students were selected to attend the Globe.  Sophie will fly to London in July 2019 for two weeks of workshops and rehearsals with seasoned directors and actors culminating in a performance at the Globe. Sophie will mix, mingle and act with students from all around the world.

During the Term 3 holidays, Sophie juggled Level 1 study with eight days of intensive acting and training with theatre professionals in Dunedin with the 48 other regional finalists. Eight days of Shakespeare, three plays, and 47 students from throughout the country was something Sophie had never heard about before until she was selected as a direct entry from the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare regionals for her performance as Othello to Evie Ballantyne’s dramatic portrayal of Desdemona. Sixteen hour days were filled with workshops, drama games, quizzes, trips around Dunedin, as well as learning pages of lines and stage directions.

“When I first looked up to see what we would be doing, I was in denial that we would actually manage to pull off such a task as creating and performing a forty-minute Shakespeare play, split into three groups, but we did and that is an incredibly rewarding feeling after pulling that off. The experience to do something like this was incredible, and it is difficult to explain how much those eight days changed me as a person.”

The eight days ended with the singing of the ensemble's waiata, Hareruia, one last time as the curtain came down to thunderous applause. Break a leg, Sophie!