Heather Wright's physical theatre play, Final Exam received the top prize at Christchurch’s TheatreFest competition, winning the Best Youth Production award. Congratulations to Heather for her accomplished script and direction, and to her cast, Hana Hollister, Sarah Wright and Gabriel Murphy, for creating such an engaging performance.

This is a huge achievement, especially considering it is the first time that Hagley has entered the competition. The ensemble now travel to the South Island Regional competition in Queenstown, with the potential to go to the National Finals in Wellington in September.

Heather Wright’s script examines the pressures faced by students in their final year of high school. This was explored through a metaphorical exam and a series of highly entertaining and fast-paced interconnected scenes. The pressure of deciding ‘what to do next year?’ can become overwhelming, and outside influences (like a global pandemic) can interfere with all plans and dreams. With a clear stage, the actors cleverly manipulated four small black boxes to create different scenes within the space. Through sliding, pushing, stacking and knocking boxes the adjudicator noted that the piece is “like a puzzle shifting, Tetris or a Rubik’s Cube.” The adjudicator wrote,

“This was an ensemble piece – All the players worked extremely well at their physicality to create this piece of theatre. Gestures were precise – movement was clear. Each scene was extremely well rehearsed and the four were a tight unit…and the choreographed movement and placement of the boxes was cleverly done. The boxes on the head was a magic moment…Congratulations Hagley – this was a tightly woven physical theatre piece and very effective in the delivery of your message.”

Tino pai to all involved. We now look forward to hearing about their Queenstown experience.