Groups performed scenes at the Shakespeare Festival and at Arts Evening in Term 1.

 A delightful group of Year 7 & 8 students portrayed a group of school children, directed by their frazzled teacher Miss Quince (Samantha Rogers), creating the play Pyramus and Thisbe for an assembly. They wore a variety of fancy dress costumes, from Lion onesies to Elizabethan leggings. Nathan Walton’s extravagant death scene as the bombastic Pyramus, contrasted with Nadia Officer’s revolted and reluctant Thisbe, “I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.”

“This colorful, slap-stick scene was very entertaining. The scene is from A Midsummer’s Night Dream. In a scene from the same play Lauren Moffitt [Helena] stalked a reluctant Haydon Dickie [Lysander] through the moonlit forest. This was an energetic, charming scene with great timing and sympathetic characterisation. In a scene from Othello Kori Koziol and Alyssa Wright, Year 13,  created very relatable characters, Iago and Emilia in a serious portrayal of a dangerous relationship.

Students learn a lot from tackling the complex and beautiful language of Shakespeare’s plays. Kori said, “it was quite lovely learning an old language English and new words, “thou speakest right, I am that merry wanderer of the night”, as well as the heartbeat rhythms of iambic pentameter. 2013 was my first Shakespeare performance as a naughty fairy, then in 2015  I got the important role of Puck [A Midsummer’s Night Dream”]  because I am mischievous like Puck".   In 2016 I got an award for acting the Fool from Twelfth Night which was judged 'most comedic performance of the night'.

NCEA Drama students thoroughly enjoyed performing an extract from Titus Andronicus, gave Haydon Dickie a welcome opportunity to be.

“Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.”
― William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus