In Term 2, Year 10 Drama classes worked in groups to perform scenes from Shakespeare in a mini festival held in Manawa Toi Whakaari. The Fortune theatre Educator Shannon Colbert was the adjudicator for the event and she had a difficult time picking the winners as the overall standard was very high.

The students were challenged to come up with an original idea for their scene. Runner up for Best Original Concept was the fight scene from Romeo and Juliet, where the Montagues and Capulets were portrayed as opposing baseball teams in a bar room brawl. The winners were Pyramus and Thisbe the play within the play where the mechanicals became a group of ill prepared school students. The Comedy Award was hotly contested and ended with a three way tie as all the groups gave us plenty to laugh at.

Overall winners on the night were Best Actor Molly Stebbings, and Best Supporting Actors Te Paea Henman and Ziggy Kaitai Martin. Runner up for Best Scene was Twelfth Night with Rosa Miller and Olivia Bradfield, and the Winning Scene was from The Taming of the Shrew with Alice Houston-Page and Abe Baillie.

It was a very successful night and families and the other students enjoyed each other’s work. The students had much more appreciation of Shakespeare’s language and his stories after taking part in and exploring a scene in depth.