We had some amazing successes in the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare awards this year.

Congratulations to all six Logan Park entries in the regional Shakespeare competition in April. Our 5 minute piece won the regional section and goes through to the nationals. 

The standard was extremely high and all the students can be proud of their creativity and hard work. The calibre of student directors was superb.

Entries were Year 11 Romeo and Juliet, Alice Houston Page and Sujata Ritchie – self directed.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Casper McGuire (director) Gabe Kovaks, Finn McKinlay and Lichen Sorrel. They won the award for Best Use Of Costume with their Bob the Builder Costumes.

Year 12, As You Like It, with Cuba Rust, Lucan Willis, Bella Rennie and Rikke Kikkawa-McLeod.

Year 13, The Taming of the Shrew directed by Pania Throp with Josef Belton and Maegan Stedman Ashford, was a creative and superbly realised scene that is a real credit to the students involved.

Macbeth directed and acted by Oscar McGuire and Ahi Kaitai Mullane with Josef Belton.

Our adult directed piece 15 minute scene by Luke Major was Twelfth Night which was runner up and also earned Best Use of Music. Thanks to Luke for his vision and hard work with our talented team of Year 12 students.

Extra congratulations to Ahi Kaitai-Mullaine, Oscar McGuire and Josef Belton for their stylish, compelling and perceptive performance of two oppositional Lady MacBeth characters and blended, contrasting scenes from Macbeth, winning the Sheila Winn Otago Festival in the five-minute extract section at the regional Shakespeare final.

The actors directed their own performance and came up with a chilling, cut and paste narrative and dual-voice chorus that both explained and critiqued Lady MacBeth’s contentious and regrettable motivation to persuade her husband to murder the Scottish King Duncan while he was their guest.

As a result of their regional Festival win, Ahi, Oscar and Josef have been invited to perform as representatives of LPHS and Otago Secondary schools at the National Sheila Winn Festival in Wellington in July. Our new HoD Drama, Diane Dupres, will accompany this talented LPHS Year 13 team.

Another LPHS team of Year 12 students was runner-up in the 15 minute extract section, directed by ex-student, Luke Major, who was a member of the NZ Secondary Schools’ Shakespeare team to perform at the London Globe in 2016.

Their performed extract was from the comedy Twelfth Night, which provided plenty of scope, humour and comic irony for the lead actors to play on gendered disguise within a love triangle. Lucan Willis played the love-blind Orsino, oblivious of his messenger’s love for him. Meanwhile his young friend’s wooing of Olivia, played with confidence and panache by Cuba Rust, caught Oliva off-guard and she fell in love with Cesario disguised as Viola (played thoughtfully by Bella Rennie). This 15 minute, high-paced love intrigue was much appreciated by the large audience, including the incorporated Shakespearean ballad played sensitively by Bene Holloway and Rikke Kikkawa-McLeod. Other strong actors in the cast were Connor Vosh, Quinn Hardie, Eamon Wilson, Rosa Miller and Olivia Bradfield.

Beth Lynch also stood out and was selected as a national finalist in Costume Design for Rosalind in "As You Like It."

And the band "Painted Blind," Neive Strang, Cuba Rust, Rikke Kikkawa-McLeod and Mary Locker are national finalists in the Original Music Composition for "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The group organised a Fundraiser at the end of May and all 3 groups performed along with an entertaining extract from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Luke Major's stunning scene from Twelfth Night.

Students' got to perform in Wellington and some of their accounts are below.

Oscar Mcguire

A number of Shakespearean actors, musicians and costume designers went to Wellington over Queen's Birthday Weekend for the national awards. 

On Sunday night, after two days of watching performances, we had the awards ceremony.

Held in the Opera House, it was quite the ordeal. Paul Foster-Bell hosted the ceremony, and the awards were presented by both judges and special guests. However, we were kept in suspense for a while, and before the awards were presented, the 2016 SGCNZ YSC performed a series of scenes and skits for us.

With 20 performers total, there were both group and solo performances, covering everything from Shakespeare parodies to decidedly average Hamilton renditions. Judging from the at times over-enthusiastic audience response, it was the highlight of the night for many.

After the showcase, the awards were presented. Waiting through the 40 plus awards was gruelling, but it was made worth it when we got to see both Beth Lynch's costume, and the fantastic first place result for Logan Park band, Painted Blind. Much to their surprise, when Cuba and Rikke were presented with the award for first place in the music category (both for music inspired by a Shakespeare piece, and overall winners), their awesome winning composition was played to the audience. While Cuba and Rikke weren’t too excited about this, the audience was, and within seconds, there were hundreds of glowing phones waving around the Opera House.

A few congratulations and enthusiastic rounds of applause later, and the awards ceremony was over. After escaping the Opera House, we were greeted by a downpour in true Wellington fashion. We then travelled to Cuba Street for a much-needed snack, drenching ourselves in the process, before arriving back at the hostel.  

 Cuba Rust

On Queen’s birthday weekend we went up to Wellington for the University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare festival. 

It was an awesome experience. I and a bandmate went up as representative finalists in music composition, and although we found the workshops fun, the highlight was definitely exploring the city. Namely Cuba Street and Te Papa were fantastic places to visit, and with my name being Cuba we took pictures by nearly every sign. My personal favourite was:

“Cuba

Everything you ever wanted… and more.”

Highlights of Cuba St.

1. The signs.

2. Rikke found a comic book shop- something Dunedin is seriously lacking, but sadly we didn’t make it back there for her to get a souvenir.

3. The vegetarian nachos from Midnight Expresso- So good! Definitely recommend.

We were so proud of all of Logan Park’s entries and overall our band placed first over all the music categories with a song we love, and Beth Lynch came third in Costume Design. Wohoo!

 Beth Lynch

My part in the Shakespeare festival was being a finalist in the costume designing competition. 

I’d worked on my design for about three months before sending it off - and getting my golden ticket reply. The process involved researching the character I chose, coming up with the outfit, drawing it out and explaining the details of the design. I had to ensure the design reflected the character’s values and personality, and include fabric samples and a construction plan, as the winning designs would be professionally made.

When I found out I was a finalist, my mind went into overdrive imaging how my costume would be made, interpreted, whether they would use my fabrics. You can imagine my heart was going a million miles an hour when I got to the Opera House on Sunday night. I was in Wellington for the whole five days, but the only day that included any ‘costuming’ was on Sunday, in regards to the ceremony that evening when the outfits were put on display. That was the night I’d been waiting for.

The first two hours were reserved for hair and make-up, which led to a small disaster as I hadn’t considered these in my design - and the costumes had not yet arrived. Meeting my model - Brydie - was a huge relief to this as we were both as bad at decision making as the other! We decided on hair extensions, and a neutral make-up look, as my character Rosalind was one of those characters that dressed up as a boy. When you consider that all of Shakespeare’s actors were men - and thus the men played women playing men - it creates an interesting paradox.

Finally, I got to see my costume. I don’t think I spoke for the first few minutes. I didn’t cry either, as Ahi had predicted, but I will admit there was some excited jumping and dancing. And many, many photos.

It was so incredible to see the costume on that rack, all the pieces and colours and fabrics I had imagined in my head sitting right in front of me. Seeing it on Brydie was just as surreal - she looked every inch the beautiful heroine. Seeing her transform from Rosalind to her male counterpart Ganymede was also mind-blowing, just as I’d written it months before. Every piece was what I’d created - yet better.

Getting ready to go on stage was so much fun, and talking with Brydie and Kaarin (who was the head designer/costumier at Toi Whakaari), as well as the other finalists was great - I was so included and there were so many amazing costuming ideas being bounced around and seen.

All the other costumes were fantastic, and all the places brilliantly deserved. It was an amazing experience and really opened my eyes to the visual and non visual beauty of Shakespeare.

Another one of my highlights of the trip was finding food. With someone of my allergies in the group, along with vegetarian requirements, portion sizes, and *cough* interesting culinary tastes, organising dinner was a real circus. We tried everything from hipster midnight cafes, Filipino barbeque, and homemade. Often dinner ended up being served at around nine o’clock at night!

Cooking together was a great experiment, and heaps of fun. We divided up the cost of budget pasta and eighty cent cans of tomatoes, and made sure there were drinks, so everyone had their ‘choccy milk’. Or just lemonade.

The kitchen was wonderful, and soon enough everyone had a job, and everyone did it well. We had tonnes of chopped carrots, and enough onions to use as a military weapon. Me being the stirrer of all this, had an interesting time trying (and failing) to keep the whole mess from spilling over the edge.

There were some discoveries made - there is more than one type of can opener, and three bags of pasta is a few bags too many for six people… But we got there. The meal was delicious, and well enjoyed with toppings of cheese, and for some of us; choccy milk.

Another fan favourite was the kitchen itself, which had a constant hum from the fan (or something else, I don’t know) and we all harmonised at various musical intervals, creating an eerie symphony for the other guests.

All in all, Wellington food was ridiculously good, and I think some of the best meals of my life were discovered - I would recommend the food markets (they’ll make your head spin with all the variety). The combined cooking was an experience to remember for sure, plates were cleared and mouths were full - when we weren’t laughing, of course!