This year the PNGHS Drama Department had two student entries in the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand’s annual Shakespeare scene acting competition.

At the regional heats, which were held in Feilding on Sunday 11 April, Elizabeth Tichbon directed a five minute scene from “Taming of the Shrew” with Emiliya Shafieva playing a persuasive Petruchio and Maia de Wit playing the firey Katharina. The adjudicator commented that she “ Loved Petruchio’s accent” and also praised Maia’s “good reaction to the compliments he starts giving out.”

Paris Kareko and Shanay Rossiter directed a five minute scene taken from the comedy “Twelfth Night”. In the scene in which Malvolio tried to impress Olivia with his behaviour, Christina Li played Olivia, Kate Barber played Malvolio and Hae Won Kim played Maria. The adjudicator told the team: “You’ve got great ideas, and the scene was super cute.”

It was an enjoyable event to be part of and it was inspirational to see the range of scenes and approaches to Shakespeare’s text. We hope we can enter again next year and take advantage of all the feedback.