Kia ora Court Supporters,
I hope you are all happy and well and enjoying mulled wine with your loved ones during this cold snap.
I am into the first week of my job as the official Artistic Director. My gosh, what a time to start a job! The Youth Company have been working away on creating their new show, The Quarantine Diaries. We are excited for this project as it will see them take their audience through the building with them as they perform. The Court Jesters are working on their “long-form techniques” to create fully improvised musicals, Shakespeares, Jane Austen stories and more in Scared Scriptless Attempts. Telling one story for 75 minutes is a lot harder than the twelve 2-5 minute stories/games they do in Scared Scriptless! The Early Early Late Show will also be back for a special two-week season during KidsFest.
The Artistic team have been working over the last two months on programming for the next season. Everything we had planned has had to be questioned now that Covid-19 has happened. We have had 14 directors and programmers input into what shows are strong and popular, or in development that our communities might like to see. The Artistic team have been reading and watching filmed plays online to shortlist shows that will entertain and delight you. We also put together a list of possible musical options for summer 2021 that we emailed out and put online. Some very interesting results with Little Shop of Horrors, Once and RENT coming out on top out of 20 shows. We are now hunting out which we can get rights to perform! Watch this space.
I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to seeing you back in the theatre soon.
Much aroha,
Pengelly