Current Shows

Stage Centre Playing With Willy

Putting no holds on the bard 

A youth collective of Warren Bates' advanced Stage Centre students get rehearsing for the New Zealand amateur theatre debut of The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (ABRIDGED). 

The New Plymouth based theatre group are currently taking on the challenge of adapting and performing the high powered three-man show originally written and performed by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield of the American based Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC). A hilarious parody, both witty and clever, is the result of an imaginative marriage between script and improvisation set at a lightning fast pace covering all of Shakespeare's minor and major works. 'Using many forms of theatre,' says director Warren Bates. 'From mime to farce to black comedy, rap, audience interaction, improvisation, all forms of theatre,' he continues. 

Already halfway through blocking and creatively work-shopping the vaudevillian show, the team are putting themselves through intensive and professionally approached rehearsal periods that can last for up to nine hours in a single day. Demanding focus, discipline, quick thinking and energetic teamwork from onstage cast members Matthew Taylor, William Isbister, and Simon Cannell, are just some of the essential skills as the play proves to be no simple task. 

Matthew explains: 'There's a lot of work involved, and some of it's quite different from other that we've done previously. So it's good to build an experience based from that.' To see or not to see? Hopefully that's the question now plaguing the minds of you theatre-goers new and old. In answer to your contemplations, production manager Kelsey McEwan quotes:  'If you like Shakespeare, you'll like this show. If you hate Shakespeare, you'll love this show.'                                                                                  

Stage Centre's production of The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (ABRIDGED) will show at New Plymouth's Little Theatre from August 19th-21st at 7:30pm. Tickets available through the New Plymouth Operatic Society office on 758 4958. Prices: Adult: $20,   Student: $15

Word written by Matthew Ridgewell-Lang

AUDITIONS 18-19 JULY 2010 

Contact npos@xtra.co.nz