TRAINING WITH OLD VIC

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25660, 24 November 1948, Page 6

TRAINING WITH OLD VIC

TWO CHRISTCHURCH GIRLS SELECTED

Two members of the Canterbury University College Drama Society, which will tour Australia during the Christmas vacation, have been recommended for training at the Old Vic School in England. They are Misses Pamela Mann and Brigid Lenihan. Mr Robert Stead, of the Unity Theatre group, Wellington, who will be manager of the tour, has also been chosen for training. They will remain in England for about two years, and intend to return to New Zealand.

When the Old Vic Theatre Company visited Christchurch in September, the first act of Pirandello’s play, “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” which will be presented in Australia, was presented by the college society before Sir Laurence and Lady Olivier and members of the company. Auditions were held later,- and Misses Mann and Lenihan were chosen for training. Miss Mann, who has had experience in producing plays for the college society, will go to the Old Vic Production School and Miss Lenihan to the acting school. They will leave after the Australian tour. Miss Lenihan, who is a member of the society and a former student at the School of Art, has taken parts in several radio plays produced by the New Zealand Broadcasting .Service and in*the college society’s plays. She has also' taken part in plays produced by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society, the Wellington Repertory Society and Unity Theatre, Wellington. She took leading parts in Ibsen’s “Ghosts” and the Unity Theatre’s production of “The Male Animal.”

Miss Mann took part in the Pirandello play, and has also produced plays for the college society. Mr Stead has produced plays for the Unity Theatre. Mr Max McGlashan wnl. be stage manager for the tour in Australia.