DRAMA SCHOOL

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28792, 13 January 1959, Page 2

DRAMA SCHOOL

City Girl Chosen As Pupil

Miss Penelope Gresson, aged 18, of Christchurch, is one of the eight pupils chosen from 30 applicants to enter the New Zealand Players’ drama school which opens next month. The school will be held at the company’s headquarters in Wellington, with classes every evening from February 2 until the end of the year. Miss Gresson hopes to get a job in Wellington during the day, while attending the school.

When a pupil at Avonslde Girls’ High School, Penelope Gresson went with a school party to see the New Zealand Players’ production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It was there the idea was sown of joining the “Players’’ herself. When she left school at the end of 1957 she had quite made up her mind to do something practical about stage experience and joined the Canterbury Repertory Society at the beginning of last year. Repertory Parts Penelope Gresson was given parts in two plays—“ Breaking Point," a one-act show, and "Meet A Body,” one of the society’s three-act productions. Instructors at the drama school in Wellington will include Miss Joanna Derril as instructor in voice production; Mrs Gisa Taglight, movement and mime; and Mr David de Bethel, make-up and costume. The Shakespearean tutor may be a prominent theatrical personality from overseas.