Drama Quartet On Road Again

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31904, 4 February 1969, Page 8

Drama Quartet On Road Again

Another New Zealand Players Drama Quartet—the fourteenth—will be on the road this week when schools reopen. The quartet, which travels round schools with the approval of the Education Department and carries props and costumes with it in a van, has been rehearsing in Wei-

lington under the Downstage Theatre’s resident producer, Dick Johnstone.

This year two programmes have been decided on for fifth and sixth formers—a fulllength play and a number of excerpts with the theme “Battles on Stage.” The programme for third and fourth formers begins with an introduction giving some idea of the versatility needed for different types of stage activity and continues with extracts from a number of works. A similar programme has been devised for intermediate school pupils. The group is led by Stephen O’Rourke, who has recently been with the Mercury Theatre in Auckland. The other male member, Peter McKenzie, originally from Wanganui, will be known to Wellington audiences for his performance in Downstage’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and the current production of “The Apole Tree.”

The female half of the group comprises Donna Akersten, a former schoolteacher entering her first full-time acting job after a term at the Central Theatre in Auckland, and Lauree Fowler, who was a student at the Central Theatre School last year. Last year the drama quartet toured for 34 weeks, covering the whole of the country and giving 327 performances, nearly all of them at schools. For many members of the young audiences, the visit by the quartet is their only experience of live professional theatre—especially in the country.