Repertory president leaves

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 12

Repertory president leaves

Mrs Penny Giddens, president of the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society, and her husband, Mr Peter Giddens, senior lecturer in civil engineering at the University of Canterbury will leave Wellington tomorrow to spend eleven months in Great Britain and Europe.

Mr Giddens has a year’s refresher leave from his university post, and while he is undertaking research in his field, both he and his wife will take every opportunity to study theatre in London and in the regional centres, including the No(ting-

ham Playhouse, Birmingham Repertory, Bristol Old Vic, and the Liverpool Playhouse, where Mrs Giddens has some contacts.

A farewell party was given recently by Mr Clarence B. Hall (a vice-president of the society) and Mrs Hall, when presentations were made to Mr and Mrs Giddens. The guests included members of the committee, and the society’s patron (Mr T. W. C. Tothill). Mrs Jennifer Goldsborough (better known as Jennifer Barrer), a member of the production sub-committee, has been appointed to take Mrs Giddens’s place as liaison officer with the Secondary English Teachers’ Association in planning next year’s schools’ tour. This was begun this term as a professional pilot venture in conjunction with the association, and 12 secondary schools in and around Christchurch were visited by the

actors, Richard Weir and David Anido.

The tour had been exciting and fruitful, Mrs Giddens reported to a recent committee meeting. Both the scheme and the programme had been commended by education authorities. Mr Graham Robinson has been appointed tour producer for 1972.

Since the resignation earlier this year through illhealth of Mrs Dorothy Davies, Mrs Giddens had been doing the clerical work in the theatre office, and the day-to-day management of the society’s affairs. The committee received many applications from members for this part-time position, announced in the society’s newsletter, and it is expected that regular daily office hours will be resumed at the theatre (from 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.) when next year’s activities begin in midJanuary.