Performing arts on show at Hagley

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 25

Performing arts on show at Hagley

Five productions will be staged by the performing arts department at the Hagley High School Community Centre in October and November. Four are plays involving production and performance drama students. The first, by seventh form students, is Brecht and Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera,” which will open on Monday evening and run until October 8. The director is Sam Beveridge, the head of the performing arts department. It is the sixtieth anniversary year of the work. Beveridge says his production is focused on minimalism, “directional reductionism.” Kathy Ferigo is choreographing the work. The sixth form students’ production opens on October 17, again under Sam Beveridge’s direction. It is Mary O’Malley’s “Once a Catholic.” The season will run until October 22. Vincent O’Sullivan’s “Shuriken,” the story of the incident at Featherstone in which Japanese prisoners of war were shot, is a South Island premiere. It is a play in which English, Japanese and Maori languages areused. Sam Beveridge will direct the season from October 29 to November 4. The production is by a fifth form students and has an all male cast. A second fifth form class will stage “Rites” by Maureen Duffy, under the direction of a seventh form student, Jayne Crothall. That season will run from November 7 to 9. The last production for the year is “Singers of the Night,” a November 9 concert by pupils of Rosemary Turnbull in the school hall. The four plays will be staged in the school’s drama studio.