New and veteran members of the Ellerslie Theatrical Society have been busy shooting, strangling, shovelling and seducing their way through rehearsals of six plays.
New and veteran members of the Ellerslie Theatrical Society have been busy shooting, strangling, shovelling and seducing their way through rehearsals of six plays.
These entertaining plays have been selected, from a number of submissions, to be performed for this year’s AMI Ellerslie One Act Play Festival running from the 20th to the 29th of August at the Stables Theatre.
The six plays are to be performed in two groups of three plays performing on alternate days. The season includes three locally written premieres.
Group A
(Thur 20, Sat 22, Wed 26, Fri 28 at 8pm, Sat 29 at 2pm)
Communication written by David Blakey and directed by Kenneth Porter
Andrew is a sixty-year-old gay man who is in love with twenty-year-old Jacob. But Jacob does not love Andrew. Andrew must face the judgments of his friends when he asks for their advice.
Jayne with a Y written by Ian Hornby and directed by Colin Hodkinson
Jayne, a young student visitor to a nursing home, meets Emily, an apparently cantankerous old lady. Jayne has her preconceptions challenged by a woman who is not the grumpy old person the nursing staff had her believe. Emily is an intelligent and interesting woman and the two form a bond that is likely to continue into a hopeful future.
The Bear written by Anton Chekhov and directed by Carolyn Flint
A young widow named Popova has decided to bury herself between her four walls and give up on life following the death of her husband. Her peace is harshly disturbed when Smirnov walks in - a landowner from the neighbourhood. He has come to make claim to money owed to him by her late husband. They get on so badly that he ends up challenging her to a duel. But when he has to teach her how to aim a pistol he begins to notice the smell of her hair...
Group B
(Fri 21, Tue 25, Thur 27, Sat 29 at 8pm, Sun 23 at 2pm)
Survivor by Graham Rhodes and directed by Chrissy Hodkinson
A comedy about one man facing the rigours of a team-building exercise that goes horribly wrong. It is a one-man show and his experiences of his company’s “strategic training policy”. Middle management is sent on a survival course with somewhat disastrous results.
The Cleansing Fire written by Denis Edwards and directed by Kevin Murray
In the early 1920s Fintan Patrick Walsh took control of the Seaman’s Union. His first task was to free the union of informers and ‘scabs’. Rennie was accused of being an informer. Walsh took him down to the Auckland City Council destructor, now the Victoria Park Market. Rennie had no idea where he was going…
The Case of the Garrotted Governess written and directed by Garrick Burn
Two victims. One dead and the other just about. The police proclaim it to be a routine burglary simply gone wrong, but Sherlock Holmes suspects something more sinister has occurred.
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