Outrageous Fortune star Antonia Prebble has made her professional theatre debut in Auckland Theatre Company’s brand new production of Oliver Goldsmith’s ribald comedy of bad manners She Stoops to Conquer directed by Michael Hurst at Maidment Theatre.

Outrageous Fortune star Antonia Prebble has made her professional theatre debut in Auckland Theatre Company’s brand new production of Oliver Goldsmith’s ribald comedy of bad manners She Stoops to Conquer directed by Michael Hurst at Maidment Theatre.

Prebble rose to fame as a core cast member of The Tribe before landing the role as the little sister, Loretta West, on Outrageous Fortune. She will take the stage as Kate Hardcastle, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who “stoops to conquer” by posing as a barmaid to lure a husband. 

Playing opposite Prebble as the awkward Charles Marlowe is the aptly named Arthur Meek, who won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award Best Male Newcomer in 2008 for his hit comedy On The Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me As Her Lover.

In the tireless search for Mrs Right, it’s the Miss Wrongs that make it all worthwhile

Charles Marlow, tongue-tied and uptight, needs a lesson in the art of love. He longs for a wife, but finds it easier to have a bit on the side. The barmaid seems fair game – but there’s more to her than meets the eye.

With its outrageous mix of secret elopements and nocturnal confusions, Goldsmith’s classic comedy has delighted audiences for over two centuries.

Continuing their reputations for imaginative interpretations of classic comedies, Michael Hurst with creative team Elizabeth Whiting, John Verryt and Jeremy Fern, will give the rebels of She Stoops to Conquer a fashion makeover as they transport the play from the wigs and fans of the 1770s to the bouffants and Vespas of 1959.

“A few seasons back Michael directed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night for Auckland Theatre Company,” says Auckland Theatre Company Artistic Director Colin McColl.

“The show was transported from the 1600s Italy to a tropical Island in mid-twentieth century with great effect. So I’m delighted Michael Hurst will give another great rumbustious com­edy a glorious makeover with his inimita­ble comedic style and verve.”

“This is She Stoops to Conquer as you’ve never seen it before!” says costume designer Elizabeth Whiting, “it’s 1959 so we’ve got teddy boys, winkle-pickers and brothel creepers.

Returning to the stage as Marlowe’s off-sider Hastings is Paul Ellis. After his character Fergus Kearney left Waverly standing at the altar on Shortland Street, Ellis lived in the UK for six years before returning to New Zealand where he has juggled his day job at Silo Theatre with performance.

Michael Whalley and Esther Stephens round out the band of badly behaved young lovers as Toby Lumpkin and Constance Neville. Two cousins whose impending marriage is a contrivance by meddling parents to keep wealth and jewels in the family but who in reality not-so-secretly loathe each other.

She Stoops to Conquer will give audiences a riotous night of theatrical misunderstandings and belly-aching laughter.

Antonia Prebble

This is Antonia’s debut professional theatre role and she is extremely excited to be treading the boards once again.

Originally from Wellington, Antonia has been working as a professional actress for over twelve years. Her very first roles were in musicals and operas, most notably Carmen (Wellington City Opera). Antonia’s debut television appearance was Mirror Mirror II and while still pursuing her high-school education, she played the lead role in five series of The Tribe.

After graduating from school, Antonia presented the children’s show WNTV and began an English Literature degree at Victoria University. In 2005 she moved to Auckland to play Loretta West in the hit series Outrageous Fortune, for which she has won a Qantas Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Antonia enjoys combining her love for travel and for acting. In 2007 she studied with Philippe Gaulier at his theatre school in Paris and the following year she attended a “Summer Acting Intensive” at the Larry Singer Studios in New York.

The extraordinary Oliver Goldsmith

Irish playwright Oliver Goldsmith was born in Roscommon in 1728. Soon after his birth his family moved to Kilkenny West, where Goldsmith first went to school. In 1744 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, but his life at college was miserable. He graduated in 1749 and was a tutor for a time, but lost his position as the result of a quarrel. He decided later to emigrate to America, but missed his ship.

When he was 24 he was endowed and went to Edinburgh to study medicine, where for a year and a half he made only slight pretence at attending lectures. In 1756 he arrived in London and turned his hand to every sort of work: translation, the writing of superficial histories, children’s books, and general articles.

Through the publication of THE BEE and the LIFE OF BEAU NASH, Goldsmith achieved considerable popularity, and his fortunes began to mend. He belonged to the circle of writers known as ‘The Club’ which included such writers as Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds.

His works THE TRAVELLER and THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD firmly established his reputation as a poet. He wrote his first play, THE GOOD NATUR’D MAN, in 1768 and quickly followed it up with THE DESERTED VILLAGE, and his theatrical masterpiece, SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER, which was hugely successful.

But Goldsmith’s carelessness, his intemperance and his gambling soon brought him into debt. Broken in health and mind, he died in 1774.