The Revenger's Tragedy

Whilst Study for my degree I undertook a two year-long Expressive Arts papers. In a small way, it was much like attending drama school only that school ran twice a week for a total of 4 hours, and was spaced out over the two years. I made some great friendships and it was my first experience dealing with truly Thespianic personalities. Drama was always in the air, and if it wasn't then one of the class would create some. It was a great period of my life, although my confidence levels were still among the lowest in the group.

We were lucky enough to have Christian Penny (now the Director of Toi Whakaari) as the director for our final show piece, a reverse-gender performance of Cyril Tourneur. I would like to think there was some clever reason for such a reversal, but sheer lack of men iin our company forced Christian's hand.

I was cast as Gratiana and received a great deal of stage time along with my 'daughter' Castiza.

The production, rehearsals and comradery still goes down as one of the most memorable experiences, but unfortunately the critics panned our show... with specific focus on the males within our cast. My own performance was likened to 'a drunk rugby player in drag'. The others didn't fare much better.