From the outskirts of New Jersey to Chicago.
Last year’s highly successful Te Awamutu College stage production of the Addams Family has provided impetus for the establishment of a new Te Awamutu Youth Theatre.
Morag Carter
The theatre is already preparing auditions for a June performance of Chicago: Teen Edition and its committee will host introduction evening tomorrow (Friday) in the Fahrenheit Event room.
The new theatre aims to establish a youth drama organisation which will provide performing arts opportunities for 13 to 20 year olds in Te Awamutu and surrounding areas.
Te Awamutu College Drama teacher Morag Carter, who directed The Addams Family, described it as a great opportunity to develop the youth theatre community in Te Awamutu.
She will also direct Chicago: Teen Edition.
“In the 90s, when I was growing up, Te Awamutu was where the serious Hamilton performers in their late teens and 20s would come to participate in great theatrical opportunities. It would be awesome to see this community have those opportunities for our young people again,” she said.
Te Awamutu College’s Addams family. Photo Lyndon Katene.
Carter said it was hard to find performing opportunities in the late teens “because you’re no longer a child, but not yet an adult.
“Hopefully once teens get a taste for performing arts we can work with Talos (Te Awamutu Light Operatic Society), the Little Theatre, and other arts groups to help the post-Covid revitalisation of the Performing Arts community here in Te Awamutu again.”
Committee member and secretary Michelle Stevens said tomorrow’s meeting was an opportunity to see how things are going to work, “and to support Te Awamutu Youth Theatre as we work hard to get it off the ground.
“We’re keen to have more people involved behind the scenes as well as onstage,” she said.
The inaugural committee comprises parents of teenagers who want to see more opportunities for their children in the community, as well as engagement with those teens who live in the community, but are homeschooled or travel to other schools.
“There are limited opportunities for teenagers who aren’t sports focussed, so we wanted to give them an opportunity to rehearse and perform a show”, chairperson Liz Dixon said.
