A South Canterbury theatre company is preparing to take matters into its own hands after being timed and priced out of an opportunity to take part in the TheatreFest national showcase this past weekend.
After progressing through both the local and then lower South Island regional rounds of Theatre New Zealand’s TheatreFest one-act play competition, Dramatix Theatre once again found itself in the position of having two plays selected to be a part of the competition’s final round.
Both The Extraordinary Revelations of Orca the Goldfish and Incident at the Border made the top eight but with only two weeks’ notice to get funds together to ship the sets and travel to Hamilton for the showcase, the decision was made that it would not be feasible to make the journey after having also travelled to Auckland to take part in last year’s national showcase.
Dramatix actor Cameron Lines, who would have been performing in Incident at the Border, said while it was a little disappointing not to take part, they needed to show there had to be a change in the way the competition was run.
‘‘For 30 years it’s been a 50:50 split between nationals in the South Island and nationals in the North Island to give everyone a fair chance. Particularly considering that they [Theatre New Zealand] want to target these things at schools, youth groups and small community groups such as Timaru.
‘‘With two weeks’ notice to organise everything and then to have it in the North Island two years in a row, it’s just unaffordable in this economy and put it out of our reach.
‘‘It’s unfortunately kind of put us off from maybe doing it again, especially if they don’t bring it to the South Island. You need more time to be able to fundraise or just be a bit more transparent if they want it to be a North Island-only competition.’’
He said he had raised the issue in the past while on the national executive of Theatre New Zealand but saw no real action, and Dramatix would be prepared to start its own South Island-based competition.
‘‘We already have [theatre showcase event] One Act of Madness, so the ultimate goal would be to push that out and make it a South Island-wide competition instead of just South Canterbury.
‘‘We want to try and get some of those schools back in and some of the smaller communities, where there just isn’t the money to ship them around the country and up to Auckland every year.
‘‘We’ve got some plans and schemes in the works. I don’t know how much of it’s been confirmed or written down yet, but we are in the planning phases of trying to get something like this up and running.’’
Mr Lines said he felt there needed to be breath of fresh air injected into the amateur one-act theatre scene.
‘‘We want to be able to encourage as many people as we can to do this kind of thing so it doesn’t die. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen some schools do stuff at TheatreFest but it’s almost stagnated, I feel.
‘‘It’s the same groups doing roughly the same things because people aren’t interested. They know they can’t afford it, so why bother?
‘‘We’re very keen to get people involved, so if anyone out there is wanting to help out, or looking at providing sponsorship packages, get in touch with us and we can go from there.’’
