Written & directed by Sam Fisher

Season: 17, 18, 19, 20 December 2009

Christmas pseudo-Pantomime

Celebrate Christmas by getting involved in a Christmas mystery for kids. The warmest comedy this year from the North Pole.


Synopsis
When Father Christmas vanishes along with the contents of the safe Senior Detective Constable Sergeant Inspector Kris Kringle of the North Pole Special Branch Police Constabulary is on the scene to solve the mystery.

By deputising the audience and singing lots of songs Kris Kringle sorts through the facts. Was it Wonky or Flippin Elf? Or Little, Littler or Oddly Elf? How about Mrs Christmas? Or the representative of the Asia Toy Company? Someone knows more than they're letting on as the blizzard has stopped any escape for the villain.

Cast:

Father Christmas/Oddly Elf - Tom Vavasour
Wonky Elf - Erin Williams
Flippin Elf - Sophie Rea
Mary Christmas - Holly Loughton
Busy Lee - Cushla Parker
Detective Kris Kringle - Braydon Priest
Little and Littler Elves - Emily Harrison, Georgia Mangelsdorf

By Joe Orton
Directed by Garry Thomas

Season: 1st - 10th October 2009

Libidos run rampant in this breakneck farce about licensed insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst, instructs a prospective secretary to undress.

Joe Orton's last play before his tragic death, What the Butler Saw is hailed as a classic modern comedy.
​
Cast:
Dr Prentice - Danny Broom
Geraldine Barclay - Courtney Shaw
Mrs Prentice - Rebecca Taylor
Nicholas Beckett - Nik Rolls
Dr Rance - Steve Millar
Sergeant Match - Braydon Priest

Crew:
Stage Manager - Susan Cameron
Director's Assistant - Jayde Braxton

Season: 17 - 20 June 2009

Fault
By Sam Fisher
Directed by Marilyn Ollett

Alistair and Jane have not seen eye-to-eye for a quite while, and their views of what is wrong in their relationship are wildly different. Showing both perspectives of who may be at “fault”as the relationship begins to crack, this one act comedy allows the audience to make up its own mind. Qualified for the South Island Regional Festival on 6 and 7 June.

Cast:
Jane - Aimee Borlase
Rachel - Jo Owsley
Alistair - Jesse Hobbs
Jason - Andy Fidow


Swiss Cider
By André Surridge
Directed by Garry Thomas,
  assisted by Sarah Coursey

New Zealander Christine is a professional actor working in Britain, and on the verge of making it big on the West End. Yet her life could so easily have ended by her own hand while a teenager living in the Waikato. "Swiss Cider" tackles the difficult subject of teenage suicide using flashbacks to recall how Christine survived the pressures of her earlier life.

Written at a time when New Zealand had the highest suicide rate in the Western world, Surridge’s exploration of teen angst picked up the 1995 Minolta Playwrights' Association of New Zealand playwriting competition.

Cast:
Christine - Georgie Stylianou
Mo'/Sally - Carole Anderson
Ben/Brian - Braydon Priest
Mother - Sarah Hollander
Father - Richard Hensby
Rob/Psych - Steve Millar


Desperate and Dateless
By Neil Troost
Directed by Kris Vavasour

Appearances are everything, especially when you are running a dating agency - or for that matter, if you want to get a date. Roger enters Camilla’s dating agency to “find himself a woman” and meets severe criticism. Will Roger really convince Camilla to have dinner with him, or will her business-like attitude prevail? Join these two characters as they let their masks down.

Cast:
Camilla - Marilyn Ollett
Roger - Klaus Hermanspahn

By Samuel Beckett
Directed by 

Season: 22 - 31 January 2009

Waiting for Godot follows two consecutive days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themselves while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive.

They claim him an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognise him were they to see him.

To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay".
Waiting...If it were measurable, we might just find that waiting is the nation's single biggest pastime. We all find ourselves waiting for someone or something every day of the year, from buses to helpdesk operators, in supermarket & bank queues everywhere. Almost everywhere you go, you can see people waiting.

We've all seen someone who, at the merest hint of some idle time, whips out the knitting needles and the current work-in-progress. Today it is more common to see people playing soduku or simply plugging in headphones to the flavour-of-the-month electronic device and closing off the outside world entirely.

In the age of instant gratification, is waiting a lost art?

Originally written in French by an Irishman living in Paris, Waiting for Godot takes place in a simpler time – before the advent of cellphones and the internet – but its theme is well known to us all.
It was once famously described as "a play in which nothing happens, twice", by Vivian Mercier in the Irish Times (Feb 1956).

Elmwood Players is thrilled to be presenting this classic play to round out their 60th year. Waiting for Godot was written around the same time that Elmwood Players started holding play readings and performing short sketches. Director Tom Vavasour is no stranger to the Elmwood stage, having acted and directed for the society many times over the past 17 years. He is looking forward to the challenge of making sense of the play's circularity and absurdities, and of the waiting game we all play.


Cast:
Estragon, a tramp - Tom Vavasour
Vladimir, a tramp - Stan Hood
Pozzo, Middle class & pompous - Sam Fisher
Lucky, Pozzo's Servant - Neil Hurst
Boy, Messenger from Godot - Campbell Wright

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sam Fisher

Season: 6 - 16 August 2008

By the pricking of my thumbs…
Something wicked comes to Christchurch this winter season as Elmwood Players delves into the waking nightmare of Scotland’s most infamous hero.
More than 400 years of history have not diminished the engrossing power of Shakespeare’s darkest and bloodiest work: Macbeth has fascinated and enthralled every generation with its gripping depiction of the pitfalls of rampant power-lust and ambition.

This new interpretation, directed by Sam Fisher, combines a contemporary context with all the fascinating drama of a medieval horror. Commander of the modern-day Scottish forces in Afghanistan, a heroic and victorious Macbeth finds himself suddenly plunged into a phantasmagoric realm of witchcraft, carnage and madness that takes him right back to the dark ages — the dark ages both of time and of his soul.

Come in, come in to this dark and forbidding castle on the wild Scottish heath, where fair is foul and foul is fair and all manner of mysterious things hover in the murky air, and watch this pageantry of hell unfold…

Cast:
Duncan (King of Scotland) - Ian Beswick
Malcolm (Duncan's Son) - Mike Jamieson
Macbeth (General of the Army) - Chris Domigan
Banquo (General of the King's Army) - Will Wright
Macduff, a nobleman - Klaus Hermanspahn
Ross, a nobleman - Eric Owsley
Angus, a nobleman - Sophie Rae
A Porter - Ben Allan
A Scots Doctor - Neil Macbeth
Seyton - Jonathan Fisher
Lady Macbeth - Nikki Conyers
Lady Macduff / Apparition 2 - Sandi Ward
Witch 1 - Bailey Hunt
Witch 2 - Jess Stringer
Witch 3 - Jo Owsley
Hecate / Gentlewoman - Chanel Hughes
Apparition 1 / Soldier / Murderer - Taylor Hagen
Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants and Messengers. ​

By Charlotte Keatley
Directed by Doug Clarke QSM

Season: 7 - 17 May 2008

Doris, born in 1900, abandons teaching for marriage and motherhood, nurturing young daughter Margaret through the Blitz. To her mother’s disappointment, Margaret marries an American and becomes a typist, but then meets challenges of her own in her archetypal ‘60s rebel daughter Jackie. Aspiring artist Jackie sacrifices motherhood of Rosie to complete her studies and pursue a glamorous career.

A spirited child of the ‘70s, Rosie, is more than ready to forge her own path through the entrenched family secrets, but how much will it cost?
As each of the women, sometimes hesitantly, sometimes boldly, negotiates their way through the social mores of their time, they will find their greatest strength - and their greatest vulnerability - in these maternal ties.

This warm and tender play weaves back and forth in time, depicting pivotal moments in each of the women’s lives, creating a rich and engrossing family history that will make audiences both laugh and cry.

My Mother Said I Never Should marks a return to an old favourite for director Doug Clarke QSM, who has directed the play twice before. Clarke says he has changed his thought processes, however, and is “treating it as a fresh production”, inspired by Elmwood theatre’s unique staging possibilities

My Mother Said I Never Should has proved a tremendous hit with audiences since its premiere in 1987 at Manchester’s Contact Theatre, where it instantly launched its young author into the ranks of the UK’s top writers and won both the George Devine Award and Manchester Evening News Best Play award.

Cast:
Doris, born 1900, mother of Margaret - Felicity Watson
Margaret, born 1931, mother of Jackie - Marilyn Ollett
Jackie, born 1952, mother of Rosie - Helen Cooper
Rosie, born 1971 - Aimee Perry

By Beatrix Christian
Directed by Anita Hallewas

Season: 26 March - 5 April 2008

RATED M – This play contains strong language and adult themes including sex, drugs and rock'n'roll!

Pamela Maude is deeply affected by her discovery of a corpse under the Hills Hoist.

This find catalyses a hilariously manic succession of events: suicides, sibling rivalry, sexual coupling, a mysterious double-pregnancy and an uncloseting...

With the help of her actress sister, a used Porsche salesman, a futures broker and a confused detective, Pamela Maude must resolve the mystery of the unidentified cadaver, so she can find the key to happiness for them all.

Casually demented but seriously funny, 'Fred' has played to sell-out seasons throughout Australia.

Cast:
​Jamie Billings, Eric Owsley.

Cast:
Beth Hobbs, Maryanne Cathro, Sandi Ward, Ruth Savage, Deidre Tucker, Chanel Hughes.

Cast:
Steve Millar, Victoria Morgan

Cast:
Felicity Watson, Graham Mayes, Anita Hallewas, Nikki Conyers, Lynley McFaull, William Wright.

By Ben Elton
Directed by Maryanne Cathro

Season: 26 September - 6 October 2007

​A comic revenge tragedy from the master of comedy

Doris Wallace, bitchy queen of the tabloid press, is on the verge of a glorious venture in TV. She’s not going to let anything get in her way, not even the “silly cow” suing her for libel. Any skeletons she may have in her cupboard are, like her bondage gear, firmly locked up — or so she thinks.

Wickedly funny satire
Ben Elton’s wickedly funny satire on the slick and savage world of the tabloid press portrays a protagonist who has clawed her way to success and celebrity as a merciless and vicious critic. No star of the stage is safe from the barricade of barbs unleashed from her smoking keyboard; the bold and brassy Doris takes no prisoners, and makes no bones about it — “When the dogs are eating the dogs you have to make damn sure you’re the biggest bitch at the table”.

Machiavellian plot brewing
Every dog has its day though, and Doris, who’s practically self-tanning in her own reflected glory, is in for a surprise. Coolly unconcerned by the libel suit brought by one of her hapless victims, she swans about her apartment like a queen amongst her retinue of sycophants, swapping insults with seedy editor Sid, patronising her Latino toy boy and being organised by her overly officious secretary and accountant. Even she cannot comprehend the truly machiavellian plot brewing in the wings.

Classic Elton
Described by its author as a “comic revenge tragedy”, Silly Cow is classic Elton — a fast-paced, rapid-fire rollick. The characters spar with such eviscerating wit it’s a wonder they don’t cut themselves.

Director says
“I love this play,” says director Maryanne Cathro. “I seeth at the stupidity of the tabloid press who make their fortunes sticking cameras up celebrity skirts, so Silly Cow is almost an act of catharsis for me. Plus it’s really, really funny. It is Ben Elton as we love him best — the Young Ones and Blackadder sort of comedy that my generation grew up with.

Cast:
Doris —A ngela Reeves
Sid — Danny Broom
Eduardo — Jesse Hobbs
Peggy — Marilyn Ollett
Douglas — Peter Miller

By Roger Hall
Directed by Garry Thomas

​Season: 3 - 12 May 2007

Glide Time has Timeless Quality
Hall says that while much of the content is now dated (set firmly as it was in the 1970s) the play also has a timeless quality that continues to resonate with audiences.
“A middle-aged audience or younger finds it both historically quaint but also appallingly familiar. Bureaucracy usually remains a thorn in everyone’s side from whatever era, and in the end it is about very real characters that everyone recognises.”

Lots of Laughs
“And, if I may say so, it does have a lot of laughs in it — and audiences do love to laugh.” Which is something that still gives the playwright an enormous sense of satisfaction: “There is nothing nicer than sitting in a theatre hearing people laugh at things one has written.”

Hall Still Going Strong
Hall, who has three new plays being presented this year, says it feels “terrific” to be celebrating the 31st anniversary of Glide Time. He still feels a huge fondness for the play that was his first major hit. “I had been writing for 15 years or so and had had some success with stage revues and had had some plays on television. And it had been a struggle. And then Glide Time changed my life.”

Glide Time history
Enjoying several back-to-back seasons in each of the cities it was first performed, it became the basis for highly successful ‘80s TV series Gliding On and the sequel Market Forces.

Great trip down our Kiwi Social History
Now Elmwood is enjoying the opportunity to bring to life New Zealand’s favourite public servants; the long-suffering John, Hugh, Jim, Michael, Wally and Beryl.
Director Garry Thomas says both cast and audiences are enjoying the freedom of expression in the more scandalous humour of the un-PC” ‘70s.
“It’s a great opportunity for the older audience members to re-live something of the ‘70s and for the younger to understand what living at that time was like. It’s a real slice of Kiwi social history.”

Before The Office there was this office…
Ah yes, life in the stores board of a New Zealand government department during the 1970s…. Which department? — who knows, but it’s all so terribly familiar. Thirty years on, Roger Hall’s deliciously awkward satire on the banality of office life is as funny and painfully truthful as ever.

Office Politics
The officiousness, the creative allocation of little pools of time to quintessential nothingness, the gossip, office politicking, and all those other things that are done to avoid actually working, have managed resolutely to persist, in spite of all manner of perceived improvement and technological sophistication.