A word from backstage
Well, here it is folks, the last show of the year, and what a year you have all made for us.
Your commitment to the Fortune whether it be; attending shows, becoming a subscriber, donating time, donating money, ushering, volunteering or just taking time to give us feedback, has created such a momentum for us.
What that says to me is: you like what we have to offer, you have a good time when you’re here, and you’d like to see more!
Well you’ll certainly be getting more with Calendar Girls – for obvious reasons – but you might be pleased to know we’re launching our 2013 Season on 12 December. So, no waiting in suspense over the Christmas break. You can purchase subscriptions for your family and friends before Christmas, and have a beautiful season brochure to give them too.
Without giving too much away before then, the Fortune 2013 season will be raising its bar higher than ever, to bring you a strong, eclectic mix of the very best contemporary theatre with a thrilling line-up of local, national and international theatre-makers. Something and someone for everyone’s tastes.
Anyhow, I am jumping the gun a little, when there is still so much to choose from this year.
Calendar Girls is selling faster than any show I have seen in my time at the theatre. Comedy Intelligence Agency has now been with us over a year with growing success. Our Young Playwrights Initiative started its ten week programme in the Studio. Stage South celebrate NZ playwright Elspeth Sandys in a reading of her work…
So, get in here before it’s too late. Treat yourself to a good time. You deserve it.
Lara Macgregor
Artistic Director
Members Corner
It is hard to believe but we are onto the last show for the year already! It has been a busy but rewarding year for the Friends of the Fortune with another very successful and diverse season of shows.
Christmas is just around the corner and I would like to encourage you to get a group organised or grab a friend and get along to the Calendar Girls. What a great night out for a Christmas work function. Try some of our tasty Hummingbird plunger coffee and relax for a well earned night of entertainment.
The Friends of the Fortune volunteers are always keen to have more volunteers join us and get involved supporting the Theatre. If you would like to be a volunteer for next year and get involved in the Theatre please let us know and we can schedule you in for our 2013 training.
Look forward to seeing you at Calendar Girls.
STARKLY MEMORABLE - PLAY review
PLAY
by Samuel Beckett
directed by Lara Macgregor
Reviewed by Kimberley Buchan, 9 Oct 2012 for Theatreview
The oppressively grey drizzly day is the perfect weather for this play so the atmosphere mounts before you have even entered the building. The location of this performance is simply superb. Scaffolding holds up stone walls and missing staircases. The ornate ceiling decays above the piles of quarried rocks on which the three metal urns sit.
To read the full review, click here.
Potty idea for a play
By Nigel Benson on Thu, 4 Oct 2012 for Otago Daily Times
It is a tough way to urn a living.
Three giant pots have been installed in the Standard Insurance building for the Otago Festival of the Arts performance Play.
The pots will be filled with actors for the play, which is about a man, his wife and his mistress who are trapped in a hell of their own making.
To read the full article, click here.
From the Members Committee
What a magnificent year of productions Fortune Theatre has given us this year, and confidentially, next year is looking even more exhilarating!
I recommend getting a group of friends and/or work colleagues together for Calendar Girls for Christmas - what a way to finish off a hectic year!
Busy shows mean busy volunteers and it has been all go this year, but very exciting, and remember new volunteers are always welcome.
Can I suggest that the next show you come to you ‘take the plunge!’ and try our new plunger coffee and maybe a ‘cheeseboard’ to go with it. The Friends of the Fortune are always looking to improve the service and hospitality we provide, and in keeping with this we have moved to Hummingbird plunger coffee, (and a nice wee brew it is). The team are always appreciative of your feedback on what is on offer at the Coffee Bar and also on how we can improve our ushering services. So if you would like to make comment, please send your thoughts to the Theatre referencing them to ‘The Friends of the Fortune’.
Look forward to seeing you all at Calendar Girls.
Kind Regards
Ray Tobin
Heroes Package Won
Heroes Package Won
with Fortune Theatre and The Star
Congratulations to our Heroes Tribute winner:
Christine Doig Brown from Broad Bay who won four tickets to Heroes, platters at Scotia, and a pick up and drop off in a new car from Mazda Dunedin City Motors.
The Judges were so impressed by the entries, we had four runner-up prizes of two tickets to Heroes going to:
Kathleen Sharp,Annemarie Jorissen,Richard McIntyre and Effie Cockburn. Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who entered.
Note From Backstage
A WORD FROM BACKSTAGE
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…this is what is going on in my brain right now as we motor through rehearsals for Samuel Beckett’s Play for the Otago Festival of the Arts. Play is somewhat of a diversion from our usual fare but what a wonderful and complex piece of theatre it is to work on. Sculptor Hannah Kidd has built three remarkable urns for the actors to be housed in, as they wrestle with deep seated Beckett themes – habit, perception, isolation, consciousness – and Stephen Kilroy has been mastering the single spot that illuminates the actor’s heads peering over the tops of the urns, triggering them to speak. This remarkable piece of theatre hasn’t been performed on a professional stage in New Zealand for close to thirty years. We’re very excited to be presenting it in the Standard Insurance Building at 201 Princes Street from 9 October -13 October at 5.30pm. This is a FREE event and you’re welcome to stay for five minutes or an hour, whatever suits you in the moment. I’m hoping you have plenty lined up in the Festival to see. Dave Armstrong’s spectacular Where We Once Belonged and the Australian puppet show The Grimstones: Hatched, are both being housed on the mainstage of the Fortune for the Festival. All tickets are available through Ticket Direct.
Backstage we’ve been busy working on Paul Baker’s new script The Night Visitors and setting up the Studio 4 x 4 Young Playwrights Initiative which begins its ten week programme on 13 October. I have had so many wonderful responses from budding young playwrights wanting to be part of the course - it’s very exciting. I’ll update you on that initiative next month, and also let you know how rehearsals are going for Calendar Girls!!! It’s selling so fast we can hardly keep up.
Aroha
Lara Macgregor
Artistic Director
