Two students from Botany Downs Secondary College, Jake Fanstone and Shalom DeSouza, along with Lily Moore from Howick College, have been selected for the SGCNZ (Shakespeare Global Centre New Zealand) Young Shakespeare Company.
Each year 49 students from around New Zealand are chosen to attend Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand’s (SGCNZ) National Shakespeare Schools Production (NSSP) in late September.
From this group, 24 are selected to form SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company and will travel to London in July next year.
They will be involved in a comprehensive and exciting ‘package’, based principally at Shakespeare’s Globe London, of workshops, talks, Q&A sessions about the plays with actors and directors, behind the scene tours of the Globe, Rose and National Theatre, watch performances and rehearse at the Globe.
Over their two weeks in London, they will have 12 rehearsals taken by a Globe director in scenes from one of Shakespeare’s plays which they will have the amazing opportunity to perform for the public on the Globe stage.
To complete their nearly three-week-long itinerary, they move on to Stratford-Upon-Avon for historical Setting Shakespeare’s Scene – including tours and performances there.
DeSouza says it’s a dream come true.
“I have always known I wanted to perform since the first movie I was shown as a child and this opportunity is a step in the right direction for me to make it as my career. I love being able to transform people and submerge them within performing allowing them to forget about their daily lives/worries. I am so grateful to my school Botany Downs Secondary College for offering the opportunity of Sheilah Winn Regional which has led me to this very point.”
Fanstone says, “I remember being pretty dumbstruck when I got the call for NSSP so you can imagine how excited I was when I got the call for YSC. I have never seen myself as being any better at acting than my peers, and that still hasn’t changed. However, I have certainly come to realise how lucky we all are to have such amazing opportunities as these and how important it is to grab at these opportunities whenever they come your way.”
