There haven't been any posts up on this site for a while and I thought it was time to pop up a notice that the blog is closing down indefinitely. There are a few reasons for this, one being that my lifestyle has changed significantly in the last three years and I'd like to move into writing more creatively and personally; it would take me several hours to put together each post as I checked sites for upcoming shows and auditions and I just don't have the time to do that right now. I had recently also found that I was getting a lot of requests from commercial and semi-professional ventures and while I wish to support artists who have found a way to make a living doing what they love, the purpose of this site was never free advertising but a kind of central community noticeboard for the theatre world.
The biggest reason however, is that I don't think this blog is necessary any more.
When I first started this blog there was a need for it. I often found myself talking to people who said they would love to get involved in theatre clubs but didn't know where to start looking, or who were involved with just one club and wanted to branch out but didn't know who else was around. We were reeling from the big earthquakes, many of the theatre clubs lost venues and the community was still fractured. We've come a long way since then, and I've found I have been getting less and less feedback as the site isn't needed anymore. The Christchurch theatre community has become a lot closer and there is more collaboration between clubs now. Art and creation were powerful means to recovery in a post-trauma city and I know that the sense of community and family that theatre provide meant a lot to many of us during this time.
At the end of 2010 I was involved in Musoc's production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. The rehearsal and pre-production period took place in the void between the September 4 2010 earthquake and the big shake on February 22. It was my first musical since 2005 and the first show I'd performed with the university. I don't know if it's the vulnerability of singing or the large cast or the intense rehearsals, maybe its something magical about music itself, but being in a musical is a very different experience, socially, to being involved in any other kind of performance art I've experienced. The cast becomes very close and you feel like you have this temporary second family, reeling together in the adrenaline rush of a perfect run-through and leaning on each other when you are over-rehearsed and exhausted.
'Whorehouse had a two week run in the Ngaio Marsh Theatre from 18-26th Feb. February 22 2011 was the day after our final show of the first week. One of the first people I found on campus in the post-quake chaos was the show's producer. We were both in shock and wearing our show t-shirts, upset that our show might not "go on", unaware of the extent of the damage and naively assuming this was the worst possible side effect. While I wish we had been right, we stuck together listening to my car radio for the next hour or so, discovering how bad it really was. We bonded in those moments, and she is still one of my absolute best friends.
In the weeks that followed, the university's campus became populated with propped-up tents as buildings were assessed. The UCSA building in which the Ngaio Marsh Theatre resided was found to be on unstable ground and was deemed off-limits. Either way the concept of completing our two week run seemed obsolete with so many bigger things going on. Members of the cast and crew teamed up with the SVA to shovel silt from people's homes while studying by correspondence and foolishly trying to get back a feeling of normalcy. Despite everything, we couldn't help lose the feeling that we were lacking closure, that our show that we'd worked for months on was surely something an earthquake shouldn't stop us from completing.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas: Tent Edition! took place about a month after the February shake, in the temporary offices of the UCSA that had been set up in a large tent in the car park 100 metres or so from the original venue. With most of the costumes locked away, a make-do technical set up and the backstage area just being "outside the tent", not to mention one of the lead actresses having already moved to another city, the tent version of the show was never going to live up to its predecessor. But it was never about that. We put on a musical, in a tent, in what felt like a post-apocalyptic world because we had to. We were all floating strangely in a state of shock and we needed to start again. We had to prove that our little theatre family was still going strong, that we were still going strong and it seemed the only way. We were picking up where we left off. Not only did we have something to prove when it came to these earthquakes, we also missed performing with our friends and the collective conscience of being on stage together. For many of us it was the start of the healing process, and the ritual of the final night performance and after match were a small win for moving forward.
My experience with re-booting our musical isn't the only tale of theatre vs nature to come out of the Christchurch earthquakes. Clubs began sharing resources and new and exciting performance opportunities came about. In its early days, the Christchurch Pops Choir was a(n albeit auditioned) musical community for those left theatrically "homeless" and needing a place to sing again. The Riccarton Players lost their home, The Mill Theatre, but other school and community halls became available as venues for performance. The Rangiora Players had already begun work on their own Little Theatre but without the Rangiora Town Hall it is now their exclusive venue and it has completely changed their annual program, from two performances a year to a constant turnaround of plays and pantomimes.
For those of us involved in theatre, it is our life, it is something we live and breathe and it is something we miss when we can't get access. While we began to bring theatre back into our lives, the community became stronger and closer out of both practical and social necessity and is now better than ever before. And that is why I can't keep up any more! We are spoilt for choice and there are always a multitude of shows on at any time or auditions for a play or musical. It' time for this wee site to hang up its hat and for me to move on to a new project. I've loved updating this blog, however sporadic it has been at times and I thank everyone who has contributed in any way. I'd also like to thank everyone who has been involved in the extended community of theatre and art in Christchurch, who has let theatre be their therapy during these last three years as we have picked up the pieces of our normal lives again.
