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ISSUE 31 | OCTOBER 2014
VILLA CULTURE
Stage Cha llenge Su ccess
We are incredibly proud of our girls who
competed in the 2014 Stage Challenge in
May. This is a student-driven competition
for schools around New Zealand. Stage
Challenge is a dance, drama and design
spectacular where the students are the
stars.
A crew of 90 girls practiced for
months under the guidance of student
choreographers and leaders Hannah
Watt and Georgia-Rae Taylor. Their
efforts were well rewarded with the Stage
Challenge judges awarding Villa with
Excellence in seven of the nine categories
including: Stage Use, Performance Skill,
Soundtrack, Concept, Costuming, Drama,
and Visual Enhancement.
We were also delighted that both
Hannah and Georgia-Rae were awarded
with an Excellence for Stage Challenge
Student Leadership. A wonderful
acknowledgement of their superb
leadership skills.
All Shook Up
By Elise Dalrymple-Keast
Here’s to yet another successful Villa
Maria College/St Thomas’ production
done and dusted! This year’s musical was
a heart-warming and comedic tale, set in
a deadbeat America town. The music was
entirely comprised of Elvis’ greatest hits.
The plot follows Natalie, a tomboy
mechanic who falls in love with Chad, a
motorcycle riding “roustabout”, who in
turn falls in love with the sophisticated
and seductive curator of the town
museum, Miss Sandra. Natalie decides
to take matters into her own hands, and
in order to get Chad to get to know her,
dresses up as a boy and becomes Chad’s
sidekick under the alias ‘Ed’. There were
many hilarious twists and turns and more
than one Shakespearean sub-plot. There
were fantastic performances by the two
leads; Isabella Walsh as Natalie and
Jordan Figota as Chad, as well as from
the other principals of Sam Hanning,
Bridie Sisson, Kate Hanning, Tim Greene,
Laura Burtenshaw, Josh Smith, Elise
Dalrymple-Keast and Alex Hansby, not
to mention all of the rest of our talented
Villa girls and St Thomas’ boys involved
in chorus, stage crew and the band.
Being part of this show was a real
highlight of the year! Not only was the
plot so hilarious that even after 15 weeks
of rehearsals, the cast and crew were still
laughing at the jokes and gags, but we
really gelled as a whole, which helped to
make the experience so memorable. All
the juniors involved were so “all shook
up” that they have already repeatedly
stated that they cannot wait till next
year’s production. For many of us, this
was our last production! Although it
was sad to see it finish, we couldn’t have
asked to go out with more of a bang!
