About #thatwānakatour
Passionate Explorer
OK spoiler alert we're not really a tour. Here's where you can read a bit more about our play.
Written by - Liz Breslin
Director - Emily McRae
Musical Director - David Baker
Dramaturg - Becky Plunkett
Acting Cast
Pete - Ethan Brady
Constantine - Andrea Beryl
Alice - Anne Timpany
Alex - Samantha Stout
Karol - Augustin Blanco
Charles - Phillipa Wilson
Al - Luke Burke
250654 Band
David Baker - Piano
Del Tubb - Guitar
Mark Orbell - Drums
Johanna Hansen - Violin
Sound and Technical Operations
Mat Doyle
#thatwānakatour is a site specific show developed for the Festival of Colour 2021. The script was written and workshopped with the support of Queenstown Lakes District Council's Creative Communities Scheme. We were also sponsored by loads of people to bring this show to the stage, well, bus, actually, coach, and please do take the time to look at their logos down below because they are the logos of people who support the arts in our community and they choose to do so and that is a wonderful thing.
Read on to meet the cast and crew.
Director's note
This show has literally been quite the journey and I extend a huge thank you to the brave cast and crew who embraced their show journey with such energy and generosity.
I was ruminating at the end of the 2019 Festival about the challenge it was to find enough venue spaces and an idea landed to create a community performance about Wanaka on a bus. A conversation with Liz then led to development workshops and the writing of the show with Liz drawing on her years of experience as a European tour guide. A huge thank you goes to those wonderful students and community members who participated in early workshops supporting our crazy ideas. Covid meant we had to pause and take stock of what the “journey” should now be. Drawing from Absurdist writers of the past as a framework to respond to the somewhat strange and confronting times really helped to bring a new angle to the show as Liz penned her final script. Sadly we lost the beautiful actor/dramaturg, Becky Plunket, to England as part of the lockdown journey. This gave even further reverence to responding to a new time. It has been wonderful to still have her advice from afar.
Humans certainly love a destination and many of us have been privileged to see many wonderful destinations in our lives. However, what happens on those journeys is the thing. Those strange and intriguing interactions and path crossings with others. Those moments that things change and do not follow the planned path. These become embedded in the fabric of our memories. Our observations of simple human behaviours become a large part of the wisdom we all seek as we navigate our way through the journey of life searching for our best destination.
Emily McRae
