Roger Hall's A Shortcut to Happiness
PRESS RELEASE
Roger Hall’s
A
Shortcut to Happiness
Directed by
ROSS JOLLY
"THERE ARE SHORTCUTS TO
HAPPINESS,
AND DANCING
IS ONE OF THEM"
- Vicki Baum
A fabulous new comedy about the lives, loves and misadventures of a folk-dancing class, A Shortcut to Happiness opens at CIRCA Theatre on Saturday 14th April at 8pm, and runs until 28th May.
Featuring ELENA STEJKO, PETER HAYDEN, DONNA AKERSTEN, CATHERINE DOWNES, TIM GORDON, CARMEL MCGLONE, MATTHEW PIKE, JANE WADDELL.
Starring a stunning cast of some of New Zealand’s best loved comedic talent, and introducing a very special new face in Elena Stejko who plays Natasha, A Shortcut to Happiness has all the usual Hall trademarks – shrewd observations, much mocking of Kiwis’ curious customs, and of course, plenty of laughs.
The beautiful Natasha, a recent immigrant from Russia, teaches a folk-dancing class to supplement her income, meet Kiwis and improve her English. Among the students are man-hungry Coral, golfing friends Laura and Janet, recently widowed Ned, U3A Bev, and henpecked husband Ray. And after each class they all gather at Ned’s for coffee and a chat ….
Catchy rhythms, funky folk tunes, syncopated steps, and comical calamities are the order of the day as all the characters learn to gyrate with skill and expertise – "tripping the light fantastic."
According to Roger Hall, the idea for the play originated at a folk-dancing session that he and his wife sometimes attend.
“At one of those dances I said, ‘I feel a play coming on’, and this woman laughed at me and I laughed too, but at the end of the session I thought, there really is a play here.”
Combined with the quote from Vicki Baum that had charmed him and that he had filed away for future use, and the idea of having a Russian woman immigrant who teaches the class, and Hall found he had all the ingredients for his latest new comedy - A Shortcut to Happiness.
“We see New Zealand through an immigrant’s eyes. There are odd little comments there I hope will make us look at ourselves in a slightly different way,” said Hall. “The play is about discovering the ways of a new country, accepting differences, finding love and dancing your way to happiness.”
And Elena Stejko, who plays dancing teacher, Natasha in Circa’s production, is a perfect fit for the role. She is herself a Russian-born actress who immigrated 16 years ago, and she was one of the key people that Hall talked to during his research on how immigrants found life in New Zealand.
And then, of course, there is the folk-dancing!
Hall finds dance music engaging and hopes the audiences will love it too and find themselves tapping their feet and thinking about taking up folk dancing too.
The cast have definitely been having a ball learning and perfecting all the different routines with their ever-versatile choreographer and dance-master, Sacha Copland.
With its winning recipe of music,
love, laughter, dancing and joy,
A Shortcut to Happiness
is quite simply, another ROGER HALL great night out!
14th April – 28th May
Roger Hall’s
A Shortcut to
Happiness
Directed by ROSS
JOLLY
Starring
ELENA STEJKO, PETER HAYDEN, DONNA AKERSTEN,
CATHERINE DOWNES, TIM GORDON, CARMEL MCGLONE,
MATTHEW PIKE, JANE WADDELL.
Set
Design- JOHN HODGKINS Lighting Design – PHILLIP DEXTER
Costume Design – GILLIE COXILL
Choreography – SACHA COPLAND
14th April – 28th May
$25 SPECIALS – Friday 13th April - 8pm; Sunday 15th April - 4pm.
AFTER SHOW Q&A – Tuesday 17th April
Performance times: Tuesday &
Wednesday 6.30pm
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
8pm
Sunday 4pm
Ticket Prices:
Adults - $46 Concessions - $38; Friends of Circa - $33
Under 25s - $25; Groups 6+ s-
$39
BOOKINGS Circa
Theatre 1 Taranaki Street,
Wellington
Phone 801 7992
www.circa.co.nz
-
ROGER
HALL
Playwright
Roger Hall is
New Zealand’s best known and most successful playwright.
He was born in England in 1939 and emigrated to NZ in
1958.
Hall’s earliest scripts were for television, but
in 1976 he wrote his first stage play Glide Time
(opened at Circa Theatre). The play catapulted him to
the forefront of NZ theatre writing and its characters have
become national icons. Many successful plays followed
including Middle Age Spread, By Degrees, Market Forces,
C’Mon Black, Dirty Weekends, Social Climbers, The Book
Club, You’ve Gotta Be Joking!, A Way of Life, Take a
Chance on Me, Spreading Out, Taking Off, Who Wants to
be 100?, Who Needs Sleep Anyway?, and Four Flat
Whites in Italy. A Shortcut to Happiness is his
latest new play which premiered in Dunedin at Fortune
Theatre in November 2011.
In addition Roger has written
musicals, pantomimes – Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack
and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, Dick Whittington & his
Cat, and Robin Hood, radio dramas, books and
plays for children and comedy series for television, most
notably, Gliding On and Market Forces, and for
UK television, Conjugal Rites.
His plays have been
performed in nine other countries, the most successful being
Middle Age Spread which ran in London’s West End
for 15 months and won the award for Comedy of the
Year.
Roger Hall was awarded a QSO and the Turnovsky
Prize in 1987, a Commemoration Medal 1990, the 1996
Katherine Mansfield Fellowship for study in Menton, an Hon
Doctorate of Literature from Victoria University, and in
2003 he was made a Companion of the NZ Order of
Merit.
ROSS
JOLLY
Director
Founding
member of Circa Theatre, Circa councillor, actor and
freelance theatre and television director, Ross has directed
many productions for Circa including: Master Class,
Moonlight, F.I.L.T.H., Picasso at the Lapin Agile,
Travels with my Aunt, Social Climbers, Taking Sides
(Best Circa Production 1997), Heretic (1998 NZ
International Festival of the Arts), The Cripple of
Inishmaan, How I Learned to Drive, Waiting for
Godot, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, ART, The
Unexpected Man, The Memory of Water, The Weir, Madame
Melville, Copenhagen, Life x 3, The Birthday Party,
Conversations after a Burial, Ancient Lights, Humble Boy,
Roger Hall’s Spreading Out (2004 Festival of
the Arts), Stones in his Pockets, Neil LaBute’s
The Shape of Things which was nominated for Best
Director and Best Production at the Chapman Tripp awards
2004, An Inspector Calls, The Mercy Seat
and Democracy. In 2006 Ross directed the NZ
premiere of Ross Gumbley’s Happy Coupling for the
Court Theatre, and The Underpants, Wild East and a
revival of Master Class for Circa. In 2007 he
re-directed Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things for
the Court Theatre, followed by Heroes in Circa Two
before returning to the world of LaBute for Fat Pig,
and ending the year with Rattigan’s modern classic, The
Winslow Boy. 2008 saw Ross direct Roger Hall’s Who
Wants to be 100? (International Arts Festival), Love
Song (Circa 2) and Some Girl(s) (Circa 1), and
also re-directed the original cast in Heroes for a
season at Expressions in Upper Hutt. In 2009, Ross directed
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and Yasmina Reza’s
God of Carnage in Circa One before heading to
Dunedin to direct the NZ premieres of Don Juan in
Soho (by Patrick Marber) and Lucky Numbers,
and then back to Circa for the sell-out season of Roger
Hall’s Four Flat Whites in Italy. Last year Ross
directed David Harrower’s adaptation of Friedrich
Schiller’s Mary Stuart. This highly successful
production was Circa’s contribution to the NZ Festival of
the Arts 2010. Ross’ most recent productions were
Mauritius and My First Time (2010), Our Man
in Havana, Meet the Churchills and the return
season of Four Flat Whites in Italy (2011) all in
Circa One.
Ross won Director of the Year for his
production of Waiting for Godot, at the Chapman Tripp
Theatre Awards 1999.
CAST BIOGRAPHIES and COMMENTS
ELENA
STEJKO
Natasha
"I am absolutely delighted to be part of a new production of "A Shortcut To Happiness" and to have an opportunity to work here in Wellington, in my favorite city with a fantastic cast and with great director. Rehearsals are full of jokes, laughter, stories, new discoveries - and this is my "short cut to happiness". – Elena
Elena Stejko is
a Russian-born actress, who trained at Kiev University of
Culture as an actress and theatre director.
For the last
20 years Elena has worked on stage and screen in Russia,
Brazil, Japan and New Zealand. Her most recent stage work
includes playing Lady Capulet in Auckland Theatre
Company’s production of Romeo & Juliet, playing
Madam Popova in Chekhov’s The Bear at Outbox
Theatre, and creating the role of Natasha in Fortune
Theatre’s premiere production of A Shortcut to
Happiness, for which she received the Best
Actress Award in Dunedin Theatre for 2011.
She also
directed the graduation production of Chekhov’s Three
Sisters for Unitec, Lear’s Nonsense at Victoria Theatre
and play I Love based on Romeo & Juliet.
On television
she has appeared in Shortland Street, Mercy Peak, and Spin
Doctors, and in the Japanese TV Drama The Promise for Fuji
TV.
Her latest role in a feature film, Russian Snark
directed by Stephen Sinclair, has won her great acclaim. She
was nominated Best Actress in the Qantas NZ Film and
Television Awards 2010 and also in the Mavericks Film
Festival Awards in America 2011.
PETER
HAYDEN
Ned
It’s a great thrill to be back at Circa - playing the same role as I did in Dunedin where the play was hugely well-received. This production is very different, very lively, very funny, good director and a dream cast. Plus, I think it is one of Roger's best! - Peter
Peter Hayden has had
‘twin’ screen careers in drama and documentary film
making. Early screen work included roles in The
Governor, Close to Home, and Arthur Allan Thomas
docu-drama Beyond reasonable Doubt.
In the mid
80s, he starred in TV kids dramaThe Fire-Raiser; and
won a GOFTA for portraying Presbyterian minister Alexander
Don in goldmining tale Illustrious Energy.
In 1986
he starred in road movies Arriving Tuesday and
Shaker Run. In Footrot Flats, he voiced the
characters of villain Irish Murphy and Cooch, the 'greenie'
neighbour.
Theatre work includes many productions at the
Fortune theatre in Dunedin. Most recently seen in The
Truth Game by Simon Cunliffe, Roger Hall’s Red
Riding Hood and as Ned in A Short Cut to
Happiness, a role he is now reprising at Circa.
Peter began his acting career at Circa, appearing in the
first ever production of Knuckle in 1976. Recent
Wellington shows include a ‘gender bender’ version of
King Lear, called Leah for the NZ Arts Festival, Carl
Nixon’s The Raft at Downstage and The Vertical
Hour at Circa in 2010.
DONNA
AKERSTEN
Laura
I’m delighted to be playing Laura. What a joy to be with a bunch of such great friends – some I haven’t worked with in an age! You don’t get this fortunate in our industry very often – firm friends, fantastic fun and fancy footwork...fabulous! - Donna
Donna Akersten is well known to Circa audiences. In
a career spanning over 40 years she has worked extensively
in theatre, film, television and radio in New Zealand,
Australia, and has also worked on projects in England and
Germany. A recipient of a number of awards for her
performances, Donna was honoured in 2002 with the MNZM for
her services to acting.
Her major film roles include
Sleeping Dogs, Middle – Age Spread, Bad Blood, Bread
And Roses, The Last Tattoo, Te Rua and Via
Satelite.
Favourite stage roles include, Marilyn in
Insignificance, Mary Mooney in Once A
Catholic, Masha in Three Sisters, Meg in The
Birthday Party, Deborah in The Book Club, Honor
in Honour and in 2011 Elizabeth ( the older) in
When The Rain Stops Falling at Circa
Theatre.
CATHERINE
DOWNES
Janet
I enjoy 'Janet' immensely. She has lots of flaws, a great sense of humour, not afraid to speak her mind - but a bit of a softie on the inside. I think she rings a few bells with many of us of 'a similar age'. - Catherine
Catherine Downes is one of New Zealand’s
finest theatrical talents, working in theatre, film and
Television for four decades on both sides of the Tasman as
an actress, director and playwright.
Catherine graduated
from the Queen Elizabeth II Drama School (now Toi Whakaari)
after completing a B.A. in English, Politics and Drama at
Victoria University.
For the next three years she worked
at the Court, Circa, Downstage and TV then travelled to
Europe and established two theatre companies - in Amsterdam
and in London, and developed her acclaimed one-woman play,
The Case Of Katherine Mansfield, of which she has
since played approximately 1000 performances, in six
countries, over the last twenty years, winning awards in
Britain, NZ and Australia.
In Australia, Catherine became
a member of the Nimrod Actors Company in Sydney, where she
worked for several years, before returning to NZ.
Recent
stage performances include Lady Windermere’s Fan,
Vincent in Brixton, The Cherry Orchard, Joyful and
Triumphant, Calendar Girls, Collapsing Craetion and Four
Flat Whites In Italy. Her directing credits include work
throughout NZ, International tours, in Australia and for
TVNZ. Circa productions include WIT, Speaking in Tongues,
The Book Club, Les Parents Terribles, Closer and The
Sisters Rosensweig..
From 2006 – 2008 Catherine was
Director of Downstage Theatre in Wellington, and prior to
this was Artistic Director of The Court Theatre from
2000-2005.
Catherine has won many awards including Best
Production and/or Director for Closer, Purapurawhetu,
Tzigane, Good Works and Three Tall Women. She was
hailed in National Radio’s Millennium‘ Golden Kiwi’
series, and in 1998 was appointed a Member Of The NZ Order
Of Merit for her services to the Arts.
JANE
WADDELL
Coral
Learning to Folk Dance is a real buzz (though I am not a natural at it!) It really gets the endorphins going. I'm looking forward to my feet taking over from my brain! - Jane
Jane's first Circa play was Roger Hall's Middle
Age Spread. Since then she has played many roles penned
by Hall - these include The Book Club, Take a Chance on
Me, Taking Off, Spreading Out, Jack and the Beanstalk, Red
Riding Hood, Dick Whittington and Robin
Hood.
Jane is also a director. Many of the scripts
she's directed have been by NZ writers. Home Land by
Gary Henderson is a favourite and most recently the
acclaimed NZ International Festival production of
Peninsula, also by Gary Henderson.
As an actor,
personal favourites across the years: Salvation Road,
Sore Throats, Wednesday to Come, Joyful and Triumphant,
Taking Off, The Clean House and the 2011 production
of August: Osage County.
CARMEL
MCGLONE
Bev
I am enjoying the dancing so much I can understand why Roger called the play 'A Shortcut to Happiness!' Each rehearsal is filled with a lot of laughter and joy. - Carmel
Carmel has an extensive acting career in New
Zealand, having worked in film, television and theatre for
the last 25 years.
In the mid 90’s Carmel worked at
STC in Adelaide as part of Simon Phillips core ensemble.
During this time she was privileged to work with some of the
great Australian directors including Simon Phillips, Neil
Armfield and George Ogilvie. She also won the Newspaper
Critics award for Best Comic Performance for her role in
Long Time … No See.
Last seen at Circa in Paul
Bakers Meet the Churchills, Carmel played Queen
Elizabeth 1st in Schillar’s Mary Stuart during
2010 International festival. Other recent shows include
God of Carnage, Blood Wedding, (Circa),
Urinetown ( Downstage), and The Rodwell Monologues
and Christ Almighty and Toys!( Bats)
Other favourite
roles: The Seagull, A Comedy of Errors, Julius Caesar,
Cabaret, Beauty and the Beast (Int’l Arts
Festival), Dancing at Lughnasa, The Beauty Queen of
Leenane, Agamemnon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Top Girls,
Milo’s Wake, Mum’s Choir, Macbeth, An Inspector
Calls, and The Underpants.
During the 90's
Carmel, together with Lorae Parry, created the comedy
sensations Digger and Nudger, who were a feature of Hen’s
Teeth women’s comedy seasons.
Her film and television
roles include Send a Gorilla, Marching Girls,
Plainclothes (each of which she was nominated for best
actress), and the internationally multi-award winning short
films Lemming Aid and The Six Dollar Fifty Man. Most
recently she has had roles in the Emmy award winning online
series Reservoir Hill and the feature film
‘Hook, Line & Sinker’. Carmel has cameo roles in RAGE
and the soon to be released Girl vs Boy
Carmel won
the Chapman Tripp Best Actress award for her role as Lady
Macbeth in 2004, and in 2009 was nominated Best Supporting
Actress for her role in Blood Wedding
In 2011
Carmel travelled to Shakespeare’s Globe in London as SGCNZ
International Actor’s Fellow.
Carmel is a tutor at
Whitireia Centre of Performing Arts.
TIM
GORDON
Ray
My character, Ray, is an observer on the world – an empty nest parent, filling the void with activity - who is never given a line of dialogue! But the greatest challenge has been learning to dance - making for a frustrating, rewarding and fun rehearsal time. - Tim
In 1990 Tim was one of the original
founders and artistic directors of The Improvisors,
Wellington's first and oldest Improv Theatre Company. Tim
has performed thousands of times whenever businesses have
wanted to celebrate, educate or facilitate change, or just
want to laugh. His work in the Government and Corporate
Sector has included many Roles as Emcee and/or Facilitator
for Conference and Workshops.
Tim has appeared on the
stage with a playwright's script in his head at Downstage
(Up for Grabs.) and at Circa (Soulmates, Gunsmoke,
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wait Until Dark, The Letter
Writer), and was in Circa Productions of Four Flat
Whites in Italy.
As a screen actor, his credits
include For Good, Fracture, Until Proven
Innocent, Home by Christmas and the Misogynistic
bloke in Beautiful, for which he won Best Actor at
the Drifting Cloud International Short Film
Festival.
Tim's full time commitment is now devoted to
being an actors' agent as the Principal for The
ProActors - although the best “job” he has ever had
is being the dad to his two boys.
MATTHEW
PIKE
Sebastian
Its lovely to throw myself into a role which centres so strongly around dance. It’s something that has advanced from being a dreaded hurdle to one of the aspects I most love about performing. - Matthew
Matthews career has
centred around musical theatre for the last 20 years, with
contracts in N.Z. Australia and Europe.
Since earning a
BMus at Victoria University, he has performed leading roles
in productions such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Caberet,
Cats, Miss Saigon and Starlight Express.
He
first performed at Circa in 2005 in one of his favourite
musicals; Jacque Brel is alive and well, and living in
Paris!
Presently he is often found after hours
relishing the opportunity to front tribute shows to Led
Zeppelin and The Eagles, or original project
Clockwork.
ENDS