Wellington Young Actors To Tread The Boards At BATS

Tartuffe

By Molière

Translated by Tim Mooney

Lady Windermere’s Fan

By Oscar Wilde

6pm/7.30pm 18-20 Oct

BATS Theatre

Tickets $13-$18

www.bats.co.nz

Wellington Young Actors, the Capital’s award-winning youth theatre training company, are set to perform two famous plays by two famously naughty boys; Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and, Tartuffe by Molière. Director Deborah Rea has banded together with 27x 12–18-year-olds to bring the 130- and 359-year-old plays to life. They have been meeting to rehearse weekly for the past several months.

Tartuffe, a comedy by Molière, is about a boarder who is staying at Orgon's home. Orgon, a wealthy servant of the king, and Madame Pernelle, Orgon's mother, are the only two people in Orgon's house who do not believe that Tartuffe is an imposter pretending to be moral and religious. Upon its release the play caused such controversy that it was banned all remaining copies burnt in the street.

Lady Windermere's Fan, comedy of manners in four acts by Oscar Wilde, performed in 1892 and published the following year. Set in London, the play's action is put in motion by Lady Windermere's jealousy over her husband's apparent interest in Mrs. Erlynne, a beautiful older woman with a mysterious past. Oscar Wilde was one of the well-regarded comedic writers throughout history. The end of his short life suffered extreme tragedy when he was completely exiled form Victorian society and imprisoned for homosexuality in "one of the first celebrity trials".

Wellington Young Actors have now been performing together for ten years. They have won several awards in the New Zealand Fringe Festival for their work over years and graduating members have gone on to study at drama school, university and have found work as professional actors and filmmakers. They learn and practice theatre in weekly classes, performing scripted and devised work every year. Besides acting, they also learn production skills, managing their own fundraising, publicity design and more, preparing them to organise theatre shows of their own in the future.

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