Ashhurst Drama Group
Ashhurst Drama Group love to give our community a great evening out to be entertained and have a much needed giggle.
Productions are performed annually in the Ashhurst School Hall. Check out their Facebook page for upcoming performances.
Our History
The Ashhurst Drama Group originally started in the mid 1960’s as part of the Ashhurst Arts & Crafts Group. The group could truly be called home-grown with rehearsals taking place in an old house on the corner of North Street and Cambridge Avenue and some of the plays were even staged there as well.
The original North Street venue was not ideal and Ashhurst Arts & Crafts Group bought the old Awahou School House which was transported to Ashhurst and became the Art Centre. The Drama Group would rehearse their plays in the Art Centre and then perform them in the school hall.
In preparing to stage a play the group would spend a day assembling the stage and creating the carefully designed sets. Set construction often involved some truly creative endeavours to produce pieces or props for a play. These memorably ranged from a white grand piano for a Noel Coward play to Mickey the Ostrich for the play “What are Little Girls Made of?”
Every performance was followed by supper, created and served by the performers, which often featured food items from the play.
During the school holidays some of the drama group organised children’s drama workshops and a pantomime or play would be staged for parents and friends at the end of the holidays.
As the group grew bigger it also sought to expand its horizons by inviting two actors from Centrepoint Theatre to come and give them some pointers. The drama group at one point even took its show on the road staging plays in Pahiatua and Tangimoana.
From one act plays to music halls, from pantomimes to the hilarity of “The Farndale Avenue Townswoman’s Guilds Dramatic Society’s production of Macbeth” the Ashhurst Drama Group has generated its fair share of laughter off and on the stage.
An intermission of 4 years is long enough! The curtains are about to rise again on the Drama Group with it set to re-launch in March 2014.
If you are interested in being involved in the Ashhurst Drama Group or you would like more information please watch the February Village Voice or Email office@ADG.org.nz Richard Tankersley.
