Aloysiad 15-12 2006.indd - St Aloysius

drama
Aloys Play Fest 2006
Next year will mark forty years of continuous Drama
productions at St Aloysius’ College. In 1967 The
Great Hall was finished, complete with its full
stage, orchestra pit and dress circle. In 1968 the Gilbert
& Sullivan operas started up again after a seven year gap
– this time with the Senior School – and Fr Donal Lane SJ
began what has become a long tradition of Middle School
play festivals. In The Aloysian of 1968 he writes that he
was also able to take Live English classes each fortnight and
so let the boys participate in curricular Drama activities as
well. Over the next eleven years he would produce usually
two one-act play festivals a year giving countless boys the
opportunity to work on stage and back stage. To do this
he also ran the Stage Crew, or Stage Staff as they were
called then. By 1969 the Actor of the Year awards began
with Tony Pieterse (SAC 1969) being the first winner and
this has been running right up to today with Kurt Menzies
(Year 11) taking out the Senior Award this year and Daniel
Vickovich and Ben Armitage sharing the Year 10 Award.
Daniel Farina as The Health Inspector, Michael Parker as Sybil and
James May as Basil in Basil The Rat
In 1979 Fr Lane moved to St Mary’s Parish in North
Sydney and Mrs Margaret Cody and Miss Anne Ford
joined the staff. They began staging full length dramatic
productions starting with The Thwarting of Barron Bolligrew
and went on to include Macbeth, the first full length
Aloys Shakespearian production, Twelve Angry Men and
Everyman.
After Mrs Margaret Cody and Ms Anne Ford left, Mr
Rob Schneider (SAC 1959) arrived and Drama at St
Aloysius' has never looked back. As well as continuing
the full length major productions starting with Pygmalion
in 1987 and taking over the Stage Crew, he converted
the old dormant Lecture Theatre into The Auditorium and
re-instigated the one-act play festivals in 1989. They have
continued to this day and though no longed called On
Stage and Curtain Up, we now have the annual Aloys
Play Fest. Rob Schneider also, with the assistance of the
then Head of English Mr Magar Etmekdjian (SAC Staff
1983-2004), re-introduced classroom Drama in Years 7
St Aloysius’ College
A Jesuit School for Boys _ Founded 1879
Damien Choy as Vern, Ben Gagaler as Taylor Dent as Chris and
Joel Martorana as Gordie in Stand By Me
and 8 and this fed a thriving and enthusiastic Year 7 and
Year 8 Play Festival. By 1997 he had also succeeded in
introducing Drama as an elective subject in Year 9 and
eventually it continued through to the HSC.
In 2001 the Year 8 Drama classes ended and the
periods reverted to English. Finally, this year saw the end of
the Year 7 Drama classes and the end of an era. Without
the enthusiasm kept up in the classroom and with increasing
competition for time, less and less boys are getting involved
in the Aloys Play Fest. This year only two plays were
performed – Stand By Me, an adaptation of the famous
movie, and Fawlty Towers; Basil The Rat. Both plays had
been performed before and this year they played to full
houses over their two night run – a great success. Thanks
to student director, Kurt Menzies (Year 11) for Stand by Me
and to Ms Sarah Zinkin for Basil the Rat.
Over the next year I would like to put together a
history of the last forty years of Drama at St Aloysius’
so we can celebrate the fortieth anniversary in 2008. I
have perused The Aloysians and listed the productions
from 1968 to 1986 as much as possible. If anyone has
photos, programmes, stories, additions and corrections to
the information below please get in touch with me at the
College so we can update the information. Any photos,
William Nelson as The Major in Basil The Rat
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