The Star: May 03, 2018

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The Star Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi Thursday May 3 2018 23 Our People David Chambers The entertaining teacher Christ’s College director of drama David Chambers has been teaching for 40 years and been made a life member of Drama New Zealand. He talks to Julia Evans You’ve recently been made a life member of Drama New Zealand, how did that feel? Well it was a total surprise, I was absolutely gobsmacked, but really honoured. There aren’t a lot of them, there are only about eight life members in total. It’s the drama teachers’ association for primary and secondary schools from around the country. I’ve never really held back about what’s going on in drama and how it could be better. I’m very lucky that I’ve had a wealth of students who are very talented and got themselves some very good results. I can bathe in their glory a bit, that’s quite fun. I’m always talking to other drama teachers around the country and we have a good dialogue together, which I tend to contribute to a fair amount. Was your family proud? They were absolutely gorgeous; I got lovely reactions from all around the country. It’s amazing what Facebook does. They all started posting it on Facebook and it started going a little bit viral. I’m lucky to have a life-long partner who is also a high school teacher. She’s brought me three lovely kids and so now we have a number of grandchildren sort of all around the world. Can you tell me a little bit about your background in teaching? I started out with a commerce and geography background and taught all that stuff for 10 years. Then was lucky enough to be able to shift into my first drama department. I started the first drama department at Aranui High School and I did that in 1987. Then I grew the department while I was working on all the national growth for NCEA. So I spent 19 years at Aranui, then moved to Linwood for a year, and after that I came to college. So this is my 21st year at college, 40 years with a lot of beautiful people. It must have been an interesting shift from Aranui and Linwood to Christ’s College? Well it was. I often think that the kids still need the same thing. What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to drag the best out of each kid, give them the opportunities; try and give them the unconditional love and just create the biggest challenges for them to achieve. Just a little bit above what they need to be, an arm’s reach away. There’s a greater wealth base at college, but money isn’t the only thing people are wealthy with. The wealth of experience at Aranui is just extraordinary. In fact, the demise of Aranui is one of the saddest things in my life. I believe that school should still be there. We had an amazing drama department and it wasn’t only drama, it was a bloody good school. It’s such a pity it’s just been wiped off the face of the earth. It’s gone except in the loving memories of a few people. How important is drama? Studying drama in school means that kids can look at the world with a fresh lens. It opens up a whole range of thought and opportunity to think in the skin of other people. It teaches diversity, it teaches inclusion and tolerance. Those things are just vital right now in this confused world. Over the years you must have taught some interesting students, any juicy stories? It would be very difficult to know quite what stories to tell. There have always been some rat bags who thought it would be a good idea to take my car for a ride to go and get fish and chips. That was a goodie. I mean there are a lot more stories about students who have been exceptional in their own right. Those are the real stories. I have had the privilege of teaching some really good television presenters, actors, stage technicians, writers, reporters. The most wonderful thing about all of those young people is the contact that I continue to have with them, often on a monthly basis. I’m still always on the phone to someone I taught at college or at Aranui. It’s amazing. How do you find the Christchurch drama scene? There are a lot of opportunities at the moment, I mean there are never enough. But there are a lot between the opportunities that schools provide, plus the ones that the smaller societies provide, plus the ones that Showbiz Canterbury provides. Then you’ve also got that wonderful thing called The Court Theatre. How did you get into the world of drama and arts? I found out that I could do it in year 13 in 1971. It was something that I could do at school but also I could enjoy it beyond the classroom. I did a bit of it at Otago University and I did a bit of it up here in Christchurch with various outfits. Then when I got to Aranui, I realised I could pursue it, which is what I did. From there, we developed it and I just made it happen for the kids. They wanted it to happen. It is my life role, it’s what I’m here to do really, because it gives me such a buzz discovering texts, discovering culture, discovering things about myself in a great way, I just want to share that with the kids and pass it on. When was the last time you performed on stage? Years ago. Probably the last time I would’ve performed would have been the 1994 production of Les Miserables, BACKSTAGE: David Chambers is currently working on the Christ’s College and Rangi Ruru Girls’ School’s production of West Side Story. PHOTO: MARTIN HUNTER I think. That was such a huge feat, to be able to fit that in was a very difficult task, but I managed it and the school wanted me to do it. That was the last and that’s because there’s just no time. This is a seven-day a week job and you just can’t commit to a full production. Someone asked me the other day if that made me unhappy. I said ‘well, no, it can’t be because if I was unhappy I would have done something about it’. I think I am, if truth be told, happy enough to be where I am making it possible for other people to act, sing and dance. Well interact, because acting is really interacting. Have you had any on stage disasters? There’s been plenty of them. Every show has its own set of challenges and sometimes it just sort of stops. Fortunately, that’s not often. When it does stop, you just have to get it started again. If the fire alarm goes off, you’ve just got to stop, reset and do it again. I’ve had a few of those. In 1994, most people forget, while Les Mis was on there was an earthquake. We were doing a matinee at the Isaac Theatre Royal and everyone had to evacuate. We all walked past all those bricks that hadn’t fallen down but would fall down later in 2011. Everybody forgets. I can remember the lights moving and the building moving. We were standing on the side of the stage and all of the lights just started swinging and we’re thinking ‘holy heck’. The whole audience and cast just piled out so there was a whole French Revolution out on Gloucester St. Back to it after a few durries. I played the policeman, Javert. What are your favourite shows to watch? There’s a huge range. I love absurd theatre like Waiting for Godot. I love modern musicals like Rent and Spring Awakening. I’m adoring doing one of the greatest musicals of all time West Side Story. The work of Stephen Sondheim is extraordinary in terms of musical theatre. A good play, any good well-crafted play is worth watching. I love watching a good New Zealand play, there’s been a lot of good plays coming out of this country recently. There’s a young man called Eli Kent who has written a play, which is great. What does a day off look like? Do you have any hobbies outside of drama? There isn’t a day off. It would look like a walk in the park and movies, if I had one. The last movie I went to was the Young Marx. It’s film of the show put on by the National Theatre in England. They record their shows and put them out as movies, which is a phenomenal thing. Loved it. But it’s all drama these days. I used to enjoy gardening but we’ve bought a house that basically hasn’t got one. I used to enjoy getting involved in local government, just contributing to the national or local discussion about stuff. But since the earthquake I’ve been teaching and very heavily involved in trying to get our life back together again; we lost a lot of property. I was the chairman of a body corporate where we had to pull down an old set of flats on Cranmer Square. The city tried to convince us we could keep it, the Government said we couldn’t, and the insurance company said we definitely couldn’t. All of those things took up all the morsels of my time, and we were still trying to maintain an even keel at school. We were still providing six lessons a day for 600 boys. So, I guess, I don’t do sport and things at the moment but I try to get out and walk. We’ve caught the overseas travel bug, so I love doing that. We’re off to Europe in July for seven weeks, which will be great. What are you working on at the moment? First I’m working on getting the biggest classes I’ve ever had through NCEA. The drama classes at college has grown a lot. Then we’ve got West Side Story that we’re putting on in the hall with Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, which I’m thrilled about. Then I’ll get the boys tuned up and ready to start their house plays, which they do at school. Then I get on a plane and let someone else finish it.
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