Waikato Business News March/April 2023

28 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, MARCH/APRIL 2023
The Business of Art
Street performance morphs into
creative business
Exploring the creatives in the business of art
When the Free Lunch
Theatre Company
started in 1999
to provide income for street
performers, there was little to
hint that it would become an
enduring business.
At its helm today is creative
director Sandra Jensen; in
1993 she was a 16-year-old
looking for a creative outlet and
instead of ‘joining the circus’
she found the McGillicuddy
Serious Party.
Originating in Hamilton,
the group used political satire
street theatre to launch the
absurdist party’s candidates,
who stood for the first time in
1983 to contest the local-body
elections in Waikato, and
made their last stand at the
1999 general election.
Sandra travelled around
the country with the rag-tag
group, inviting the populace to
not take the political process
too seriously through their
performances.
“Oh, we were kinda
serious,” she says.
The company was also
known for their political protest
theatre, including a stint
against the redevelopment of
Garden Place.
A whole lot of
us dressed
as aliens with
a UFO going
down Victoria
Street and then
we had a mock
battle with some
stereotypical
Hamiltonians.
What started out as ‘a bit
of fun’ aimed at providing
humour and entertainment to
lighten the election process,
ended after a poor turnout
at the 1999 elections and the
party disbanded.
“We were still doing weird
and wonderful stuff, art for
art’s sake. But the political
side of McGillicuddy started to
wane. Those who really were
genuinely interested in politics
got into parliament, like
Nándor Tánczos and Metiria
Turei,” Sandra says.
The newly formed Free
Lunch Theatre Company,
however, continued and still
operates today, providing
exciting street performances
to delight audiences at
community and corporate
events.
“It was never meant to
be a business but it got to
the point where people were
wanting to hire us and Mark
Servian created Freelance
Street Theatre Company as a
way to provide income for the
entertainers,” she says.
There at the company’s
inception, Sandra slowly took
on more and more roles and
responsibilities, and by 2004
she was single-handedly
running the show.
It’s definitely a labour
of love; like most creative
entrepreneurs, Sandra works
what she calls a ‘muggle’ job - a
Harry Potter term to describe
a person who lacks any sort
of magical ability and was not
born in a magical family.
‘My muggle job pays the
boring bills, like the rent and
the food and the children’s
school fees and keeping them
clothed,” she says.
Working fulltime as the
enterprise coordinator at Go
Eco in Hamilton, Sandra is
likely to put as many magical
hours into Free Lunch.
“I don’t want to think
about the number of hours. I
definitely call it my side hustle.
Although it is a fulltime job. I
don’t know if it even feels like
a job. It’s just what I do. And
it just happens to occasionally
make me some money,” she
laughs.
Known for their stilt
walkers, human monuments
and other fantastical street