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ONE THAT I WANT: Waylon Edwards (left) and Awhimai Fraser as Danny & Sandy. IMAGE: Matthew Lau
“A wop ba-ba lu-mop a wop bam boom!” rises from the group hug of the cast of Grease as they prepare to go on stage at Wellington Opera House.
More than 150 people have been involved over the past nine months for the show which has been running for the past eight days, and finishes this weekend.
Most of the cast and crew have been volunteers or students and not on the payroll.
Wellington Musical Theatre executive producer Michael Highsted, says of the approximate 150 people on the Grease project, about 50 to 60 are professionals.
“An awful lot of the cast are current performing arts students in training, and this is how they get their hands-on experience,” Michael says.
He says the artist team had a hard time whittling the young cast down to an ideal 35 due to the talent, they had to augment their allocation to 42 on stage, plus four additional back-up singers.
Michael says the joy of working with diverse groups of people on lots of different levels is why he is still involved in theatre after 18 years.
Lead actress Awhimai Fraser, who plays the role of naive Sandy Olsson, is a third year degree student at Whitireia’s school of Performing Arts.
“You have to realise that it’s not the easiest career choice, it’s very unstable financially and job wise. But it’s worth it if you love it,” says Awhimai.
Her co-star Waylon Edwards, who donned the trademark leather jacket of Danny Zuko, works full-time in a prison and is the front man of his theatre rock band Poppy Dust.
“It’s the acknowledgement that you’re with a group of people that are all just mad, you fall in love with each other over that period of time.
“You become so close, so it’s really just being part of a new gang again. I think that’s the best part of being in the theatre industry.”
For Waylon, time spent away from the band is money lost, but he cannot keep himself away from the lure of theatre.
Neither can stage manager Keri Mills.
“I’ve done TV, I’m now at the moment in radio [at The Breeze Wellington]. This is my love, this is my passion. Because it’s like an adrenalin rush, it’s live and you just get shivers.
“I quite often reduce to tears, still, after all this time. I still get very emotional because it’s such a privilege to be able to work in theatre. You walk in, it’s home,” says Keri.
Backstage crew member Tony Stratford, has been volunteering at the Opera House for 20 years.
“From a personal point of view, it takes you away from your other day to day activities so you can actually enter a different space and just get involved in the whole process and feel part of it.”
Tony works day-to-day as a systems and process manager for supermarkets, and he is willing to sacrifice being off the social radar for long periods of time to fuel his love of theatre.
“What we’re doing for Wellington, to have 800 to 1000 cheering every night, going away feeling good about it, actually makes you feel good about what you’ve done,” says Tony.
Mamma Mia! will be the next major production by Wellington Musical Theatre, to be held at the St James Theatre and will run from November 19 until December 6.
GO, GREASED LIGHTNIN’!: The male ensemble perform the crowd favourite. IMAGE: Matthew Lau