Moves to bring show to town
Taihape’s cultural life could be in for a polish in early December if a play about the town comes to town.
Moves are afoot to put The Bright Lights of Taihape on in the 138-seat Majestic Theatre in Tui Street if discussions between playwright and performer Loren Mason and the theatre bear fruit.
She performed it in front of a sell-out audience over three nights at The Dark Room in Palmerston North before taking it to her home-town of New Plymouth.
The 50-minute play is a thriller-comedy based on Taihape’s famous Gumboot Day in which just before the great day dawns all the town’s gumboots are apparently stolen.
A frantic search is launched by the authorities to try to ensure Gumboot Day isn’t sabotaged, but the suspects multiply.
Mason, 28, plays eight characters during the course of events.
Mason said she hoped to take the play to the Auckland fringe festival next year, as she did with her last effort, Ticking Time Bomb, which was based around the watch shop her father had owned in Palmerston North.
Bright Lights would be a fundraiser for the Majestic, which in November celebrates its centenary.
Manager Simone Simpson said putting on the play at the theatre was an ‘‘exciting’’ idea and she hoped a mutually agreeable date could be finalised soon so they could begin planning for it around their movie schedule.