‘Needed more than ever’: Auckland

Simon Prast remembers standing outside the Mercury Theatre after being turfed out on the day it was shut down and wondering: ‘‘What now?’’

It had been home to the Mercury Theatre Company but with its sudden closure on March 11, 1992, that acting troupe and its cohorts were disbanded. A year later he became one of the founding members of the Auckland Theatre Company (ATC), which celebrated its 30th anniversary yesterday.

‘‘I don’t have any children of my own,’’ Prast says. ‘‘But I imagine the feeling is somewhat akin to having a very successful child go on to do and achieve more than you could ever have hoped or dreamed.’’

Those who helped found the ATC took a year to gather themselves after the Mercury’s closure, garnering the support of private, arts and public sectors – most importantly Auckland Council, Prast says – as they launched their new endeavour.

Their first show was the world premiere of David Geary’s classic Lovelock’s Dream Run at the Watershed Theatre in 1993.

Since then, treading the boards with the theatre company has become a rite of passage for many trying to make a name for themselves in New Zealand acting circles.

Lisa Chappell, who won two Logies for her work on McLeod’s Daughters, cut her teeth in her first dramatic play with All My Sons at the ATC in 1997, and has returned to its stage time and again over the ensuing decades.

‘‘It’s kind of the theatre version of Shortland Street,’’ she says. ‘‘Without training, without having a regular place to go to work, how can you learn how to do your craft? Our job is about doing, and for live stuff you have to work with an