A fairy tale start to production
Travis MacLennan reckons he’s found his niche in life.
During the day he works as a drama specialist at Berkley Normal Middle School, Hamilton, and in the evenings as well as most weekends he’s director of a production he hopes will set the Morrinsville Little Theatre in a new direction.
MacLennan is an experienced director who began his career in Auckland where he and a group of friends set up the National Youth Theatre Company about 15 years ago.
He moved to Cambridge in 2014 and then to Morrinsville in 2017 where he’s become an important part of the Morrinsville Little Theatre.
He joined as a committee member and is now vice president.
It’s his experience with young people he hopes to chanel in the theatre’s latest production, Into The Woods.
He admitted the show was a bit of a departure from the theatre’s regular diet of productions.
But he hoped it would inspire more young people to become involved in the theatre heading into the future.
The movie Into the Woods, released in 2014 starring Meryl Streep, is about a witch who tasks a childless baker and his wife with procuring magical items from classic fairy tales, to reverse the curse put on their family tree.
MacLennan said it was a production that would be ‘‘relatively new’’ to Morrinsville in terms of scale and quality.
‘‘We are trying to find new shows that people can relate to or recognise.
‘‘The idea is that we want to build our reputation as a theatre, to rival that of the Hamilton Operatic Society, as an example.
‘‘We want to change our direction, get more people involved.
‘‘I think we started to achieve that last year with our Shrek youth theatre production, which was brand new for Morrinsville, which I also directed.
‘‘We want to keep building on that but also continue with the staples Morrinsville is well known for.’’
MacLennan said the theatre was now aiming for four productions a year, when it had traditionally done two.