Nonagenarian theatre lover still directing
THEATRE has been a part of Gussie Johnson’s life for as long as she can remember.
Previously the oldest practising teacher in New Zealand, the 92yearold also stakes a claim for oldest working theatre director in the country.
Born and raised in Invercargill, she spent time living in Dunedin, Palmerston North, and travelling overseas, but inevitably returned to her roots in the deep south.
‘‘Basically, I’m a Southlander,’’ she said.
She made her onstage debut at Invercargill’s Civic Theatre when she was 7 , and said a lot of things had changed since then.
Mrs Johnson and her late husband, Graham, who was a violinist, often performed in country halls around the region.
Throughout her many years as a high school drama teacher, Mrs Johnson said she had directed too many shows to count. Her experiences with pupils performing in the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival had been a consistent highlight.
‘‘When I was teaching at Kingswell High School, we were the first school in the district to do the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare stuff, and I had students who didn’t know anything about Shakespeare — and we won.
Her relationship with the Invercargill Repertory Society goes back more than 50 years, with Mrs Johnson learning about the mechanics of theatre by ‘‘cleaning the place up’’.
‘‘I think that anyone who does go into theatre should make the tea . . . they should do all sorts of things backstage and gradually you get to know so many things by doing the menial jobs.
‘‘Anyone who wants to learn about a stage should learn to do pantomime, because you can do absolutely anything and you have to use your imagination.
Of her many roles, the production which had the biggest impact on her was Fiddler on the Roof, due to its subject matter and heartfelt story.
Auditions for her latest play, the Invercargill Repertory Society’s production of Killer Boobs, written by Tim Hambleton and directed by Mrs Johnson, take place on May 14.
The play is a dark comedy about a breast cancer support group, which Mrs Johnson said carried the message of ‘‘nothing is impossible’’.
The show will be staged at the Repertory Society from July 2530.