Westlake Boys’ High School

Loves Labours Lost. The Winter's Tale.

Much Ado about Nothing. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Socially distanced Shakespeare ‘global’ hit with audiences

In 2021, and after the hiatus for the drama production in 2020, a new idea was executed to allow for the 'show to go on' during these Covid-19 times.

In essence, the production allowed for six separate scenes in six different performance venues, with socially distanced audiences of no more than 30 people at each. Six plays were chosen, all by Shakespeare: these were The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The audiences were not only entertained by the cast of 65 but also by the Year 5 and 6 students from Sunnybrae Normal School, who guided the audiences from one venue to the next with help from Year 13 students from Westlake Girls.

Audiences thoroughly enjoyed themselves, with numerous emails of congratulations. "All the kids were amazing and so enthusiastic – they were so funny! And talented. Brilliant takes on Shakespeare

that were so entertaining." As well as: "What a great concept. I loved how different each of the performance spaces was." The experience of Covid is not hugely dissimilar to that of Shakespeare, who spent 78 months of his working life in various lockdowns due to the bubonic plague. In fact, in 1606, Shakespeare spent 10 months in lockdown, during which he wrote three of his greatest plays: King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. The Tempest. The great benefit of this way of producing the school show was that if Covid-19 alert levels had changed (to a 2 or 3) then the production could still have gone ahead. Furthermore, audiences got to see parts of the school that they might not ordinarily see and enjoy six radically different spaces in both design and in the way that the audience seating was configured. The school production does not happen without an army of student technicians and staff in numerous capacities, to whom we give enormous thanks for all their hard work and creativity.

Romeo and Juliet.

Westlakers compete at the Tokyo Olympics

The 2020 Olympic Games, held in 2021, will be remembered like no other Games before it, and for New Zealand it is now one of our most successful Games to date.

Westlake Boys is proud to have had several Westlakers compete at the Tokyo Olympics, and we watched with keen interest as they progressed through their heats. We acknowledge the inspiring achievements of the following elite athletes who competed at the highest level on what is arguably the biggest sporting stage, in gruelling heat and under challenging circumstances: Michael Brake (2012) - gold in the Rowing men's eight, Misha Koudinov (2009) – competed in the men’s Artistic Gymnastics, Callum McCowatt (2017) - competed in the men's Football with Ben Old (2020) as reserve, and Steve Edwards (2002) and Nick Wilson (2008) - competed in the men's Hockey. Congratulations to everyone for representing their country with pride and honour, and a special shout out to Michael Brake for bringing home gold – we couldn’t be prouder!

NZ Men’s Eight winning gold!

Stage Band. Award winners.

Symphony Orchestra. Big Band. Camerata.

KBB Festival Concludes with Noteworthy Success

Westlake performed admirably at this year’s KBB Music Festival, bringing home four gold awards, two Best Performance awards and three silver awards.

Each year the KBB Festival takes place over a week and showcases the remarkable talents of secondary school musicians from across the greater Auckland region and beyond. This year Westlake won the following awards:

• Westlake Concert Band (conductor Warwick Robinson):

Gold Award and Best Performance of a pre-1950s Work • Westlake Boys Symphonic Band (conductor Warwick

Robinson): Gold Award

• Westlake Boys Camerata (conductor Warwick Robinson):

Gold Award

• Westlake Symphony Orchestra (conductor David Squire):

Gold Award and Best Performance of a Romantic Era Work • Westlake Big Band (conductor Hayley Barker): Silver Award

• Westlake Boys Stage band (conductor Hayley Barker):

Silver Award

• Westlake Chamber Orchestra (conductor Miranda Adams):

Silver Award We acknowledge the personal dedication and enormous amount of time devoted by students and teachers in preparation for the festival, and congratulate Head of Music, Mr Warwick Robinson, for his exceptional achievement in conducting three groups to Gold awards this year.

The festival concluded with a gala concert comprised of invitationonly ensembles and we were honoured to have the Westlake Concert Band, Westlake Boys Camerata and the Westlake Symphony Orchestra included in the finale, alongside wonderfully talented musicians from other schools.