Takapuna Grammar crew help

Takapuna Grammar School (TGS) has supplied four current students and one alumnus to a line-up of seven young actors cast as The History Boys for Company Theatre’s upcoming production of the award-winning play.

The plot centres around tensions at an English grammar school as its top students cram for examinations, with places at Oxford and Cambridge universities at stake.

Along with actors, TGS offered the traditional look to serve as a backdrop for publicity photography.

Members of the cast say the exploration of how teacher-student interactions impact on learning and life are relatable, even if some of the cultural references of its 1980s setting were initially 40 years foreign to them.

“Accepting oneself” is one of the story’s takeaways, says former Westlake Boys High School student Nicholas Curry, who, at 24, is the oldest actor playing one of the ‘boys’.

Alan Bennett’s play, which debuted in London in 2004 and went on to win Olivier and Tony awards and be made into a film, also deals with sexuality, featuring two conflicted masters.

The school’s headmaster and a female teacher round out the line-up.

Director Suzy Sampson hopes the talented young cast she has assembled will open up new audiences for the established company, based at the Rose Centre in Belmont.

Actor Chloe Smith, whose day job is teaching performing arts at Northcross Intermediate, Browns Bay, says the regimented approach her character favours is very different from the teaching in modern-day classrooms.

“It’s a lot more student-driven these days, and inquiry-focused,” the 36-year-old tells the Flagstaff.

The young actors, who have all been in school productions, say relationships are at the heart of well-functioning classrooms and of the play.

The cast’s TGS contingent comprises Year 12 students Raine Gilchrist from Hauraki and Lucus Laurent from Milford, and Year 13s Aedan Ward from Narrow Neck and Emre Logan-Erdi from Hauraki; along with former student Aidan Allen, a 20-year-old who lives in Northcote. The final ‘history boy’ is Jesse Park, a Year 13 at Auckland Grammar School.

Some of the actors auditioned after hearing about the production from Rose Centre manager and acting tutor Geoff Allen; others because they knew TGS student Freya Said, who is the play’s stage manager.

Freya also stage-managed the TGS production of Mamma Mia and recent Company Theatre show The Thrill of Love.

“It’s good fun,” said the Year 12 student of her backstage job – even if the boys sometimes need a bit of wrangling.

The play has been in rehearsals for two months. Lucus will be “sad” when it ends. Aedan says the group has become “one big community” and that the shared experience had been a drawcard.

Lucus says classroom experiences are similarly formative. “The relationship you have with a teacher will impact how much you take in.”

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