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When Ōrewa College presented a dramatic courtroom scene from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale in the Auckland North SGCNZ Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival recently, one of the actors particularly stood out to the judges.
Fourteen-year-old Maria Walker-Kinnell’s portrayal of King Leontes won her a place in the SGCNZ National Shakespeare Schools Production in Wellington later this year – she was the only one selected from the Auckland North region.
Maria says she relished playing the sadistic King Leontes, as well as directing Ōrewa College’s entry. The part involved an attempted strangulation, mental breakdown and grieving – all in a 15 minute scene.
Maria, who lives in Silverdale, has loved Shakespeare since first seeing a performance at the Pop Up Globe, when she was eight years old. Since then she has performed in a youth production of a Shakespeare play at the Pumphouse Theatre, and completed a course at the Pop up Globe, which finished with a performance of King Lear.
The highly prized production Maria was chosen for gives students from all over NZ nine days to put a Shakespeare play together under the guidance of a professional director. It takes place in Wellington from September 24.
Maria is also a finalist in the SGCNZ Ida Gaskin Shakespeare Essay Competition – the topic she chose was “the importance of time in The Winter’s Tale”. She will be presented with her prize for this by Minister Grant Robertson on Kings Birthday Weekend in Wellington.
