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In only a few years of acting, 18-year-old Brook Churchouse has already taken on some of the big theatre roles, including Shakespeare’s King Lear.
However, it was a humble three-line part that got Brook hooked on drama, when he played a watchman, Hugh Oatcake, in a college production of Much Ado about Nothing.
A range of other parts in Orewa College plays followed – everything from comedic turns as Tweedle Dee in Alice in Wonderland and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to a role in the emotional Ken Duncum drama Cherish.
Brook says he was “a bit of a naughty kid” and drama helped put him on a better path. When he had to dig deep for roles like Lear, he drew on personal experience including people he knows who have suffered from mental illness, along with theatre techniques such as emotional recall.
The college’s King Lear won the regionals of the University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare competition last year, with a number of actors singled out from the production for awards. Brook was chosen as a member of the NZ Young Shakespeare Company, which travels to London in July for workshops, culminating in a free public performance at The Globe.
Brook says this is designed to challenge the young actors, who have less than a week to prepare for the performance. A workshop with the Shakespeare Globe Centre of NZ, which followed the Sheilah Winn competition, will come in handy as it focused on ways of embodying Shakespearean characters in a short space of time.
Although he grew up going to movies, as his father worked in cinema, being in front of a live audience has fueled Brook’s desire to become a professional actor.
“Being on stage is the best feeling,” he says.
Every member of the Young Shakespeare Company has to pay $9000 to cover the trip to London, and as well as working in a bar and as a TV extra, Brook has a givealittle page called The Road to Shakespeare’s Globe to raise the funds to get him there.
