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For someone who had no aspirations to be on the stage, Pat Shanks, who turned 70 last month, has devoted nearly a lifetime to supporting and promoting amateur theatre. She describes Centrestage, in Orewa, as more like a family than a club, where collaboration and support are part of the culture of the company. And while the theatre’s precarious finances allows for plenty of “creative thinking” when it comes to putting on shows with limited funds, Pat relishes the challenge. She credits her 97-year-old mother Bertha, who still lives independently in Whangarei, with some of her “can-do” attitude. But she told Jannette Thompson that she’s at a loss to know where her interest in the theatre comes from ….
As far as I know, I don’t have any theatrical heritage. My father worked in the family business in Whangarei, Simons Proprietary Limited, which later became Liquorland, and Mum was a hardworking home-maker. I seemed to instinctively know from a very early age that although I loved being part of theatre production, my future was not as an actor. I would put myself in the category of being ‘reliable’ rather than ‘talented’ and I’d always find myself with an inconsequential role such as the maid who had to be there but not say much. A birth defect, which left me with no fingers on one hand, limited what I could do musically but I did learn the French horn and played in the school orchestra. I enjoyed it but never really got past the “showing promise” stage.
Maths was my thing at school so I pursued a science and chemistry degree at Auckland University in the 1960s, did my Masters and went on to qualify as a secondary school science teacher. In our physics course I was one of six girls in a class of 200; quite different from what you’d find today. I dabbled in theatre while I was a student. I also continued to play in an orchestra and one night we went to play in Helensville for the Chu Chin Chow musical. That was the night I met Bob Shanks who comes from a well-known Kaukapakapa family. His father owned the little service station that once operated at the intersection of the Kaipara Coast Highway and Kahikatea Flat Road. I was 27 at the time and he was 32, and we were married within a year. Bob worked for the Post Office and we were only newly-weds when he accepted a position at the Awanui Post Office, north of Kaitaia. Three years later we returned to live at a bach at Red Beach. That was 38 years ago and we’re still there, although the bach has grown a couple of times to accommodate our son and daughter. It’s a great position and we’re not in any hurry to shift.
As a teacher, I worked at Rutherford High School and then Westlake Girls. I took some time off when the children were young but returned to teach at Glenfield College, where I worked for 15 years until retirement. My connection with Centrestage really came about through Bob, who joined the United Players, the forerunner to the present Centrestage company. In those days the shows were held in the old hall where the Orewa Community Centre now stands. I used to help with costumes but got into directing short plays when my children started showing interest in being involved. I liked being in charge, maybe because I’m naturally a bit of a bossy boots.
I started adapting plays from school journals, which we’d perform at club nights. By the time the company moved to Centrestage in 1990, I had a core group of young performers and we started doing an annual children’s production. We’d stretch our small budget as far as we could by doing just about everything ourselves. The “gnomes” built the scenery and Bob and I did a lot of the painting, mothers helped with costuming, and if it was a musical, I’d normally try to get someone in to help with the music and dance. One of the things I tried hard to do was to include as many children as possible and make sure everyone had at least a line or two of dialogue to deliver. When I couldn’t find plays that allowed me to do this, I started writing my own.
The thing I enjoyed the most about these productions was the children’s enthusiasm. There was never any shortage of youngsters wanting to be involved and the shows usually had a cast of around 25. One of our young players back then was Emily Robins, who went on to star in Shortland Street and the award winning series The Elephant Princess. Interestingly, she wasn’t actually chosen for the first play she auditioned for. It was always a challenge to make the cast selection because often a child who didn’t audition well would turn out to be quite a natural on the stage.
I pulled back from doing junior theatre a few years ago when others joined the company who were interested in taking it on. It was good to get them involved and give them experience. Eventually we formed the Centrestage Youth Theatre which is now doing two shows a year. I think it’s a real credit to the Hibiscus Coast that we, along with Pukekohe, are the only companies in Auckland that have a children’s group – most theatre groups don’t bother. It’s a shame because children love to perform and they’re always prepared to try anything. They are also the ones who will go on to be involved in the adult group. Over the years we’ve increasingly drawn the children into the backstage jobs, giving them grounding and training in the more technical side of the theatre. Our youngest stage manager was 12 and she did a terrific job.
My involvement with Centrestage these days is as the treasurer of the society and the trust and the person in charge of the wardrobe. We’ve got thousands of costumes, which we also hire to schools and other groups, so it’s quite a big job keeping track of them all and making sure the ones we need are in good condition and fit. People are quite generous in donating items to the collection, which is just as well as we run the theatre on a very tight budget. The power bill alone costs around $1600 a month. A major refurbishment three years ago made a huge difference, but there’s always something that needs attention. Nearly everything we have has been built, begged, borrowed or donated. It’s always a hand-to-mouth existence and we’ve been pretty shaky financially at times, sometimes operating on an overdraft. One episode that involved the demise of the Queen Elizabeth II Trust left us with a $125,000 debt. Thankfully, the Rodney District Council came to our aid on that occasion. It’s only since we became part of Auckland Council that we’ve had any secure Council money to help meet running costs. It means we can pay our manager – who works horrific hours during the busy season – a half-decent wage.
The fact that Centrestage has its own theatre is both a blessing and a curse. The advantage is the convenience of having what we need in one space. The downside is that there’s more pressure to produce shows that will be commercially successful. Plays don’t cost as much, but they also don’t get the same audiences. An average musical costs around $25,000 so it’s always a gamble, trying to predict what show’s will sell tickets. As a community facility it can also sometimes be difficult to provide rehearsal spaces. The theatre is used by a wide range of groups from professional theatre companies to local colleges and dance schools, and as a meeting space. Annually, more than 30,000 people come through the theatre doors and a lot of the work associated with managing the demands of all these user groups comes from volunteers. We do everything from fundraising to maintaining the garden. I hope that when we get our new rehearsal space with a workshop area, we’ll be able to be more experimental and perhaps do more original material as well.
