By Dave Goosselink
Only bridesmaids would have the misfortune of wearing ugly dresses, and the Fortune Theatre's latest comedy features five of them.
“They are all bridesmaids, five bridesmaids, at Tracey's wedding. We never get to meet Tracey but we hear a lot about her through the girls,” says director Lara MacGregor.
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress is by American writer Alan Ball, creator of TV's Six Feet Under and True Blood.
It was supposed to open in Christchurch in March, before touring south to Dunedin. But productions at the Court Theatre were cancelled after it was badly damaged in February's quake, along with other buildings in the Arts Centre. Creative New Zealand stepped in with an emergency grant, allowing Dunedin to take over the show, while still providing work for the original cast and crew.
“So the show has been built here. And all the original staff slated to work on it at the Court have come down to Dunedin to build it, design the costumes, build the costumes. And the original cast is still here,” says Mrs MacGregor.
The collaboration's added new challenges for the Christchurch crew, working with new people in a new space.
“Not only that but your resources. Like shops that you go to, where you go Oh yes I know just exactly where that right piece of furniture's going to be, and a lot of those shops don't exist anymore,” says props mistress Helen Beswick.
The Court Theatre is already building a new home, converting an old grain store in Addington into theatre space for the next few years.
But the cast are grateful they've been able to keep their family together in the south.
“Believe me I'm feeling very lucky right now. We're the happy lucky stories. There are a lot of people who don't have the work that we have at the moment,” says actress Kathleen Burns.
The show opens at the Fortune Theatre tomorrow, before a season next month at a temporary venue back in Christchurch.
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