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"We're booked out in Kerikeri already!" cries Michael Hurst, throwing his arms above his head. He is standing next to a giant prop of a witch's fire in an Onehunga, Auckland warehouse.
The building is the rehearsal space for the NBR NZ Opera's Hansel and Gretel, which Hurst is directing. A spry-looking 50, Hurst oscillates between jocular and serious - and when he's just taken himself rather seriously, seems to realise, stop and laugh. And he's got every reason for glee just now.
After directing a sellout, rave-reviewed production of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, he got just two days break before taking his first spin in the opera director's chair for the touring Hansel and Gretel production. Hurst, who's treating the opera like highly-ritualistic, music-driven drama, is planning on giving the singers a good dashing-round-the-stage "workout".
It's one of the rare occasions he gets to be a novice of sorts. One of our most elastic, prolific actor-directors, Hurst has spent three decades immersed in theatre, musicals, cabaret, movies and TV shows (best known internationally as sidekick Iolaus in late-90s international hit show Hercules and sister show Xena).
This year, he seems to be everywhere. He's appeared in local TV show Maddigan's Quest, played a slimy agent in low-budget Kiwi film The Last Magic Show and a sleazy Cockney crimelord alongside Lucy Lawless in the yet-to-be-released comic film Bitch Slap.
"I seem to get a run of playing the sleazeball. I love anything cheeky." Juggling multiple balls at any one time is an ingrained habit for Hurst, whose work diary is scheduled roughly six months ahead. But he has no problem compartmentalising his projects, or sliding chameleon-like between the mediums.
"I'm quite good at killing things off quickly, and moving on to what's next." After the opera, he'll dive into rehearsals for the Auckland Theatre Company's play Blackbird, then direct an episode of new US show Wizard's First Rule, and then assist his wife Jennifer Ward-Lealand in directing Unitec-graduation production Top Girls.
He's just directed Ward-Lealand in The Threepenny Opera, but says the couple is good at keeping things separate. "We do exactly what everyone else does and live in the suburbs [in Grey Lynn, Auckland with sons Jack, 11 and Cameron, 8]."
While he loves all genres, he keeps coming back to theatre. "You get to see the audience going 'Ooo, aah, gasp, shock, chuckle, recognition' right in front of you." As for the future, he hopes to start a theatre company, touring three or four plays (including at least one New Zealand work) at a time around the country and the world. "Why should we forever be under the tyranny of distance?
The world thinks, and New Zealanders sometimes think, that we somehow have an inferior quality of product here, especially in theatre. And that's absolute nonsense. My ambition is to change that attitude. And to make really good stuff."
* Hansel and Gretel tours 15 centres from Kerikeri to Invercargill, June 29-August 13 (www.nzopera.com)
