Wairarapa College head boy Michael Barnes' stock is rising fast.
On the eve of a school history trip to Vietnam, Barnes has been selected from the Wairarapa Festival of Shakespeare in Schools as one of 24 regional direct entries in the National Shakespeare School Production to be held in
Wanganui in September.
Once in the River City he will spend a week rehearsing with a further 24 actors selected during the course of the national festival. He is hoping to make it on to a final shortlist of 24 who will be bound for London and the lights of The Globe Theatre as part of the SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company in 2009.
Barnes began acting as a third former at Wairarapa College but said he never had a great revelatory moment that made him want to act in one of the Bard's plays.
He won his spot in the final 48 for his portrayal of the clown/gravedigger in act five, scene one of a five-minute, student-directed Hamlet.
"I found I could associate with the role because I'd already done it as an assessment in sixth form," he said.
"It's quite a comic role, which is what I normally fit into it plays on puns and literal meanings, it was a good role, very fun."
"I thought I'd never have to do this again!" he said when asked what he favourite line as gravedigger was.
Nevertheless he recites it Hamlet "Then who lies in't?" to which the gravedigger replies, "One that was a woman sir, but bless her soul she's dead."
He said he is looking forward to Wanganui. "It'll be myself and 47 other randoms who've never met each other."
If he were to pass muster and make it to London he would spend 10 days at Shakespeare's Globe doing workshops, talkshops, walkshops, attending performances, being rehearsed by the theatre's directors and tutors and performing on the Globe stage.
Barnes, who plans to study law and classics at Victoria University next year, said he will take the intensive week-long Wanganui production in his stride and "just see what happens".
