Layla Pitt is set to star in The Wonderland Glow Show a bilingual puppet show. Photo / Supplied
Layla Pitt is set to star in The Wonderland Glow Show a bilingual puppet show. Photo / Supplied
Hawke's Bay performer Layla Pitt is forecast to glow in a bilingual puppet show encouraging literacy and the use of te reo Māori.
Pitt is a former Havelock High School student who is pursuing her passion for the performing arts through a venture into glow-in-the-dark puppetry.
'The Wonderland Glow Show'is a bilingual puppet show that stars the London-born, Hawkes Bay-reared performer. Pitt sees the show as an opportunity to "influence children in a good way, so they can really see the culture of the country they are living in."
The show's Kiwi twist to Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' classic is important for Pitt, who remarked that as New Zealanders "a lot of the media that we consume is American or British" and doesn't let Kiwi kids feel represented.
Through the vocal talents of the performers involved in the show, Pitt hopes they will convey the diversity of Aotearoa in the accents and language that they use.
For Pitt, this means exploring her voice as a bi-racial New Zealander of Caribbean/United Kingdom and New Zealand European descent while playing a giant flower puppet. Pitt is also contributing to the Glow Show's production through her role as Stage Manager.
Pitt has blossomed as a performer of thespian stock, with her father Winston Pitt having performed on the West End.
"I started singing before I could speak and the acting kind of came later when I got into theatre and found out that I loved that as well."
Pitt entered the Hawke's Bay amateur theatre community through productions with Playhouse Theatre and Hastings Operatic Society.
She's since studied a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts at Unitec in Auckland and flourished away from her home soil, starring as an elfin-eared hobbit in 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert', which Pitt described as a career highlight.
Pitt is looking forward to taking the Glow Show to Hawke's Bay to "show everyone that I love there what it's about and to showcase its diversity."
'The Wonderland Glow Show' is coming to Napier's Municipal Theatre on the 23rd of August, where Pitt will be watering her regional roots in two luminous shows for tamariki.
