Val Isherwood. Photo/Stephen Parker
Hollywood can take the blame for Our People's mental imagine of a demanding director bellowing through a megaphone.
Maybe it's true in La La Land but that erroneous image is blown way off stage by Val Isherwood, a local theatre stalwart for more than 20 years with numerous plays under her director's belt.
It would take the mere back of a postage stamp to record what Val doesn't know about theatre and the demands of directing, albeit of the "am dram" variety; that's amateur dramatics for the uninitiated. She's also an active member of the Rotorua Musical Theatre (RMT).
It's Val who's brought Rotorua Little Theatre's present complex comedic production, Kindly Leave The Stage to its high performance standard, following a teensy five week rehearsal period.
It's a production that almost didn't happen. Younger women are in short supply at Shambles Theatre's acting stable, but Val's of 'the show must go on' school of thought.
"I said the universe will provide, it did, we turned to social media striking it lucky on Facebook, we've two newcomers in this production."
Returning to how Val views the role of director; in a nutshell it's having a strong vision of how a play should be brought to life and the multitude of components required to make this happen, without resorting to that intimidating Hollywood-style megaphone.
Directing's an art Val's honed throughout her lifetime love of theatre.
A proud Merseysider, she staged her first show in her family's back yard when she was 6 or 7.
"I can remember singing When You Roll a Silver Dollar Down Upon The Ground as my 'star turn'."
She continued to act at high school. "I loved Shakespeare, we put on a play of some variety virtually every year."
Drama and music courses featured when she enrolled in teachers' college and she continues to teach drama part time at local schools.
Val was one of those who had a taste of life away from the classroom between leaving school and deciding on a teaching career at 21.
At 16, she joined the multinational company Unilever's secretarial course, it too catered to her love of theatre.
"As well as shorthand and typing we learnt classical studies, English, deportment and speech training, that was to break our Merseyside accents out of us."
Switching to a real 'Scouse speak' to make her point Val gives us our best laugh for yonks, setting the seal on her acting talents.
From Unilever she moved to the shipping arm of Canadian National Railways, commuting on the ferry across the Mersey, trademarked by Gerry and the Pacemakers in that Liverpool-dominated era, the swinging sixties.
Despite the fun commute Val decided she lacked mental stimulation, studying A-level English and geography at night school.
"One day I heard a girl I'd been at school with had graduated from university, I was a child from a working class family, university was for the middle and upper classes, but I through bugger it, if she can have a tertiary education so can I."
Enter her enrolment at Bretton Hall Teachers College, an arm of Leeds University.
"I was way out of my comfort zone, it was in an old mansion previously owned by a lord and set in this magnificent park studded with lakes, I'd come from a place very like Coronation Street."
Val was so entranced she found ways of living in even when, by rights, she should have been flatting. These included becoming student union secretary and staying an extra year, living in a tutor's flat while she gained her Bachelor of Education.
She was teaching in Wakefield when she met husband-to-be Norman Isherwood.
She and a friend had taken a holiday job on an archaeological dig. "I still have a 550-year-old cannon ball from it". A fellow digger invited her to his birthday party some distance away.
"I said I couldn't drive, he sent his mate to pick me up so I guess you could say Norman picked me up in more ways than one."
They went on to marry and have their son Will, a third son for the previously-married Norman.
Helped by a legacy from Val's late mother the family came 'down under' to visit Norman's brother in Gisborne and hers in Melbourne.
"We went home saying 'wouldn't it be wonderful to live in New Zealand, it's so quiet and green' but Norman was too old to emigrate, then I said "hang on, I'm not."
The Isherwoods' move was a case of 'and mother came too'.
"When we told my 82-year-old mother-in-law we were emigrating she said 'I might as well die in the sun shine as here in the cold'."
Val's first job was at Girls' High teaching English and drama.
"We'd stayed at the Blue Lake on our holiday and I'd thought I'd love to live here [Rotorua] with all the trees, the lakes."
With a business to sell, it was some time before Norman joined his family.
"Will and I started off living in a school house sleeping on a mattress on the floor."
Also musical, Norman taught guitar.
To make friends outside the classroom Val joined both local theatre companies.
She's lost count of the shows she's appeared in for each, her latest for RMT was Avenue Q in June, ironically playing a teacher while multi-tasking as a puppeteer.
Her directing's been restricted to Shambles productions for the simple reason she can't read music.
However, that hasn't silenced her community musical involvement, she's a member of the District Choir.
"I'm a soprano but it's getting harder to hit the high notes."
With a foot in both theatre camps would she have supported the aborted move for the city's two theatres to merge?
"I favoured it but it was going to cost $7 million, Rotorua theatre exists on the smell of an oily rag, despite that it's in very good heart, the people involved are very enthusiastic, dedicated."
Kindly Leave the Stage plays at the Shambles until November 18.
VAL ISHERWOOD
Born: Wallasey, Merseyside 1947.
Education: Riverside Primary Wallasey, Oldershaw High, Bretton Hall Teachers College.
Family: Widow, son Will (Auckland), two stepsons (UK).
Interests: Theatre, District Choir, Scrabble, Zumba, aqua jogging. "Walking in the forest with my mixed breed poodle Pip, my life revolves around my dog." CT club quiz nights, book club member; "I prefer historical novels."
Favourite show/play: "That's way too hard to choose."
On Rotorua: "You can do anything here, there are so many clubs and organisations."
On her life: "I've been very fortunate, fortunate with my friends, the ability I have to live the life I do, I don't want for anything."
Personal philosophy: "Laughing or weeping the world goes on."