FOUR FLAT WHITES IN ITALY by ROGER HALL
13 November – 19 December, 2009
Stuart Devenie
Stuart Devenie will play the uptight character, Adrian. Stuart Devenie is an actor and director. Stuart directed the pantomime, Jack & the Beanstalk, penned by Hall, at the Fortune last year. Audiences may also recall his appearances in Les Liaisons Dangereuses and in the touring production of Hatch. His film work includes three Peter Jackson movies Meet the Feebles, Braindead and The Frighteners. And most recently, The Tattooist, Te Rua, The Devil Dared Me To, In the Line of Fire and Life's a Riot. On television he’s been in Street Legal, Mercy Peak, Spin Doctors, Jack of All Trades, Hercules, Market Forces and Willy Nilly. Based in Auckland, he has made many appearances in leading roles with the Auckland Theatre Company and directed their production of The God Boy. In the course of his career Stuart has been the Artistic Director of both Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North and Playfair in Whangarei. The play is narrated by the character Adrian; while Adrian speaks to us in the present day, the action of the play takes place in 2007.
Viv Aitken
Viv Aitken plays priggish wife of Adrian, Alison. Viv is a well known thespian in the Otago region. She is drama teacher at Otago Girls High School and has trod the boards of local stages. For the Playhouse Theatre Viv wrote and directed Hansel and Gretel and performed in The Wizard of Oz as the Witch. For the Otago Humanities Dept: Hecuba, Oedipus The King and Antigone and for the Globe Theatre Old Times and for Allan Hall Theatre, The Bald Primadonna. Viv was last seen at the Fortune Theatre in Dead Lucky, Take a Chance on Me and, The Country Wife.
Simon O’Connor
Dunedin actor and playwright, Simon O’Connor plays plumber, Harry. His acting credits include roles for most of NZ’s professional theatres as well as for television and film. He played Herbert Reiper in Peter Jackson’s award-winning Heavenly Creatures and will be remembered for his recent starring roles in Who Wants to be 100? as the charismatic Q.C Edwin, and most recently at the Fortune, as Louis in Don Juan in Soho. Simon was dynamic as Iago in Othello, Claudius in Hamlet and as Ken in the world premiere of Home Land. Simon's other previous Fortune appearances include the 1977 productions of Macbeth and Equus, The Lover and Silence, Shotgun Wedding, Bent, Romeo and Juliet, After the Crash, Crystal Clear, Horseplay, and Spreading Out. He was one of the researchers and performers for the Otago University production of Hush, a verbatim documentary play about family violence. He also co-devised and acted in the play One Day for RBS Product ions. Simon is a published playwright, a past recipient of the Dominion Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Award for playwriting, and a Williams Evans Fellow at the University of Otago. He is a Teaching Fellow (playwrighting) at the University Otago’s Theatre Department. One of his earliest writing gigs was for Close to Home. Simon has won many awards including: Feltex Award (best actor), Gafta Award (best writer)
Julie Edwards
Julie Edwards plays the vivacious Judy. Julie graduated from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 1989 and has appeared in over 40 productions with the Fortune Theatre. She played Kathy in Mum’s Choir, and most recently, Janice in Lucky Numbers. Julie has worked as actor/director/drama teacher throughout NZ. In 2008 she directed Things I Hate About Your Mother, by Sarah McDougal for the Otago Arts Festival. She now lives in Brighton with her husband Jann, their three children – Eliza, David, Rose – and a variety of animals.
Rachel More
Rachel More plays various roles .Rachel is a Wellington based actor and director who originally hails from Dunedin. After finishing her Master of Theatre Arts degree at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in Directing she has directed numerous shows around New Zealand, including, Under Milkwood, at Downstage theatre and Backwards in High Heels and This is our Youth at the Circa Studio. Along with Jacquie Coats she has directed two Summer Shakespeare’s, Much Ado about Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew in the Te Papa Amphitheatre. As an actor Rachel won the Chapman Tripp most promising new comer award, for the role of Rosie Pye in Circa’s Humble Boy which she also performed in at the Fortune. She has indulged in corseted foreplay in Simon Vincent’s A Renaissance Man at Bats and was last seen as a dancing mother on the edge of sanity in Paul Rothwell’s Christmas Indoors at Bats at the end of last year. Rachel was also in the Fortune’s production of Love off the Shelf by Roger Hall.
Allan Henry
Allan Henry plays various roles and was last seen as Aloysius in Don Juan in Soho at the Fortune. Since Graduating from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 2006, Allan has played Bernie in the highly popular Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Warren in Circa’s Studio, This is our Youth and starred in and choreographed the fight spectacular Footballistic. Focusing on his other career, that of fight chorography, he has worked on numerous Wellington Theatre Productions, including the award winning Paua, at Downstage, Wait until Dark at Circa, Victoria University's Henry V for the summer Shakespeare Season as well as films, Avatar, Warbrick and the NZ based, Life’s A Riot in which he was also Stunt Coordinator. Allan has a great love of teaching at all levels and recently returned from studying in London where he achieved an Advanced Actor Combatant qualification with Gold Distinction from the British Academy of Dramatic Combat.
