Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

O Extravaganza! The Great Extrav Reunion Weekend & Capping Revue Revival [1993]

O Extravaganza!

page 2

O Extravaganza!

O Extravaganza! was the successful culmination of months of activity - which began for me as Alumni Relations Manager with a letter from Bill Sheat, in March 1992, advising me that he and George Andrews were planning the Great Extravaganza Reunion, State Opera House, Capping Week, May 1993. I pounced on this - and offered to help in any way possible.

O Extravaganza! survived: the initial plan that no-one involved post-1963 should be included; Bill Sheat suggesting in January 1993 that perhaps it should be called off; a shift of date and place, into the manageable size of the Memorial Theatre; the necessity of sitting through the 'remember when' sessions before any constructive planning could begin. I made terrifying discoveries about what the extrav's in the early 60's and some earlier ones had been like - very undisciplined and self-indulgent, more fun for the cast than the audience. Fortunately I didn't discover till the Extrav Spectrum documentary, that the reason the 1963 show was the last one in the State Opera House - the excuse for our 30 years on celebration - was because it lost so much money the Students' Association forbade Extrav organisers to go there again.

From much sheer tedium (for someone who had not been involved in extravs 'then') and hours of hard work, as well as the delight of rehearsals and the eagerness of people to be contacted and to become involved, emerged a wonderful butterfly - the really fun event that was O Extravaganza!

Key people:

Deirdre Tarrant (post 1963), didn't just choreograph the dancers and direct her segment, but actually put the show together, through meetings, early rehearsals and in the theatre, so it ran within time, reasonably tightly and coherently, and was as much fun for the audience as for the cast. Deirdre provided meeting and rehearsal venues and also organised Extrav sweatshirts and T shirts;

George Andrews - developed and motivated the Auckland contingent, wrote scripts, whipped up publicity - and made a good 'finding' team with Margaret Black;

Bill Sheat - the 'old age' director, and source of much information - who triumphed many times in tracking down original source material;

Margaret Black - contacted numerous people, many of whom we'd lost track of;

Margaret Stewart - calmly organised, sewed and co-ordinated wardrobe;

page 2

Bill Wollerman - musician, invaluable at the piano; and Gil Haismann too;

Murray Gray and Philip Keeling who took over (with Deirdre) as Stage Managers when Peter Frater walked out;

Steve Whitehouse - arrived from New York, wrote script, did PR interviews, rehearsed, ad libbed, and with Roger Hall was an adept stagehand;

Roger Hall, whose writing and acting talents were invaluable, and who suggested 'Spectrum' be contacted;

The male ballet - totally reliable for rehearsals, very keen, always eager for more;

Jeanette Baylis, who was a wonderful 'gofer' on the day.

Elizabeth Mirams, for her invaluable work on the registration form; and staff people - Bernard Carpinter, who got so enthused in writing the news article for VUWpoint he believed his own publicity, bought tickets and came to the dinner and show;

Sarah-Jane Minot who unflappably kept track of all registrations, helped with displays and hospitably served afternoon tea with her husband;

Sarah Major (temp staff) handled all the in-office ticketing and registrations, organised the memorabilia display and took rehearsal and dress rehearsal photographs.

Special thank you to the 1990's trio of actors led by Cathie Sheat, and to musicians Bret McKenzie and Louise Major who unlike everyone else were not there for reminiscence, but were roped in as family - and who contributed much to the success of the show.

Attendance:

4.30pm show: 231, plus video operator, some complimentaries, and various cast. 45 tickets sold by BASS. Definitely attracted our older members.

8.30pm show: 352, plus video operator, and some cast. 105 tickets sold by BASS.

Of total tickets pre-sold (i.e. not door sales) 243 were at the discount - alumni, cast or student - rate.

The audience came from Rarotonga, Brisbane, Auckland, Taupo, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Waikanae, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin.

Buffet Tea: approximately 122
Afternoon tea: 40 plus
Breakfast: 48 paid in advance, plus doorsales
Audience registrations: 68
Conversazione, Hotel St George: approximately 110
After show party, Impressions Bar, Park Royal: about 60
Hunter Tour: 20 booked
page 3

Audience dedication:

The lecturer in physics and astronomy who chose to come to Extrav, instead of to the Astronomy lecture by Patrick Moore: "The first time I went out with the girl who became my wife, we went to an extrav. We couldn't miss this one."

Alumni Membership: 47 new members, and 20 early subscription renewals.

Donations: $550.00 ($500.00 from an anonymous donor, one week after the event,

$50.00 in advance from another alumna, in lieu of buying tickets.)

Cast & Crew: 67 approximately; plus extra Alumni Association committee members as front of house: Beverley Wakem, Sonia Irain-Patterson, Elizabeth Mirams, Murray Radford, David Tai, with Drama Club ushers organised by Ryk Goddard; programme sellers George (Black) Randall and William Stewart.

Cast (aged from 85 to 16) came from New York, Brisbane, Whangarei, Auckland, Taupo, Stratford, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay, Wanganui, Wellington, Dunedin;

Memorabilia: Was contributed by many people, notably Bill Sheat, Ian Allen, Geraldine McDonald, Des Deacon, Rita Scotney, Graeme Gordon, Paul Taylor, Tony Ferrers, Derek Homewood, Deirdre Tarrant, Stephanie Dwyer, Sonja Easterbook-Smith, Dave Smith, Dennis Brown, George Andrews, Philip Keeling, Margaret Black. Professor Shayle Searle in New York was the first to send in copies of old photographs.

The photocopying of old Cappicades, with colour photocopies for the covers worked extremely well. An extra two weeks to mount memorabilia and prepare 'legends' would have been helpful.

The memorabilia exhibition attracted people to arrive at the theatre extremely early, to really study the memorabilia.

Sponsorship: From Fay Richwhite - thanks to the initial approach from George Andrews to Sir Michael Fay, followed through by me to William (Bill) Birnie. The sponsorship was enormously helpful. It took the form of providing Fay Richwhite expertise for design assistance, layout and printing through their printers of all programmes, posters, handbills, ticket folders; and preparing advertisements to bromide stage. i.e. Fay Richwhite paid all those printing bills, we paid for advertising. Preparing all the programme information, an enormous and time consuming task for me, was considerably helped by David Lightwood's unflappable approach to layout.

page 4

Douglas Wilson, Ideas Advertising, provided the O Extravaganza! logo, while Bob Brockie designed the poster.

Publications and Media Services provided free advertising in News VUW, and in the Staff Circular; 'temp staff' wages came from the Alumni Relations Centre budget.

The sponsorship contribution probably almost equals the profit from O Extrav.

Publicity: In addition to printed publicity (copies attached, including front page of Evening Post and p3 Dominion), and the News VUW and VUW point coverage;

Newsletters and letters went sent to the slowly accumulated lists of former extrav participants, from February to June 1993;

Radio Interviews: in the week prior to July 17, Steve Whitehouse with Kim Hill on 2YA; Steve Whitehouse, Clive Thorp and Gil Haisman with Kathryn Asaré on 2ZB; several weeks prior, Max Cryer on Radio Pacific, George Andrews on Radio Pacific;

Spectrum documentary "Thirty years on, growing older and older . ." was broadcast on Sunday August 29 (& repeated on August 31).

Advertising: Listener, May 1992; Victorious, January 1993; July '93 Evening Post, Dominion, Sunday Times, Capital Times, NewsVUW.

Bass Booking Office: Proved rather difficult to deal with, partly because they were coping with a total management/staff change during the few weeks of our production ticket sales. However using Bass was the cheapest way to get seat-specific, printed tickets.

Tickets for sale through our office were all printed COMP, at 00.00 cost -- so we had to place small stickers over the zero cost. It did not seem possible for BASS to print out tickets for us to sell which gave the actual prices: if tickets were not sold over their counter they were complimentary.

BASS sold 6 tickets at $28.00, instead of the full price of $22.00 or the $17.00 concession price - "a computer mistake". Fortunately one BASS staffer noticed their mistake, checked and corrected it. It was not possible to identify to whom those tickets were sold.

page 5

When tickets were collected as pre-arranged, at 2.30pm on Saturday 17, for potential door sale at the theatre, we were given a list of tickets sold, but not the actual unsold tickets. Fortunately this was realised by my ticket collector, and the unsold tickets which we had specifically requested in advance were printed out for us. It would have been impossible to know what seats were available for door sales, without the actual tickets.

Of nearly 600 show tickets sold, 150 were sold through BASS.

Memorial Theatre: Some communication problems surfaced here, with liaison between the Union management and the theatre (and theatre bar) staff. Despite enquiries weeks in advance, we were unable to obtain information about the space for wheelchairs till 35 minutes before the 4.30 show began (one row of seats lifts out); the Theatre was booked till midnight, but the bar manager attempted to close the bar at 11pm, when the foyer was full of happy audience who did not want to leave.

The backstage green room area is particularly shabby, with space taken up by old carpet storage. This proved a problem for serving cast lunches, as this area was not very clean, and very squashed for the numbers involved. Since the cast's scheduled lunch was unavoidably delayed, we ended up with an overlap between cast lunch and audience afternoon tea. Some cast/crew who were very busy didn't discover the kitchen and green room (down a flight of stairs) and the fruit, bread and cheese available there - yet food was not allowed on the side of the stage. Time - and the lack of it - was a problem, but this was probably unavoidable with a show for which the whole cast was together for the first time that morning.

The theatre foyer is very shabby in daylight, needed considerable disguise to look festive and interesting.

Geoff Hewitt, the theatre staff person, was very helpful and professional.

We were charged a very reasonable (VUW event) theatre hirage rate.

Buffet Tea: Problem with access from two doors, into both sides of Vickys. For any future events, it would be better to enter through one door only with a floating 'house manager' to greet and direct people to the other buffet.

The door people found it very difficult to prevent entry by determined free loaders.

page 6

The tables decorated up well with red cloths (which we had specified and paid for), white napkins and candles, green holly and ivy. Large round candles were used, which scarcely burned down at all, and which will now be available for future events. But spare chairs needed to be available, so people who wanted to congregate together could do so, without disrupting other tables too much.

Afternoon Tea: This was very successful. Having good coffee which smelt great was a real help, combined with lovely food from Cushla's Cuisine and lots of it, so extra people could easily be accommodated.

Conversazione: Extremely successful, with about twice as many people as anticipated. A very cheerful gathering and start to the weekend. There was a cash bar, and we provided $150.00 worth of sandwiches and chippies (from registration income). The Hotel St George no longer has its own kitchens, so no 'bar counter' food was available - it would have to be ordered and paid for in advance. Many people ate at Armadillos afterwards.

Breakfast: A very friendly cheerful conclusion to the festivities, and with lots of coffee, fresh fruit, muffins and breads, very good value from the Skyline for $10.00.

After Show Party: Impressions bar, Park Royal. Bill Wollerman excelled at the piano, with even people who were strangers joining in the singing. Bar staff were delighted with the friendly crowd, but kept trying to close the bar down. A very good venue for a smallish gathering, Impressions has a resident pianist on week nights, but not at weekends.

Biggest disappointment:

The Woolf Photography camera failure, which ruined the official cast photos. Those from the Old Age, Middle Age and the Present are barely usable, the New Age totally unusable.

Biggest joy: The audience response, the glowing faces which emerged from each performance. As the Vice Chancellor commented, laughing: "I expected nostalgia, and to smile a lot, but I didn't expect it to be so funny."

Satisfaction: Backstage - the cast realisation that it wasn't just 'their year' that was good - from the 1930's to the present day, all had a good contribution to make.

Many favourable letters, phone calls and personal comments; continuing plans for reunions - Auckland September 18, and Wellington - possibly October 16; murmurs about Alumni Association branches in Auckland and in Brisbane.

page 7

Budget: Expenditure (estimated) $7,632, income $13,175: Profit $5,543.

New members: 47.

Followup: A mini newsletter was sent to participants (cast, crew and audience who registered);

Videos - 18 sold within one week of advertising them, and we have now sold nearly 50.

Extrav participants became very actively involved as volunteers with the Open Day alumni café, with welcoming people in the Alumni Relations Centre on Open Day and in organising reunions. Some enthusiasts are keen to put on a show next year - but one idea which has been planted is that we work towards a centennial production in 1999 (or whichever year the university decides to identify as the centennial).

Extrav memorabilia - both the old and that generated on July 17, helped make a colourful and interesting Alumni Relations Centre display for Open Day.

More Extrav/Capping material is becoming available. Some more copies of original scripts have been received, and we were visited by Moira Smith, who is presently based at the Folklore Institute, Indiana University, and who completed her PhD thesis in 1992 titled 'The Ritual Humor of Students: Capping at Victoria University, 1902-1988'. Moira has a lot of taped material. We are pursuing the possibility of archiving copies of these interviews in the VUW library, as part of an oral archive. The Librarian, Deputy Librarian and Beaglehole Room Librarian are all enthusiastic about storing these tapes and memorabilia where they can be accessed, provided that appropriate releases have been signed.

Our October Alumni Association Downstage block booking, to Roger Hall's By Degrees has attracted 149 participants - several of whom have connected their booking to their enjoyment of O Extravaganza!

Sharon Major

October 1, 1993