About our guest
Michael Hurst
On 29 June 2004 actor and director Michael Hurst participated in a videoconference with 12 secondary schools from around New Zealand.
Watch clips of Michael talking about:
- careers in theatre
- delivering a powerful performance
- staging a production
- interpreting Macbeth
- interpreting Othello.
Ideal for years 9–13 drama and English students, this videoconference gives students valuable insights into Shakespeare performance from New Zealand’s “finest interpreter of the Bard” (Metro Magazine). Michael Hurst shares his 25 years of experience as an actor, director and Shakespeare tutor.
About Michael Hurst:
Michael was 13 years old when he saw King Lear performed on stage. Although he didn’t understand its complexities at the time, the emotion and power it evoked have stayed with him ever since. He has a lifelong passion for Shakespeare, which has seen him play seven different Shakespearean roles and direct eight plays (see the list below). He has also studied Shakespeare at university and taught the subject at the Performing Arts School.
Michael has directed and performed a wide range of theatre – from Greek classics such as Medea and Lysistrata to the New Zealand comedies Ladies’ Night and The Sex Fiend, as well as pantomimes he has written himself.
Michael has also enjoyed television and film roles, for example as Hercules’ side-kick Iolaus in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, and in New Zealand feature films Desperate Remedies and The Footstep Man.
He directed the 1998 New Zealand film Jubilee, starring Cliff Curtis. These days Michael is involved in Classical Studies at Massey University, concentrating on the great tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Shakespeare roles performed:
Hamlet in Hamlet (in his own 1994 and 2003 productions)
Macbeth in Macbeth
Laertes in Hamlet
Paris in Romeo and Juliet
Touchstone in As You Like It
Florizel in The Winter’s Tale
The Fool in King Lear
Shakespeare plays directed:
Othello
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
The Tempest
The Merchant of Venice
King Lear
Measure For Measure
Michael Hurst was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit “for service to film and the theatre” in the annual Queen’s Birthday honours list released on 6 June 2005.
Participating schools:
- Northland College
- South Learning Centre
- Te Kuiti High
- Thames High School
- Reporoa College
- Coromandel Area School
- Stratford High School
- East Otago High School
- Roxburgh Area School
- Waitara High School
- Tauhara College
- Raglan Area school
Web links
The large group
http://www.thelargegroup.com