Source: Te Pukenga
Two shows into a powerful, action-packed and fast-paced season, the cast of Faust.Us are having a blast.
The collaboration between second-year National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts (NASDA) musical theatre students and nine learning-disabled artists from A Different Light Theatre Company is thought to be a first for New Zealand.
“This inclusive performance involving degree students hasn’t been done before, I believe, and it’s been achieved because for 20 years I’ve been working with Different Light,” said Ara |Te Pūkenga academic, tutor and show director Tony McCaffrey.
“It’s about learning to work together, be together and care for each other in mutual respect and aroha. It’s lovely to see Different Light performers in warm-ups, on stage and backstage with our NASDA students, side by side, collaborating in this way.”
Faust.Us very loosely adapts Marlowe’s Elizabethan play about selling your soul to the devil to our era of climate emergency. It also investigates what we mean by ‘us’ through this unique take, devised by the cast.
McCaffrey said the simple story of good and evil and the consequences of selling your soul has come together powerfully.
“We do it in an interesting visual way with song, music and dance. We’ve got a beautiful set, lighting design, and the students and Different Light actors work incredibly well and incredibly hard through the hour-long piece.
“From selling their soul to the devil, through the years of enjoying whatever they want, to the devil coming and claiming their end of the bargain and dragging them into hell – it’s got momentum and
