NEWS

A few weeks out from our brand new reimagining of early music When Light Breaks, we take a look at one person bringing the story to life. We’re excited to be working with Director Jacqueline Coats who has many feathers in her cap. She has worked as a director and an assistant director for the NZ International Festival of the Arts, NZ Opera, Victorian Opera in Melbourne, CubaDupa in Wellington and many more. She has won accolades from the NZ Fringe and the Wellington Theatre Awards, and in 2014 was ‘Director of the Year’ at the Dunedin Theatre Awards for her premiere of Anthony Richie’s This Other Eden.

Jacqueline has a passion for theatre and opera for young people. She has worked as an actor, a music director and a stage director for Capital E National Theatre for Children, most recently directing their touring production of Songs of the Sea. Jacqueline’s theatre credits include the original touring productions of Lines from the Nile and Home; a promenade production of Martin Sherman’s Bent; and co-directing two shows for Wellington Summer Shakespeare. She directed Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona for Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School at the end of 2018.

Jacqueline is not only directing When Light Breaks, but she has crafted the journey of the show, inspired by the quote “we are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” The concert is set around the ritual of grief, moving through five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, moving from darkness to light over the course of the performance.

The journey of the concert will be guided by puppetry from Little Dog Barking Theatre Company, a first for a Voices New Zealand concert.