Our mission…

Providing home-educated students within the Franklin and surrounding districts with an opportunity to gain personal and inter-personal skills, performance practice and drama coaching from an experienced, skilled drama education consultant.

Shoestring Theatre is an ongoing collaboration between friends, Sheryl & Rob Aiken and Douglas Roberts, working together and underwriting the workshops and performances held annually in Waiuku, Auckland, NZ.

The name Shoestring came about from the conscious decision to keep costuming, props and scenery to a minimum and maintain the focus on the acting skills of the cast.

​For over ten years the annual workshops and performance projects have proven to be an effective and safe environment where the students can engage in process drama that encourages personal creativity and interpersonal communication, as well as performance drama.

The one-week intensive performance project teaches them about the whole theatrical production process – from memorising the script, blocking the scenes, creating the props, trawling for costumes, and assisting with the stage, sound, and lighting design.

Director

Douglas is a specialist in theatre skills and active learning approaches with almost thirty years of experience as a theatre director, teacher at primary and secondary level, and education advisor and consultant. He divides his time between New Zealand (place of his birth and home to extended family) and Scotland (his family home). With his unique skillsets he is responsible for the workshop teaching and the writing and directing of the performances.

Production Team

Sheryl is a mother of eight and qualified primary school teacher who has been home educating for twenty years. An active member of the wider homeschool community, Sheryl has co-ordinated various activities for home-educators in South Auckland. For ten of those years, since coming across Douglas Roberts during a Shakespeare project and after seeing the tremendous benefit of educational drama to her own children, she has been liaising with Douglas to make his experience and talents available to the homeschool community through drama workshops and performances. As far as her family commitments allow, Sheryl supports Douglas during the drama workshops as an extra supervising adult, and other students' parents sometimes undertake this role as well. During the performance week she and her husband, Rob, work with other parents managing the stage production side.

​Rob is an IT consultant who assists Sheryl and Douglas with producing the stage performance as well as the technical aspects of sound and lighting.