Stage daunting for pro Keisha

By AMANDA CAMERON

Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes admitted to nerves yesterday before her first live stage performance.

The 14-year-old Whale Rider star joined dozens of other Penrose High School students last night in the Subway 2004 Stage Challenge.

New Zealand's largest secondary school performing arts competition requires students to create and present an original story on stage through dance and drama.

Keisha performed alongside 70 of her peers in Penrose's entry, Cultural Identity, which depicts New Zealanders recognising one another's differences, accepting them and uniting as one people.

"I'm really nervous actually," she said during rehearsals yesterday at the Aotea Centre in Auckland.

"I was really nervous before rehearsals even."

Keisha had no film acting experience before Whale Rider - which included a spine-tingling speech with a school group on stage.

And she has discovered a big difference between film and stage acting.

"[On film] it's about keeping it real and with this they're all saying, 'You've got to be melodramatic about everything'."

As well as performing, students competing in the Stage Challenge are required to provide a backstage support crew, design and build sets, do makeup, raise funds, budget, and design and sew costumes.

Penrose High's head of dance and drama, Shaquelle Maybury, is proud of what the students have achieved in their first attempt at the competition.

The decile-three school decided to enter just 11 weeks ago and students raised the necessary money themselves.

"They're a free-spirited bunch," she said.

Students participating in the Stage Challenge are encouraged to do so completely drug-free.

Enjoying a "natural high" is one of the fundamental messages behind the event, which started in Australia 25 years ago and is now staged in 50 locations worldwide.

This year's New Zealand challenge, which began in April, is the largest in its 11-year history and features more than 150 performances by students from Invercargill to the Bay of Islands.

Twenty-seven Auckland schools performed at the Aotea Centre this week.

Final performances will take place in Whangarei and Tauranga next month.