Exciting newcomer Anna Hewlett has recently played Vivian Hoffman in Marlene, which starred Jennifer Ward-Lealand in the title role. She played Janet in the Wellington season of the Auckland Theatre Company's box office hit The Rocky Horror Show.

Michael Hurst played Riff Raff in that production and Hewlett says it was beneficial that they had worked together and knew each other well before playing the intensity of the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet.

Speech and drama lessons at school introduced her to Shakespeare and fostered her understanding and love of his work. At 15, she played Lady Macbeth in a school production, and later, while at Toi Whakaari Drama School in Wellington, she was in Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Miranda Harcourt at Downstage. Her first job after drama school was in Macbeth at Palmerston North's Centrepoint Theatre.

Her other theatre work includes Hai, Ada, Noises Off and Cowboy Mouth; television Shortland Street and Dark Knight; film The Lord of the Rings, and short films Waitings, The Big Game and When the Jars Are Done.

She grew up in Kerikeri, taking part in school drama and dance because, she says, although she was very shy, she always loved being on stage and enjoyed watching old-style movies on television. After leaving school and before reaching 20, the age of admission to Toi Whakaari, she attended a Waikato Polytech media arts course and the Bay of Plenty Academy of Performing Arts in Tauranga.

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Michael Hurst plays Hamlet Elizabeth Hawthorne plays Gertrude Ray Trickitt plays Claudius

Christian Penny, Associate Director Cast List