Who Are We?

Southside Drama is a community theatre group operating in South Auckland, New Zealand. It offers rich theatre experiences for the young people who attend our classes, courses and production projects.

We take a minimalist approach to costuming and staging. This leaves the focus on our actors and their skill in communicating characters and stories. Our approach finds expression in the simple black wooden stools we use in every production. (Read more about this here.)

Southside has been offering its drama activities since 2008 in various forms, including Shakespeare plays, promenade performances, workshops and large-scale intensive production projects. It was founded by Douglas Roberts.

Educational Drama Consultant - Douglas Roberts is a writer, theatre director and education consultant with bases of work in Scotland and New Zealand. His professional background is in classroom teaching, lecturing in educational drama, and running theatre companies with a focus on skills development and intensive production projects.  

He works as a consultant to the heritage sector in Scotland, creating education and outreach programmes and teaching professional development. As Education Officer for the Scottish Council on Archives for nine years, he had a considerable impact in widening collaborative engagement between heritage organisations, local communities and the education sector in Scotland. He has recently developed a drama-focused programme for engaging High School students with original historical documents from the First World War, creating a widely-praised series of performances in Scottish schools. 

As a senior teacher in Scotland and drama education facilitator in New Zealand, Douglas pioneered new approaches to Shakespeare in the primary classroom, early development of enquiry learning and enterprise education, and the use of drama as a teaching methodology. He continues to work with young people in mainstream education, through one-to-one tuition and coaching. Since 2008 Douglas has worked with home-educated students in New Zealand offering devised drama workshops, intensive performance projects and skills courses. Douglas specialises in a strongly personalised approach with students which challenges their expectations of themselves, building confidence, creativity and resilience. 

Douglas writes accessible, innovative theatre scripts for youth and young adult performers, with strong diverse storylines and profound themes. His plays offer spoken character roles to every performer.  As a theatre director he is highly collaborative, inviting and teaching young cast members to take responsibility for every aspect of the production process including stage design, backstage logistics, lighting and sound, scene blocking, costuming and audience management. 

Originally from New Zealand, Douglas has lived in Scotland for over thirty years. He is married with two children who live in Edinburgh and Dunedin. These days he divides his time between New Zealand and Scotland, avoiding the worst of the winter in each place.

Production manager - Shona Rakete met Douglas as she tried to find a local production of Julius Caesar for a group to see following their literature study of the famous Shakespearian work. Over the following 4 years, her four children took delight in learning about and performing another three of Shakespeare’s works and a radio play. Shona and the other parents were involved in supporting, sewing, prop making, encouraging and organising to ensure successful drama productions.

After a couple of years with workshops and no
production, Shona once again became involved in establishing Southside Drama. She was the production manager for many years and still occupies a key role in Southside’s activities each year. She delights in organising a group of young people, all home educators, their families, and a venue for workshops for the annual intensive drama production. Naturally, she hands over the reins to Douglas Roberts to direct the plays though she is the coordinator of props, costumes and set production.

Shona says, “It is such a privilege to watch a group of young people, led by a talented director, to go from the first day when they receive the script and their parts, to a fully fledged, professional production in just over a week.”

Sound And Light Technicians

- Caleb Rakete first met Douglas Roberts when he was 14. Douglas had a profound impact on him giving him confidence not only to act in front of an audience but to write and perform some of his own work. Although not acting with the Southside Drama group, he takes annual leave from his electrical apprenticeship to create the sound and lighting to accompany the play. In 2021 he performed in Southside’s young adult production The Oddity.

- Jess Fuemana also acted under Douglas’ direction but later stepped out of the spotlight to learn about lighting design and its technical setup. Jess has designed and operated the lighting for the Southside Drama Group’s production for several years, and mentored younger members as they learn technical skills. 

The Cast - The cast are children and young people living in the local area - Papakura, Takanini and Manurewa - aged anywhere from 8 to 19 years of age. Many of our cast members are involved from mid-childhood right through their adolescence to young adulthood.