Nearly all 117 children attending Waiotahe School are in The Quest for the Mana Crystal, a production to be staged at the De Luxe Theatre on November 6.

The show features an original script, written by year 7 and 8 teacher and Waiotahe resident Emma Davis.

“We needed something relevant to both our Māori and Pākehā children.

“Thinking of this, I had a brainwave while eating dinner one night – a quest through the land to find the various elements we need to live.

“Without giving too much away, the story involves characters played by the children visiting different locations around Ōpōtiki to find these elements.

“For example, for water they go to Te Awa, the Waiotahiu River and for fire they go to Whakaari (White Island) ...”

Each class was assigned a set piece to take the audience along on this magical journey.  

“The whole point is for children to learn about mauri, the vital essence of life, and by going on this quest they find out all about it.”

The story mixes plenty of songs and dance, music including waiata and popular songs from the likes of Queen, A kind of Magic and Six60 Pepeha.

There have been lots of lines to learn, the main actors being drawn from the school’s drama club.

“This group saw the script first and read through it. Then we introduced it to the rest of the school, with the children in charge of writing their own little parts  

“We are a very sporty school, and we enter the children into lots of sports and events. I wanted us to get more into the performing arts – so I asked if we could do a production,” Ms Davis said.

“Because of Covid and various other factors, there has not been an opportunity for something like this for a long time.  

Originally from the UK, Ms Davis has a degree in English and drama and has been involved in theatrical productions ever since taking up her teaching career.

“I was involved in staging The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady, but this is the first one I have written. The others were great shows but expensive to produce.

“The great advantage here is that we don’t need to pay anyone to stage it.”

There will be 260 tickets available for both matinée and evening performances, with tickets available from the school, as well as at the theatre on the day.

“We’re quite a small school and we’d love the public to buy tickets, come along and see what local children are getting up to in schools at the moment.”