DELIGHTED: Teacher Stacey Musham-Bolt with her AMI Showdown awards. Photo supplied.

• Howick and Pakuranga Times

A DRAMA teacher has claimed a top award after directing a school play about the Holocaust.

Stacey Musham-Bolt has claimed the best director title at the AMI Showdown Awards for The Diary of Anne Frank.

The teacher says it’s “nice to get the recognition” that comes with the award, but her fantastic cast of Year 13 drama students at Rosehill College in Papakura made her task of directing the play a delight.

“I was quite lucky they were such an intelligent class and prepared themselves so well, did their homework I guess,” says Ms Musham-Bolt, who lives in Howick. “I was lucky I had a group of students who were mature enough to be able to handle the content.”

She chose The Diary of Anne Frank because she believes students need to know about the history of the Holocaust.

“Most of the students in my class had no idea about the extent of the trauma people went through and what they had to do to survive.”

The students ended up learning “a whole lot” about one of world history’s darkest chapters by extensively researching their characters.   

“From a character point of view, you can’t understand how these people lived and what they went through unless you really become them I suppose,” says Ms Musham-Bolt, who is also a regular actor at Howick’s Harlequin Theatre.

“The students were living and breathing this play, day in and day out, for six weeks.”

She conducted a lot of character exercises and warm-up activities with her students.

“I also showed them a few videos from the Holocaust. We watched the movie and we all read the book as well.

“Six weeks to pull together and put on a play isn’t a long time.

“I was providing the students with snippets of information here and there whenever I could, and then giving even more direction during their rehearsals.”

It all paid off because her Year 13 drama class also took the AMI Showdown award for most outstanding play of the year. 

“It’s nice to get the recognition and the title of best director for the year after all the time and effort it takes to put on a play as a teacher.

“And I think it’s really nice for the students to have won the most outstanding play.”