Patrick Carroll – 2014

Patrick grew up in Bath, England and moved to Christchurch when he was 13. He attended St Andrew’s College where he immersed himself in theatre, picking up several notable awards for his outstanding performance as Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in SGCNZ’s 2009 National University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival. From that he was chosen to be one of 48 out of 5500 to attend SGCNZ’s NSSP. From this he was selected as one of 24 members of SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company 2010.  While still a student at Toi Whakaari:NZ Drama School, Patrick was lucky enough to spend time with Daniel Pengelly and Elizabeth O’Connor at the Court Theatre in Christchurch, workshopping an original New Zealand script being supported by the playhouse. Aside from that, he took a trip to Wellington to attend A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This production was helmed by Bright Orange Walls, a company co-founded by Patrick and six other young theatre students in 2012. The work marked a massive collaboration between practitioners from past, present and future Toi Whakaari and Victoria University graduates, the Urban Dream Brokerage and the Wellington Fringe Festival (an operation pulling together around thirty theatremakers, making it the largest company in Fringe 2014).

For his secondment in his third year at Toi Whakaari, Patrick spent a month in study at L’Ecole Phillipe Gaulier, a school of clown, founded by the eponymous Phillpe Gaulier.

Since returning from Paris life comprised a series of projects, ranging from a film with Louis Sutherland to Touchstone in As You Like It, directed by Lisa Warrington – the graduation production for final year Toi Whakaari actors, designers and technicians.

Bright Orange Walls has just presented  Twelfth Night, the cast/crew featuring many SGCNZ alums, in Re. Space, a recently opened gallery on Victoria Street.

Out of drama school Paddy headed to Auckland in February 2015 to begin rehearsal on Silo’s The Book of Everything directed by Sophie Roberts as part of the Auckland Arts Festival. He was working alongside Olivia Tennant (a SGCNZ alum) as well as Rima Te Waiata, Tim Carlsen and Jennifer Ward-Lealand. The production has since been remounted in Auckland, New Plymouth, Napier, Palmerston North and Hamilton, where Patrick has performed previously with Indian Ink’s new work The Elephant Thief. In May 2015 he returned to Wellington to MC at the National SGCNZ University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival.

In 2016 Patrick is touring with Indian Ink, returning to Toi Whakaari to direct the First Year Solos project for his second year and is currently still on tour with The Book of Everything.  He and Dawn Sanders both spoke at the National Library on the 6th March in a debate questioning the importance of Shakespeare being taught in schools – both on the affirmative side of the moot!