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Michael Hurst
2003 Laureate
Actor/Director
Michael Hurst is both an actor and director, with a very long list of theatre, film, television, and radio credits to his name.
Born in Lancashire, England, in 1957, Michael moved to New Zealand with his family in June, 1966. Growing up in Christchurch, Michael attended Papanuiu High School and then Canterbury University. In 1976, at 19, he was employed in an acting apprenticeship at the Court Theatre, and two years later moved to Auckland to work at Raymond Hawthorn’s Theatre Corporate.
From 1979 to 1983, Michael performed and trained with a permanent company of actors and directors, exploring everything from the Greeks to Shakespeare to Kafka and Arthur Miller; Brecht, Tenessee Williams, Gilbert and Sullivan and Harold Pinter; Commedia Del’Arte, Restoration Theatre, Musicals and Children’s Theatre. This was an intense and fruitful period during which Michael gained the skills and insights which have served him as both an actor and director to this day.
From 1982 Michael went on to work extensively in theatre film and television in New Zealand and Australia, before taking up the co-starring role of Iolaus, in the US television series Hercules – The Legendary Journeys in 1993. During this period Michael played a key role in founding The Watershed Theatre in Auckland’s Viaduct basin, where he directed and acted in many productions including Hamlet, Cabaret and his own children’s pantomimes Aladdin and Jack and the Beanstalk. He also performed with acclaimed alternative theatre group Inside Out Theatre, whose production The Holy Sinner (1992) was a sensation and was re-staged at the International Festival in Wellington in 1994. In 1990 and in 1991, he directed both Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet for the then Herald Theatre management, two productions that defined his approach to Shakespeare and were totally sold out.
As well as acting and directing, Michael was involved in what was later to become TAPAC (The Auckland Performing Arts Centre), both teaching drama to teens and helping to fundraise for the venue which now exists at Western Springs. Later he and his wife Jennifer Ward-Lealand were to become patrons of the organisation.
Working on Hercules (and its spin off Xena – Warrior Princess), while juggling theatre and other commitments, was another extremely fruitful period for Michael. In 1997 he received the Best Supporting Actor (Drama) Award at the NZ Film and Television Awards and, having directed a number of episodes of both Hercules and Xena, he received a Best Director (Comedy) Award in 1999. In that same year he directed his first feature film Jubilee, starring Cliff Curtis, for South Pacific Pictures.
Work on Hercules ended in 1999, and in 2001, after completing his feature film and directing a one hour television comedy with Love Mussel for TV3, Michael returned to the theatre scene, though not without directing two children’s film’s in 2002 – The Monster of Treasure Island and The Mystery of Treasure Island. Michael worked extensively with the Auckland Theatre Company, playing roles such as Estragon in Waiting For Godot, Ri ff-Raff in The Rocky Horror Show, Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi and The Player in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, as well as directing an acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in 2006, a production which was described as the’ best Shakespeare in a decade’ by the NZ Herald.
Most recently Michael has been very much involved with The Silo Theatre, both as an actor and as a director, and in 2008 he will direct Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil’s The Threepenny Opera for the company.
Michael received an ONZM (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit) for services to film and the theatre in the 2005 Queens Birthday Honours.
He is happily married to actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand and they have two sons.
For more information on Michael and an updated list of his acting and theatre activities, please visit Michael’s website |
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