Gobsmacked

Trek to the Top performed by LAC and PNCAS

What an amazing week it has been and a privilege it was to be asked to direct and produce the Pathfinder North New Zealand Camporee musical for 2024. I had an amazing team who stepped forward to say they’d love to help write the musical about Abraham’s story. A big thank you to Hannah Andrykanus who wrote the first half of the musical and Olepa Korenhof who helped me finish it and perfect it and Anna Beaden who wrote the comical Angel parts and of course Josiah Ruff and Noah Seuseu who produced the music for the songs for this musical ‘Legacy’. Together God created a masterpiece with the amazingly talented Seuseu family bringing it alive on stage with their singing, dancing and acting! In two weeks they learnt to dance and act to support the angelic voices that God has already blessed them with as a family.

As the summer holiday season approaches, we're excited to announce an incredible opportunity to make a meaningful impact while getting to do what you love most – SING, ACT and DANCE! Gobsmacked is thrilled to host a special Charity Performing Arts Holiday Program aimed at bringing its first FULL Gobsmacked musical to stage for students aged between 6 – 14 years old in just ONE week complete with main characters, dances, acts, singing, costumes, props and everything that comes with making our Gobsmacked shows come to life!

We have partnered with a charity trust and invited the Morning Star Charity which supports disabled children with prostheses from China to join us. We have a very special guest coming from China named Kate Liao who lost her legs in an earthquake. Against all odds she is still performing as a professional dancer and singer today with her new artificial legs. She will be helping me teach all the Gobsmacked songs and dances alongside me with her 9 million online followers and TV film crew. Together we will bring to the stage one of Gobsmacked’s most favourite musicals, ‘The Tale of Dilbert Clancy & the simply enormous gold nugget of Cooee Dupp’ which will tell the story about what greed can do to our hearts if we let it creep in.

Join us on January 22 – 26 (Mon - Fri 2024) for our holiday program at the Holy Trinity Church - 215 Devonport Rd, Tauranga and you will not only have the chance to find your talents and gifts in the performing arts but you’ll also be contributing directly to a charity that makes a real difference. Every ticket purchased, course fee and donation made will be made directly to support the charity trust empowering us to make a meaningful impact together.

We encourage you to spread the word among your friends and family and invite them to join us so that we can come together, celebrate the performing arts and create a positive change in our community this holiday season!

Auditions for main characters, speaking parts and solo singing and rapping parts will be held at 3:30pm at the Tauranga Seventh-day Adventist Church - 25 Moffatt Rd, Bethlehem on Friday December 8 at 3:30pm. If you can't make this date and time please send through your video auditions to [email protected].

To register please visit my website at www.gobsmacked.nz or contact me directly at [email protected]

We can’t wait to see you there!

What an amazing community you are Taumata. I’m going to miss you all so much. Thank you for your hugs, smiles and working so hard for me everyday. It was so much fun and together we knocked that big bad boy off!!! Be very proud of everything you achieved!

Gobsmacked t-shirts and the book ‘Trek to the Top’ that has been written especially for this show will be on sale in the school foyer for the next two weeks. You can pay by cash or internet banking. You can also order USB’s (the professional recording of the show too). Come along to my musical theatre class from 5 - 5:30 or my FREE outreach community dance/drama and singing class that follows from 5:30 - 7pm at the Tauranga Adventist church every Tuesday starting next week. Also we have the most unique experience happening over the summer from January 22 - 26 where I’m partnering with the charity LovetheOne to put on a performing arts holiday program at the Holy Trinity Church, all proceeds go to the charity who build artificial limbs for those who have lost them. You can find someone/people to sponsor you to come. A tv crew is coming out from China to film the week. We are going to be performing ‘The Tale of Dilbert Clancy’ on the very last night. Go to www.gobsmacked.nz to register and enrol with kids from all over Tauranga.

You don’t want to miss this show tonight at 6:30 and tomorrow at 4pm and 6:30. 70 years since Edmund Hillary’s climbed Mt Everest! Book tickets here! https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/

A glimpse of Bethlehem College Primary School performing ‘Trek to the Top’ to over 1500 people this past week. They made us so proud and were just phenomenal with what they achieved in just 3 weeks. The hard work has paid off and what a tribute it was to Edmund Hillary as we reflect in the 70th year since he conquered Everest.

PHOTOS - ‘Trek to the Top’ was performed by 430 students from Bethlehem College Primary school this week and it marked 70 years since Ed Hillary reached the top of Everest and my 40th musical (the first 8 musicals I directed in Egypt at the Cairo English school where they had just built the biggest theatre in middle eastern schools in our particular international school and I was blessed to be hired on the spot by Craig Monaghan as the performing arts director when I was teaching as a primary teacher in London. This amazing opportunity gave me the confidence I needed to start Gobsmacked in Tauranga, NZ where I have directed 29 musicals, 1 in Rotorua and 2 in Palmerston North, my hometown where I grew up). What a colourful journey it has been where I have nearly given up on so many different occasions. But I can honestly say by only God’s strength behind me do I celebrate this impossible mountaintop that I never even knew was possible to conquer. Incredibly thankful for my creative team - Melanie Schubert (my extraordinary script writer), Josiah Ruff (my talented music producer), my mum who washes and mends every costume and has made so many sacrifices her whole life to ensure I succeed and my stepdad, Peter who can put his hands to anything and has built all my sets and prop. This has been my solid team and there have been so many more that have carried me and helped me bring the real magic to the kids who transpire it to the stage. Principals, teachers and friends came to celebrate from all over Tauranga this momentous occasion including Dave Bell, the first principal who ever believed in me here in NZ and gave me the chance to prove my 5 week turnaround to turn kids into superstars here in NZ. From there a flurry of schools hired me to direct their musical and eight years on I have perfected my model and can now turn shows around in just 3 weeks from start to finish. It’s been a really hard climb up, harder than you know and considering everything I’ve endured I truly feel proud that I’ve miraculously managed to direct 40 musicals by the age of 35. Right now I pause to summit and reflect on the most arduous climb. I’ll start climbing again next week but for now I catch my breath and thank God for where He’s taken me.

Photo credits: Raewyn Otto & Shawna Murray

‘Trek to the Top’ was performed by 430 students from Bethlehem College Primary school this week and it marked 70 years since Ed Hillary reached the top of Everest and my 40th musical (the first 8 musicals I directed in Egypt at the Cairo English school where they had just built the biggest theatre in middle eastern schools in our particular international school and I was blessed to be hired on the spot by Craig Monaghan as the performing arts director when I was teaching as a primary teacher in London. This amazing opportunity gave me the confidence I needed to start Gobsmacked in Tauranga, NZ where I have directed 29 musicals, 1 in Rotorua and 2 in Palmerston North, my hometown where I grew up). What a colourful journey it has been where I have nearly given up on so many different occasions. But I can honestly say by only God’s strength behind me do I celebrate this impossible mountaintop that I never even knew was possible to conquer. Incredibly thankful for my creative team - Melanie Schubert (my extraordinary script writer), Josiah Ruff (my talented music producer), my mum who washes and mends every costume and has made so many sacrifices her whole life to ensure I succeed and my stepdad, Peter who can put his hands to anything and has built all my sets and prop. This has been my solid team that has carried me and helped me bring the real magic to the kids who transpire it to the stage. Principals came to celebrate from all over Tauranga this momentous occasion including Dave Bell, the first principal who ever believed in me here in NZ and gave me the chance to prove my 5 week magical turnaround to turn kids into superstars here in NZ. From there a flurry of schools hired me to direct their musical and eight years on I have perfected my model and can now turn shows around in just 3 weeks from start to finish. It’s been a really hard climb up, harder than you know and considering everything I’ve endured I truly feel proud that I’ve miraculously managed to direct 40 musicals by the age of 35. Right now I pause to summit and reflect on the most arduous climb. I’ll start climbing again next week but for now I catch my breath and thank God for where He’s taken me.