P-NG Arts Council
p. 42 · Read in the full issue
Presents Successful Play
THE Papua-New Guinea Division of the Arts Council of Australia presented their first full-length play for 1951 in the Papuan Theatre, Port Moresby, in mid- March.
Three other plays are scheduled by the Council for this year, but for their first feature they chose Seigfried Geyer’s comedy, “By Candlelight”—the story of a not quite penni less European nobleman, his assorted affairs of the heart and the embarrassments of the nobleman’s valet in connection with a blind date.
The play was produced by Lester Sims, and local players who took leading parts were Kelvin Wallace, Alison Crawford, Philip Hovel, J. Otto Anders, Anita Jones, Jean Lane, Eric Oakes, George Bardsley, and Raymond Kelly.
The players admirably overcame the diffi culties of performance in a theatre not constructed for a live artist show, and gave appreciative Port Moresby audiences a treat that rarely goes their way. The Council hopes that when the next play is performed their own Arts Theatre, at present being re constructed, will be available.
The P-NG Division of the Arts Council, by fostering music, drama, literature and other of the arts, is making a worthy effort to introduce some of the better things into tropical life in New Guinea, which is tradi tionally somewhat arid in the cultural sense.
The Administrator of the Territory, Colonel J.
K. Murray, is patron of the local branch of the Council; Mr. W. C. Groves is president; Mr. M. Infante, deputy president; Mr. J. B, Keogh, secretary; and Mr, D. I. McAlpin, treasurer.