Rebekah Tysoe

Rebekah contemplates beans. Photo: Gulf News

  

Title: Somewhat British Computer Wrangler

Jobs: Writer, Actress, Singer, and Sometime Wardrobe mender.

Past and Current roles:
Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Margaret (Much Ado About Nothing)
Nigel (The Oneroa Town Musicians)
Miranda (The Tempest)
Jack (Jack and the Genetically Modified Beanstalk)

Bea, Chorus, and Polly Garter (Razzle Dazzle)
Chorus (Waiheke Untamed)
Edith (Blythe Spirit)

Bio:  Rebekah Tysoe: noun: A creature of vampiric qualities. Prized by nomadic Tibetan tribes for their thick skins and shiny long teeth.

Rebekah Tysoe has lived in most of the towns of New Zealand’s North Island, as well as Cambridge, England. She is so used to moving around, that it stuns her to realise that – to date – she has lived on Waiheke Island for nearly six years. Her travels have given her an intense hatred of brown cardboard boxes. Whenever she sees one, she feels inexorably drawn to put things into it, close it, and label it in black marker pen.

After moving to Waiheke in 2001, Rebekah got in contact with a local theatrical society. They were short a Cockney Maid. Rebekah agreed to enter the role, little realising that she would find it hard to get rid of the accent and the white apron later. She blames this role for the fact that she later became a cleaner in a High School and was subjected to sights no young lady should ever have to see.

After several variety shows, Rebekah auditioned for the part of the Pantomime Girl in Jack and the Genetically Modified Beanstalk. After realising her secret wish to wear the trousers in the play, the Principal Boy suffered a mysterious accident, and Rebekah stepped into the part. There were the usual cross-dressing jokes, a collapsing beanstalk, a can of genetically modified beans that went missing at the wrong moment, and a very silly Groucho Marx mask.

And after that, she was brave (or foolish) enough to do it again.

The next time around, the Panto Hero was called Nigel. He was a hippy who lost his love to a Donkey, and learned to crow. Half the time, people were running around back stage trying to find the Rooster’s Legs. Rebekah thinks that the cast should open an inn called ‘The Rooster’s Legs and the Cat’s Beret’.

However, Rebekah’s favourite shows are the Summer Shakespeare. Her first role in one of these was The Tempest. Miranda was a very sweet young lady who floated around dressed in blue and falling in love. It was not Rebekah’s favourite all-time role. The next time she was more fortunate. Margaret (Much Ado) was a bold young lady who enjoyed flirting with all the male characters. (Personally, Rebekah rarely flirts, but that is probably one of the things that made the part so amusing to perform)

Finally, and most recently, she nabbed a leading romantic role in which she doesn’t play the boy. Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is gothic and depressed. She calls herself a spaniel on more than one occasion. But at least she gets the guy (and gets to hit the guy in the stomach).

Rebekah enjoys acting and singing almost as much as she enjoys writing. She has written three plays of various kinds and four and a half screenplays. One of the plays is due to be produced in a duo of one act plays.

Quotes:

Coffee good, Need to survive, Must have NOW.

Most ridiculous costume:

A baggy pair of brown fluffy trousers with beaver tail, an orange shirt with a sign reading ‘BEA’, a yellow plastic construction helmet, and a set of fake teeth with whiskers.