NAPTA Awards and Scholarship Night 2015

Formed in 2004 to promote and recognise excellence in community theatre, the NAPTA Trust consists of affiliated societies from Pukekohe in the South to Whangarei in the North.

Our goal is to advance the education of our members in the performing arts & in particular to assist and encourage our members and all fellow New Zealanders to acquire & develop further skills, knowledge and expertise. We also aim to provide performance opportunities to foster increased contact, communication and co-operation between the non-profit organisations within NAPTA and their memberships.

We want to encourage people in the wider New Zealand community to increase their awareness of the performing arts and to develop an educated appreciation of those same performing arts, not only across Auckland but across New Zealand. Grants and financial assistance is provided, by way of a Scholarship fund available to member applicants, to fund study and development of productions.

Affiliated societies nominate their productions for judging throughout the year and an Annual Awards evening is produced to recognise excellence in these productions as well as facilitate increased contact between our members.

Grants are to be applied to the Scholarship fund to enable ongoing assistance to our members for education at Universities and Drama institutes both in New Zealand and around the globe. In the past this has been to a maximum of $2000 but increasing costs of education sees the Trust wishing to boost that in coming years allowing recipients to attend training not only in New Zealand but across the world bringing that home to share and inspire others in the community.

A recent recipient of a scholarship has gone on to achieve high marks at Auckland University, a role as Performing Arts Assistant at a prestigious Auckland school and Company Manager for the National Youth Theatre Company. Another received a high pass in a Diploma in Audio Engineering and was accepted to a Degree program on the strength of it. We want to build on these results, giving greater and far reaching opportunities to our members.

Funding is also applied to the Annual Awards production. Theatre volunteers spend days, months, years as part of their societies and individual shows and we want to be able to pay them back for their invaluable good work and influence in the community. Funding will help subsidise ticket prices and keep them low. This allows the maximum number of members to attend across all ages and income ranges. Funding is required to cover the cost of travel for the 7 judges to the productions from across Auckland, up to Whangarei and south to Pukekohe and Papakura.