Six finalists chosen for 2005 Crashbash script-writing awards

13 June 2005

Six scripts by local high school students have been chosen as finalists in this year’s Crashbash Awards. The theme for 2005 is "keeping yourself safe as a passenger from alcohol-impaired drivers".

This year's Crashbash Awards will be held at 8pm on Friday, 17 June, in the Arts Centre’s Great Hall when the six finalist script ideas will be performed for the judges.

The finalist scripts are by Sarah Wilson of Marian College, Alice Sommerville of Mount Hutt College, Bridie Connell of St Andrew's College, Sarah Field of Avonside Girls' High School, Sam Steeds of Christchurch Boys High School and Sarah Manley and Esther Currie of Villa Maria College.

Crashbash is an annual theatre-in-education project for the secondary schools of greater Christchurch. Now in its 12th year, the project is run by Christchurch City Council's Alcohol Action Project in association with Students Against Driving Drunk and co-funded by Land Transport New Zealand.

Crashbash producer Ruth Leversedge says the 2005 theme was chosen because locally more young passengers are dying than drivers in accidents where alcohol was a factor. Land Transport NZ figures show that from 2000-2004 in alcohol-related crashes, three teenage passengers and two drivers died as a result of their injuries.

"Some young people seem to think they’ll be OK if they’re not drink-driving themselves," she says. "It’s great they choose not to drive, but unless they moderate their own drinking so they can still make good decisions about things like making sure the driver’s sober, they might not be alright.”

The judging panel is convener Elizabeth O'Connor of Playmarket; Lin Clark, an English and drama lecturer at Christchurch College of Education; Kim Troon of Christchurch Girls' High School, who is this year's Students Against Driving Drunk Ambassador; and Jeff Clark of Court Jesters.

This year's Crashbash Roadshow toured 29 schools in greater Christchurch between Waitangi Day and mid-March. These performances of Out of Control, the 2004 winning script idea by Rangiora High School Year 10 students Melissa Buchler and Julia Croucher, was seen by about 20,000 students.

The 2005 competition drew 22 scripts. As well as the six finalists, they came from students at Aranui High, Christ's College, Darfield High, Burnside High, Ellesmere College, St Thomas of Canterbury College, and Unlimited-Paenga Tawhiti.

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