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Meet The Court Theatre Team


Meet Matt Short, The Court Theatre’s House Technician!

After 30 years of experience working in television and digital platforms, he decided to jump into the wonderful world of theatre in 2018.

Matt has loved music and musical instruments from a young age and played in bands at high school. It became such a passion that he knew he wanted to work with music in the future and luckily, he got to make this a reality throughout his career.


He has been sound designing and composing since 2003 when he designed the sound for a TVNZ adventure guide series and still never gets tired of composing.

When Matt saw the job description for The Court Theatre, he knew he would be able to transfer his skills and relished the opportunity creatively. He says it has been a rewarding career change for him.


Since starting at The Court, Matt has designed sound for numerous shows, including A Streetcar Named Desire (2020), Elling (2019) and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (2018). His favourite composition would have to be the design work he did for Les Liaisons Dangereuses (2019).

Besides composing music, his favourite part about working at The Court Theatre is collaborating with such a massively talented team that creates world-class productions. He says when all the departments come together for production week you can really feel the collaborative magic unfolding.

As for aspirations, Matt jokes that it may be too late to become an astronaut. Maybe one day we will see him composing in space because it is never too late to chase your dreams.


Meet Fiona Haines, The Court Theatre's Accounts Assistant!


As a teen, Fiona didn’t really know what she wanted to do but she knew she loved typing. So, she started working in the Christchurch Hospital Medical Records Department and worked her way up from there. She went to be a Receptionist in the Orthopaedic Outpatient Department, then a Secretary and when she had her family, she was working at St Georges Hospital as a Secretary for an Orthopaedic Surgeon.


She came to The Court Theatre when she had just shifted house and needed to find a job. One of her new neighbours (who was also working at The Court) said they were looking for more Box Office staff, so she applied and got the job! After a year of part-time work, she moved into the Accounts department as well, job sharing with fellow Box Office staff member Avril Lockhead.


Fiona has now been working at The Court Theatre for almost 17 years! Her favourite part has been working with and meeting such a wide variety of people and, of course, being fortunate enough to see all the incredible productions from rehearsals through to the fantastic end results on-stage.


Fiona loves shows with a lot of music, her favourites including Grease, Mary Poppins and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She says that she leaves these shows feeling happy and singing the songs that have just been performed and then, of course, going back several times! She is looking forward to Jersey Boys this Christmas as it has been on her wish list for The Court to perform.


Her aspirations for the future are to keep on learning new and more efficient ways of achieving better results in her job as well as living a long, happy and healthy life and watching her children grow and follow their dreams.


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