Yvonne Harrison has had a long standing love of theatre – and its costumes – for more than 40 years.
Involved with Variety Theatre Ashburton she has won numerous accolades and been involved in more than 75 performances — all behind the scenes.
She got involved in 1982 after she, and late husband Joe, went to see My Fair Lady.
‘‘When we came out I said, I think I’d like to sew for these people.’’
Born with a can-do-attitude Yvonne sort out wardrobe mistress, Val Farr, and said how impressed she was by the costumes. Then offered her sewing services.
Val welcomed her with open arms and now, an impressive 77 shows later, Yvonne is still altering dresses and shortening trousers.
The sewing maestro said if she had to pick a standout musical Les Miserables was a slight favourite, but she loved them all and got a thrill from actors looking “lovely and professional”.
‘‘I always take someone with me to the show and I say fixed that, fixed that too, took that up.”
Nowadays, Yvonne takes costumes home to sew when she has a moment.
‘‘We used to have a day, and we would all take our sewing machines down there.’’
They sat around an eight foot trestle table.
Yvonne has only been on stage once, “and that was to sweep it,” she said.
‘‘I always say the front can’t do without the back, and the back can’t do without the front, because if we didn’t have that there would be no show.”
She was also known for her Mince Italiano dish, popular among the support crew.
‘‘There are a truck load of people who work out the back, like the men who build the set.
‘‘The day they ‘pack-in’, they get lunch and I usually do a mince dish. They are always saying are you bringing that?”
When not active behind the scenes, Yvonne is also an usher with the Ashburton Event Centre.
And her involvement with the building goes back to its very beginning.
‘‘With the Operatic Society they needed someone as a voice from operatic on The Performing Arts Centre, as it was called when they started to build it.
‘‘I’ve been there since they turned the first sod on that ground and there was fundraising and other things too.”
Yvonne remembers sitting with others outside the site on Saturdays as fundraiser.
‘‘People would put a gold coin donation into an ice cream container to go inside and see how proceedings where going.”
In 1998, Yvonne received the Ashburton Operatic Society’s, now called Variety Theatre Ashburton, own Merit Award and became a life member in 2005.
Most recently she was named patron of Variety Theatre Ashburton.
Musical Theatre New Zealand also recognised Yvonne’s contributions to the genre at the Lady Diana Issac Theatre in Christchurch.
It was an unexpected accolade.
Yvonne told the lady seated next to her, she would be dead before she ever got one of them.
‘‘The next thing I’m up on the stage. My three children had come and I never knew a thing about it, being honoured by the top brass.”
“Theatre has been my life really, but it has given me life too.”
Yvonne’s six grandchildren have all performed on stage and her daughters, Bridget Danielson and Jo Hooper, are also heavily involved with Variety Theatre Ashburton.
