Rose Beauchamp (26 October 1946 – 10 January 2022) was a New Zealand

puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from ...

, actress, musician, and member of the

Red Mole :''See also the International Marxist Group (Germany). The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It had around 1,000 members and supporte ...

and

Hens' Teeth Hens' Teeth Women's Comedy Company is a woman-only comedy troupe based in Wellington, New Zealand founded in 1988. Background After attending a women's comedy festival in Sydney Kate JasonSmith founded Hens' Teeth in time to debut just before ...

theatre companies.

Life and career

Rose Beauchamp Thomas was born in Auckland in 1946. In her 20s and 30s she travelled and lived in the Middle East and England, attending puppetry festivals in Europe. She married poet

Ian Wedde Ian Curtis Wedde (born 17 October 1946) is a New Zealand poet, fiction writer, critic, and art curator. Biography Born in Blenheim, New Zealand, Wedde lived in East Pakistan and England as a child before returning to New Zealand. He attended ...

at age 20; they were married for 20 years and had three sons. She began performing, mostly as a musician, with White Rabbit Puppet Theatre, a branch of the Red Mole Theatre Company. She joined Red Mole in 1975 and began doing puppetry. Beauchamp studied and performed puppetry in Japan. She attended the UNIMA World Puppet Festival in 1988 and was funded by the New Zealand–Japan Exchange Programme to study and perform with a puppet company in 1989. In 1990 she made her third trip to Japan to perform at a puppet festival on Shikoku Island. She travelled around Japan performing her puppet show with an anti-nuclear environmental message in schools and kindergartens. She observed similarities between Noroma puppetry and Māori puppetry (karetao, karari or toko raurape as they were respectively known to Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou and a far North tribe). In 2015 she organised a puppet festival in Wellington. Beauchamp performed as a comedy duo with actress Helen Moulder. In 1997 they wrote a full-length show ''The Legend Returns'' with Michael Wilson, based on a sketch for Hen's Teeth, which they toured in New Zealand and to San Francisco. Moulder played the opera singing heroine Miss Cynthia Fortitude and Beauchamp her accompanist, Miss Gertrude Rallentando. Their second production was ''Cynthia & Gertie Go Baroque!'' (2015)''.'' ''The Legend Returns'' was recorded by Radio New Zealand and is a popular audio, often requested. These characters were developed by Beauchamp and Moulder in

, a women's comedy group. Beauchamp performed in Hens Teeth for a decade alongside many other performers including Lee Hatherly,

Bub Bridger Noeline Edith "Bub" Bridger (15 July 1924 – 8 December 2009) was a New Zealand poet and short story writer and actor, who often performed her own work and drew inspiration from her Māori, Irish and English ancestry. Early life Bridger was ...

, Sue Dunlop, Lorae Parry, Rima Te Wiata and

Kate Harcourt Dame Catherine Winifred Harcourt (née Fulton; born 16 June 1927), known professionally as Kate Harcourt, is a New Zealand actress. Over her long career she has worked in comedy as well as drama in theatre, film, TV and radio. Personal life Ha ...

. Most recently Beauchamp performed at

Circa Theatre Circa Theatre is a professional theatre company in Wellington, New Zealand, that was established in 1976. They present a number of plays each year in their two auditoriums, and have a unique partnership and funding model with incoming shows unde ...

in the show ''The Older the Better'' (2020)''.'' She died in January 2022, at the age of 75.

References

External links

Rose Beauchamp Song Book - in memory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beauchamp, Rose 1946 births 2022 deaths New Zealand actresses