1 May 2020

We send all our love and sympathy to RNZB Workshop Manager Gavin Underhill and his family on the death of their much-loved mother and grandmother Alison Underhill. Alison was the beating heart of the RNZB’s costume department throughout the 1970s, 80s and into the new century, and was central to the success of landmark productions including our first ever full-length Swan Lake, produced in 1985 by the late Harry Haythorne and with designs by the late Kristian Fredrikson. She was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal in 1997 and we are proud to include her on our ‘honours board’ of distinguished alumni – people who have made a lasting contribution to the RNZB and to the arts in Aotearoa.

You can read more about Alison’s work, in her own words, in this article from the Wairarapa Times Age in 2015.

Thank you to former RNZB Marketing Manager Barbara Hyde for sharing this photograph of Alison, taken at her 80th birthday in 2019.