Hana Cadzow and Joelle Peters — two engineering technologies lecturers at Te Pūkenga — Otago Polytechnic, who also happen to be sisters — are bringing their one-hour comedy show Overqualified to their own workplace, as part of this year’s Dunedin Fringe Festival.
The show’s premise was, now in their "youthful" mid-30s, the pair felt an expectation to have made it as grown-ups, but neither knew what exactly that entailed for the next 30 years of their lives — leading them to look back on their previous experiences in search of answers, Ms Cadzow said.
Part of the joke was neither of them had a standalone engineering qualification, but had other qualifications which contributed to
their day jobs despite appearing not to match.
"I think for so many people, there’s actually just this giant valley between what I thought I was going to do five years after graduating from university and what I’m actually doing."
Beginning her studies with a law degree, Ms Cadzow said she had imagined she would work in a law firm.
Ms Peters, on the other hand, had started with an honours degree in theatre studies.
"We’re pretty sure that’s a fairly kind of universal experience — that people get to this rough stage of life where you’ve ticked a bunch of stuff off, and it hasn’t necessarily then looked exactly how you’re expecting.
"It’s kind of a bit unclear, like what am I meant to do next?"
The show would be held in one of their lecture theatres, and lots of colleagues from the office and around the polytech had said they were really keen to attend, she said.
Several had asked about whether "the banter from the office" was what they could expect at the show.
"And we’ve said, no — we’re very professional in the office; the version of us in the show is much weirder."
She expected a few of their students could show up as well.
"At least the turnout on opening night will be people who all want to be there, instead of have to be there in order to find out about their test.
"Hopefully it will be more awake than the average lecture attendance."
She hoped the audience would leave their show with a sense it was all right if life had not turned out the way they expected it to.
"You haven’t done anything wrong, there’s not actually really a right answer.
"I think it’s always a work in progress."
Overqualified will be performed in the Otago Polytechnic G-Block on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
