With the region celebrating the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold this year, Remarkable Theatre is joining in with a mixture of gold rush history and tall tales in its Queenstown Gardens production Greed, Glamour and Grudges - Tales of Gold.
Joe Dodgshun speaks to members of the cast about the pioneering Wakatipu characters they play.
"He set up a farm on what is now Queenstown and then suddenly all of these gold miners looking for their fortunes turned up on his doorstep," Mr Edgar said.
In addition to this, and his boat The Undine being the first to bring supplies from the south end of the lake, Rees became a "big influence on the community", and featured prominently in the development of Queenstown and Frankton.
While Mr Edgar is still working on his beard, he is looking forward to playing the role of Rees, who will guide spectators between scenes.
He was drawn here from Melbourne by the beautiful scenery, lifestyle and, like Rees, a job in his area of expertise - traffic engineering.
Despite many forays into different areas of performance, including one production set entirely in a swimming pool, it will be his first time taking on promenade theatre, such as the gardens production.
"It's a nice, easy and almost relaxed way of doing theatre," said Mr Edgar, who is also assistant director.
"I love performing, so I can't wait to get out there and I'm doing assistant directing for the first time, so I have been learning a lot from that and also from working with Tiffany [Menzies, director]."
There will be eight performances of Greed, Glamour and Grudges - Tales of Gold over January 27, 28 and 29 as part of the Queenstown Lakes District Council's Summerdaze festivities.
