PLAYMARKET ANNUAL NO.47: 2012

Theatre in the Digital Age Technology and the NZ play New approaches to copyright

Out and About The mechanics of touring The NZ play in schools

Christchurch Potential Fiona Farrell on the Present Dan Bain in the Future

New Zealand Theatre 2012

NO.47: 2012

DIRECTOR’S WORD ISSUE 47 2012

In last year’s editorial I touched on the earthquake in Christchurch, what it might mean for theatre there, and the consequences for the national scene. It was too soon then to get a picture of what the future might look like for Christchurch theatre, but at this distance it is at least possible to assess what issues have emerged. Fiona Farrell, Stephanie Walker and Dan Bain comment inside on the current situation and the future for the theatre scene.

Nationally, it is heartening to see that local writing represents over sixty per cent of plays on our professional stages. Playmarket is experiencing increasing demand from producers and educators for scripts to read and produce, and we’re thrilled some of the canon received revival seasons this year. The downside is that many producers are having to work much harder to draw audiences to works that a few years ago would have brought larger audiences through the doors.

Since last year’s magazine Auckland’s Q Theatre has opened to acclaim and Mangere Arts Centre has housed a significant number of Pasifika theatre productions to burgeoning houses; Auckland Theatre Company has developed a raft of new work and succeeded in including its new theatre in the long term Auckland Council plan; and Silo, The Basement Theatre and independent producers are staging an ever-growing volume of exciting work. There is however, still a lot of shakedown to happen in the funding environment since the Auckland Council re-structure, and at time of writing there is ongoing debate in all of

our nation’s city council meeting rooms about the inclusion of cultural wellbeing in local government reform. Meanwhile, Creative New Zealand has completed its review of the organisations it funds but still awaits parliament to pass a bill with major changes to its own governance structure.

continue to increase their local programming. The

Elsewhere there are similar stories of growth of new work alongside competition for punters.

The Court Theatre in its wonderful new space and Fortune Theatre have both presented premieres of New Zealand works and sit amongst a growing community of independent producers/companies in their cities. Wellington has had a great number of local works on stage in its three Creative New Zealand funded venues, many of them premieres.

Circa Theatre’s current season is packed with NZ work; Downstage has found a place presenting independent productions; BATS Theatre’s programme is still almost entirely local and Palmerston North’s Centrepoint Theatre presented all Kiwi plays but one in their 2012 programme.

Australia, our national sister organisation across the

Festivals continue to commission new work that often receives wide touring exposure later. The rise of regional venue consortia, covered here in our touring article, has seen both challenging and popular works presented to a wider national audience. Arts on Tour is another solid presenter touring local work. Several companies such as Tawata Productions, Capital E: National Theatre for Children, Taki Rua Productions, Massive Company and Ensemble Impact have retained their commitment to staging and touring only local work. Excitingly, the community theatres

Theatre Calendar, printed in the last pages of this magazine, reflects the massive theatrical output across the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012.

Playmarket’s year has included a playwrights’ retreat and our first exchange with Playwriting Tasman. It has been a little steadier in the Wellington office without having to move out of our premises for a couple of months as we did last year, and the refurbishment has made the place much more inviting to guests. Our Auckland office has seen the departure of Q staff but our flatmates, Massive Company, are now fully housetrained and friendly to live with. A full report on all of our activity is listed in the back pages of the magazine.

Mark Amery has again impressively edited the Annual, a recording of another vibrant theatrical year. Along with the rest of the Playmarket staff, I offer my thanks to him.

I look forward to a fruitful close of year and hope for further growth nationally and internationally in the staging of New Zealand plays.

Murray Lynch Director, Playmarket George Henare in Awatea by Bruce Mason, Auckland Theatre Company. Image: Michael Smith; Neil Amituanai and Beulah Koale in Massive Company’s Brave. Image: Matt Klitscher; and the company at London’s Globe Theatre in Toroihi raua ko Kahira (Troilus and Cressida) translated by Te Haumihiata Mason. Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga

www.fortunetheatre.co.nz

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CONTENTS 4

away – their unproduced plays. Ken Duncum’s John, I’m Only Dancing, Michael Heath’s The Big Smoke and Pip Hall’s The Woman Who Loved a Mountain.

MISSING THAT HAT Playwright Dan Bain and writer Fiona Farrell in Christchurch.

Pictured above: Dan Lee Smith, David Ladderman and Shaun Weatherall in The Loons production of Macbeth, Lyttelton. Image: Neil Macbeth

The Magazine of the New Zealand Play and Playwright Playmarket Annual Editor: Mark Amery Design: Sorelle Cansino

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Editorial Assistants: Murray Lynch and Aneta Ruth

Pictured above: Erin Banks and Robin Kerr in Magnolia Street by Dave Armstrong, Capital E at Downstage. Image: Stephen A’Court

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Pictured above: Scotty Cotter, Rawiri Paratene, Maaka Pohatu in Playmarket’s Brown Ink Play Reading Tour of Raw Men

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Pictured above: Adam Tatana, Bianca Seinafo and Nancy Kniveton in an extract from Turbine by Seeyd Theatre Company, touring to schools with Ensemble Impact as part of InSpite of Himself

email: info@playmarket.org.nz ISSN 0113-97030703 The Playmarket Annual is published once a year. The next issue will be September 2013.

Advertising enquiries should be made to Annesley Kingston, ph. 04-475 9449. The views expressed in this magazine are not, unless stated, those of Playmarket staff or its executive.

Playmarket Executive: Andrew Caisley (President), Alister McDonald, Bronwyn Tweddle, Danielle Grant, Brent Thawley and Catherine Fitzgerald.

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NEW KID ON THE BLOCK Journalist Mary Lose Pahi on Pasifika theatre in 21st century Auckland.

Pictured above: Michael Koloi and Jenni Heka in His Mother’s Son by Leilani Unasa, Indigenous Theatre Group, Mangere Arts Centre

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THE BOTTOM DRAWER Three playwrights on the ones that got

LUTON FOR EKETAHUNA Not been produced overseas? Script Advisor Stuart Hoar muses on why.

MARKS FOR POTENTIAL As she departs Christchurch Arts Festival, manager Steph Walker writes the city a report card.

Playmarket Staff: Director, Murray Lynch; Office Manager, Pania Stevenson; Maori and Pasifika Advisor, Jenni Heka; Script Advisor, Jean Betts; Communications, Aneta Ruth; Script Advisor Auckland, Stuart Hoar.

Playmarket receives major funding from Creative New Zealand’s Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Totara Haemata) programme and funding towards the running of an Auckland office and our Maori and Pasifika Advisor position from ASB Community Trust.

ON THE BANDWAGON Journalist Natasha Hay on developments in making theatre mobile.

EXPOSING STUDENTS TO US Teacher Rachel Steele on the growth of NZ drama in schools.

ONE ON ONE Stuart Hoar in conversation with fellow playwright Carl Nixon.

www.playmarket.org.nz

RAW THEATRE Playwright Julie Hill on the play workshop and Whiti Hereaka’s Raw Men.

TRICKS FOR NEW PLAYERS Technology journalist Peter Griffin on theatre in the digital age.

Advertising: Annesley Kingston

Published by Playmarket PO Box 9767, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand Ph. 64-4-382 8462 Fax. 64-4-382 8461

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ON THE PAGE An excerpt from Fiona Samuel’s play Ghost Train.

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ANNUAL ROUND UP 2011-12 professional New Zealand play productions.

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THE LAST WORD Playground NZ director Sam Trubridge on why theatre needs to live in the real world more.

ON THE COVER: Christchurch theatre practitioners in front of Wayne Youle’s 2011 mural ‘I seem to have temporarily misplaced my sense of humour’: (L to R) David Ladderman (playwright, The Loons), Christina Stachurski (playwright), Peter Rees (devisor, A Different Light), Ross Gumbley (playwright, The Court Theatre), Carl Nixon (playwright), Coralie Winn (Gapfiller, Free Theatre), George Parker (Free Theatre, Te Puna Toi/ Performance Research Project) and Dan Bain (playwright). Photographed

by Tim J. Velling (www.timjvelling.com). Mural presented by Christchurch Art Gallery and Gap Filler.

Reproduced courtesy the artist

HANGING OUT

Dan Bain’s very real and true time machine adventure r #VPZFE CZ UIF BQQBSFOU FBTF PG DPOTUSVDUJOH a fully functioning theatre from scratch in less than ten months The Court Theatre construct a new theatre each year, each bigger and more quickly built than the last. r &WFOUVBMMZ UIXBSUFE JO FYQBOEJOH IJT FNQJSF of fast built theatres by bureaucracy and planning permission, Court CEO Philip Aldridge challenges MP Gerry Brownlee to rooftop single combat. On his blood soaked victory Mr. Aldridge assumes control of the city. After he makes a funny joke about it no one minds at all.

ABOVE: Kathleen Burns and Laura Daniel in Why Are My Parents So Boring by Dan Bain at The Court Theatre.

Image: Helen Beswick

I was hanging out in my garage, working on my time machine. Just tinkering, right? I’m living in Christchurch’s eastern suburbs – which is where I come from, bro – so it’s cold, damn cold, the power’s suspect and the neighbours are fighting.

Now, I never meant to activate it, not yet, I’m still working on it, it’s a work in progress. I gotta workshop it, get some notes to act on and then try get some funding before anything can really happen. Time machine-wise. Obviously.

Anyway, I fall over, the power pulses, the temperature hits zero, there’s an earthquake,

r 5IF $PVSU +FTUFST DPOUJOVF UP QSPEVDF Scared Scriptless, the longest running late-night comedy show in Australasia and, despite record houses, are ignored by both the national theatre industry, as they are too much like comedy, and the national comedy industry, as they are too much like theatre. r 5IF $PVSU QVTIFT TJMFOU DMPXO TIPXT UP UIF final phase of their evolution by entirely removing the show component, just gathering children into an empty space and playing music and fart noises. On the accusation that he has merely recreated a school disco the director has the music removed as well. Kids love it. r "GUFS B WJDJPVT DPVSU CBUUMF PWFS NJTMFBEJOH advertising, The Free Theatre change their name. r $BSM /JYPO XSJUFT IJT DPNFEZ NBTUFSQJFDF Bleak Racist Murders. r 3PTT BOE 4UFQI .D,FMMBS 4NJUI XSJUF EJSFDU Poignant Old Timey New Zealand Story 3.

and probable. I’m not 100% on the maths.

r -VLF EJ 4PNNB DPOUJOVFT USZJOH UP XSJUF UIF quintessential New Zealand musical, eventually creating a hip-hop biography of a past New Zealand Prime Minister. Creative NZ pour money at John Key, OG.

Here’s the problem with time travel. No one ever

r 0( TUBOET GPS 0SJHJOBM (BOHTUFS #SP

the stars align, the neighbours throw their toddler through the skylight, the machine activates and I wake up in 2025. Or something equally true

believes you. Also, massive continuity errors.

So, carefully disguised in stolen future clothes, I wandered through the Christchurch theatre industry, taking notes on what seemed to have happened. Could I have done something more worthwhile with this god-like glimpse into the future? Probably. Did I? No. True notes from the future:

r 5IF -PPOT $JSDVT 5IFBUSF $PNQBOZ CFDPNF the BalLoons Circus Theatre Company and replace their performers with helium balloons to enable greater aerial feats. They tour to the West End to great acclaim. No one in Lyttelton is impressed. That rock finally falls on Joe Bennetts’ house. He is weirdly pleased and writes an amusing book about it.

r "MM HBQT BSF Ă MMFE "MM PG UIFN r 5IF $MJOJD SFNBJO JO IJBUVT BO VSCBO MFHFOE invoked whenever someone thinks they are pushing theatrical, multi-media or physical theatre boundaries. “Of course,â€? they are told, in hushed, reverential tones. “The Clinic did that in ‘02. With no budget.â€? r "EVMUT ESFTTJOH BT CBCJFT JO OBQQJFT SFNBJOT a firm favourite of community theatres. r /"4%" CFDPNFT /"4%"81 5IF /BUJPOBM Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art and Wildlife Preserve, as Christchurch Polytechnic attempts to raise additional funds by subletting studio space to Orana Park Zoo. Despite near daily use, jokes about tap-dancing monkeys do not go out of fashion. r 5IFSF JT OP UIFBUSF BU $BOUFSCVSZ 6OJWFSTJUZ It is not a real subject.

“Things that were just fiction start coming true�

Then I had some awesome adventures where I kissed future ladies and also had to fight an evil version of myself until I was able to recreate the exact conditions that had sent me to the future in the first place. Also, I drove a tank and knew karate and everyone in the future thought I was cool. Because I was.

I wake up in my garage. There is a page of notes, scribbled in the binary-heiroglyphics of future Christchurch, balled up in my hand.

The time machine is gone. The toddler has stolen it. I can hear the neighbours dismantling it for firewood. The octopus skin finally falls off the hook. Days pass and the glaring continuity errors begin to wane. I have returned safely with secret knowledge. Things that were just fiction start coming true.

We create. We make.

Things are beautiful.

“The police would like to definitively state that there is not a giant praying mantis roaming the city.�

Drones / Dan Bain

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 4

MISSING THAT HAT

Fiona Farrell finds the new theatre venues in Christchurch oddly famillar Tony Geddes is about to take up where he left off 18 months ago. In February 2011 he was designing the set for The Slapdash Assassin by Irish playwright Mark Power. Then, unexpectedly the setting of his own life, like that of thousands of others in Canterbury, changed. The Arts Centre was rendered uninhabitable, The Court Theatre closed abruptly, Tony was made redundant, and all his designs were trapped along with his books and a favourite hat, in his ruined office.

He misses that hat. “I’ll be 80 before I see it again.

Maybe even dead.” The Centre will not be opened for at least 15 years. By then, he thinks, his office will have taken on a strange afterlife. “I think of it as a kind of King Tut’s tomb. A cardboard one…

It’s even got a prop mummy case screwed to one wall.” So it is probably goodbye forever to the favourite hat. But right now, he is back to that design. In September, The Court will stage The Slapdash Assassin in its new home in Addington.

Addington was originally a suburb of modest workers’ houses. Its largest buildings were railway workshops, a prison, and asylum. By the beginning of the 21st century, such large buildings had emptied. The main street was a lineup of car yards, pubs, video hire, halal butchery. Behind them, the mills and depots slumped or were turned to other uses.

Then one lunchtime the city centre blew apart and The Court like many other businesses had to look for other premises. They found them in Addington in a former grain silo that 140 days of fierce activity and four and a half million dollars have transformed into a theatre.

It feels oddly familiar: a return to those theatres you found all over the world back in the ‘60s as national drama took shape in railway roundhouses, boatsheds and former churches. Theatre has always sat well on the boundaries.

Going to The Court has taken on an added edge.

We go to be entertained, informed and moved as always – but there is also an underlying air of solidarity with the actors, with the city. So far they have given us comedy: never underestimate the value of laughter in difficult times! Those jaunty songs of the First World War, the musicals of the depression, the community singalongs of the Second World War had a purpose. And coming

“Theatre has always sat well on the boundaries”

ABOVE: Eli Mathewson and Lizzie Tollemach in The Elves and the Shoemaker adapted by Greg Cooper at The Court Theatre

up there is August: Osage County, the premiere of Lynda Chanwai-Earle’s Man in a Suitcase, and of course, The Slapdash Assassin.

There have been other productions around the city, most remarkably The Loons’ Macbeth on the site of the former Volcano Café and Lava Bar in Lyttelton. In the midst of 2011’s cold winter, people rugged up, sat on piles of stones and watched an apocalyptic vision unfold. You can look it up on Youtube: ‘Loons Macbeth’ will take you there. Mike Friend’s Macbeth and his mates look like the ruffians they were always meant to be, in beanies and combat gear. Fights have a Glaswegian pubclosing savagery. Tony Geddes designed that production too – delighting in the fact that for once, he did not have to manufacture convincing rubble. The audience was under shelter but the actors were out in the elements and no effort was required to imagine Scotland.

Snow fell during production week. Rain fell during performance.

“I understood why theatre went inside,” says Tony.

“I knew why they decided they needed a roof!”

It looks fantastic, and all the better for knowing that this mess is real and that worse devastation lies beyond the reach of the theatre lights.

And that in fact is where the real drama of Christchurch is located: on the streets, where

the city forms a strange setting for skateboarding videos and music clips. You pass a cleared site. You can’t recall what used to stand there, but now there is a stage where people are dancing. It’s Gapfiller’s Dance-O-Mat, designed

by Pippin Wright-Stow and his colleagues at F3 Design, the same team that is developing the Box Quarter, a multipurpose performance, art and café venue of interlocking steel units for a site near the Polytechnic.

It would be easy to see Christchurch as a kind of citystate, led by a plump Creon vested with unprecedented powers by an autocratic government.

A rugby stadium, a convention centre are to be this city’s ‘anchors’, costing hundreds of millions, much of it donated. (And my daughter in Wellington thought her donation was for hotties for children in cold houses…)

But there is a chorus of other voices, a citywide theatre in which everyone acts as both audience and participant. The stories told here are primal.

Just last week a friend told me that her daughter – a midwife – is caring for a woman about to have her sixth child, who is living with her five children in a damp garage in Linwood.

There is desperation here, and anger, and creativity, and exhilaration and despair.

On for an indefinite season!

“And this fruit, it came from China once. They call them kiwifruit now. That’s the taste of living here, bitter and sweet. Never quite belonging.” Man in a Suitcase / Lynda Chanwai-Earle 5 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

It was a heart-in-mouth moment where technology could have derailed the show.

Opening night of Live at Six at Downstage and Barnaby Fredric is on stage playing newsman Fraser Higginson, who is furiously live editing a news bulletin that’s about to go to air.

Only, there’s something wrong with the video’s sound - an error that’s in no way scripted. Thinking quickly, Fredric emails the required file to AV technician Hamish Guthrey sitting in the wings, who syncs up the broken audio and video for Higginson to play as normal – in the nick of time.

It was a neat piece of improvisation that the audience was oblivious to, but which epitomised the pressures of live TV explored in the play.

Live at Six, described by its producers as “a black comedy for the social media age that will change the way you watch the news,” was developed as a STAB project at Wellington’s BATS Theatre and updated for its 2012 season to account for changing technology.

The play has been incredibly well-received, with Theatreview critic John Smythe lauding it as a “production that, for all its technology and dynamic interactivity, never loses sight of the human story”.

While the theatre hit Apollo 13 engaged audience members by seating them behind the chunky computer console panels of 1960s-era NASA ground control, the technology also never overtook the story.

PAGE 9: Arthur Meek in his play Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man, BATS Theatre

More experimental is I Sing the Body Electric developed by Free Theatre Christchurch in conjunction with the University of Canterbury’s HIT Lab, an R&D facility working on augmented reality, 3D and cutting age computer interaction.

RIGHT: Jess Robinson in Live at Six by Dean Hewison and Leon Wadham, Cuba Creative, Downstage. Image: Philip Merry

TRICKS FOR NEW PLAYERS

Peter Griffin on issues and opportunities for theatre in the digital age

It also said a lot about the risks and rewards of building technology into the workings of a play, one where audience members were invited to shoot video clips of the play’s inciting incident on their phone and email it to the producers to be edited into the show’s bulletin on stage.

Perhaps more than any other to debut recently in a New Zealand theatre, I Sing the Body Electric attempts to sum up society’s intensifying obsession with technology, but as a retelling of a Don Juan legend.

Despite the increasing pervasiveness of technology in our lives and the tools available to those making theatre, such productions remain the exception to the theatre rule. There may be a good reason for that.

“Look at horror movies,” says playwright and actor Arthur Meek. “One of the first things they establish in a horror movie is that everyone is out of cellphone range.”

“It can kill theatre, it kills the story. I find that when you insert technology you can really clutter the experience for people.”

That didn’t stop Meek from employing a more subtle use of technology in developing his own play Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man, which The Dominion Post’s Laurie Atkinson described as “a slick and funny PowerPoint lecture”.

“But there’s never a sense that the show stops and everyone has to start watching a video,” says Meek.

Wellington playwright Gavin McGibbon considers himself a writer of ‘character-driven’ plays, so only sees room for technology if it “reflects or shows character.”

“To me it’s like having a magician on stage doing their tricks, right there in front of your eyes, and then suddenly you go to watching them do a trick on a screen. It just feels flat and suddenly lifeless.”

But he admits that with people increasingly expressing themselves via social media, the medium is potentially useful as a tool to flesh out characters.

“Facebook and Twitter could be things I use in future work because they actually speak volumes about the characters instantly.”

Playmarket Director Murray Lynch says many scripts now come across his desk with references to social media, the internet and new technology, particularly from younger writers. But he sees the bigger impact of the increasingly pervasive digital world being on the production and marketing of plays and new opportunities the internet offers to connect with potential theatre-goers.

Lynch sees the internet as increasingly important in generating inquiries to stage the work of its writers. Upwards of 50 licence sales a year are generated from overseas theatre companies, some of which are discovering work via downloads, Youtube clips, online reviews of plays or the general digital buzz created by successful productions.

Playmarket’s communications coordinator, Aneta Ruth, says a lot more online content is being created to market plays.

“No longer is it enough to put a link on Facebook to your booking page. You have to have photos, videos, interviews with the cast and writers.”

Auckland playwright Gary Henderson went so far as to learn HTML coding and web development skills to personally maintain his online presence.

His interest in the web as a tool for playwrights largely stems from his work as a drama teacher, first at the University of Otago and then Unitec, where he used the open source software platforms

“You’ve tagged me in like some really ugly photos before. And it’s not like I can delete them” Flash / Kate Morris PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 6

“driving them towards the best thing… the live experience.”

Blackboard and Moodle to help coordinate script development.

HANDY DIGITAL TOOLS FOR THE WRITER

“The students would upload their work and other students would read it and critique it.”

Henderson allows some of his scripts to be downloaded for free under a Creative Commons licence.

“People can copy and distribute those works, but they can’t use them commercially and they have to acknowledge me,” says Henderson.

Play scripts are increasingly being given away as promotional material. Playmarket makes nearly 300 scripts available to members for download as PDF files and will send on digital evaluation copies on request, said Lynch.

One of the oldest publishers of plays, Samuel French, has embraced the ePlay offering hundreds of titles in Apple’s iBooks format from US$6.99 per title.

“If you don’t have an Apple device – don´t fret!” the Samuel French website informs visitors.

“We are currently in the initial phase of this eBook launch, and are swiftly working to have our ePlays available for Kindle, Nook, Sony eReader and more in 2012.”

Numerous websites offer movie and play scripts for free, and the likes of Bushgreen.org solicit unpublished plays for direct-to-internet publication.

Meek is happy for Playmarket as his agent to make his scripts available for free digitally, though he had experienced some success selling the Richard Meros play script as merchandise after showings of the play.

Google Drive – The revamped version of Google Docs turns the online office productivity suite into a digital storage locker. Not only can you write treatments, notes and scripts online, but you can save the documents and share them with other Gmail users, upload audio and video and access them on any mobile device. A no brainer for online collaboration and storage if you and your theatre buddies are already Google users. Comes with 5GB of free storage. www.drive.google.com

Dropbox – Like Google Drive but doesn’t require you to live in the Googleverse and frankly is nicer to use. Dropbox sits as a directory in your computer’s file explorer – it supports PC and Mac and syncs files across any device loaded with the Dropbox application. A great way to share drafts and research documents and excellent for keeping track of revisions.

Mobile device support is pretty slick too. Comes with 2GB of free storage. www.dropbox.com

Evernote – Sick of losing hastily scrawled script notes and ideas? Put it all in Evernote, a free app for computers, tablets and mobiles that nicely organises your notes into projects and stores your files online so they can be accessed wherever you are. www.evernote.com Scripped – This cloud-based scriptwriting app expands on the free document storage services with tools for writers in mind. Scripped offers Final Draft-type script formatting via a web browser with every word typed saved online for access from any computer. There are numerous play, screenplay and TV formats offered and software for tracking scene and character notes.

A great way to manage multiple projects and sneak in script work during quiet patches. The entry level version is free, with the pro version, offering access on the iPad and mobiles costing US$9.95 a month.www.scripped.com Final Draft – The classic, the incumbent, the screenwriting software of choice for thousands of writers. The software has had a make-over for tablets, making it useful for annotating and editing scripts on the iPad.

CONTINUED PAGE 8

“Just because it’s not what fat old guys played when they were kids doesn’t mean that video games aren’t important!” Gameplan / Dan Bain 7 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

McGibbon says he’s more than willing to go online to help market his plays, something that last year led him to become “one of the last people in the world to join Facebook”.

His efforts to support his plays extended for the first time this year to him seeking crowdsourced funding for his new play Holding On, via the website Pledgeme. As we went to print McGibbon had already exceeded his $2000 target by $520.

Seasoned theatre marketer Michael Adams says that pushing playwrights into online marketing efforts when they are not comfortable with it is the death-knell for such campaigns.

“Any lack of confidence from a director or playwright in that space is going to be picked up on,” says the marketing director of the Auckland Theatre Company.

ATC has hosted blogs from playwrights like Eli Kent and Dave Armstrong.

finding out about events through the news feeds of friends on Facebook.

“Dave’s very media-savvy and socially aware, and that really requires him to be online. All the Arab Spring stuff really appeals to Dave. Roger Hall wouldn’t blog, it’s not his cup of tea.”

“Whether or not it is the main place people make their decision whether to come to a play is questionable. We are trying to future proof ourselves for the current young audience who will be older and still using social media”.

Theatres themselves have embraced the web primarily as a means of transacting with patrons. One of the first New Zealand theatre companies to enable payments through its website, ATC now make 75 per cent of its ticket sales through electronic channels – via the internet or mobile phone.

Adams believes traditional marketing, such as TV and radio interviews and advertising still trumped any “Web 2.0 kind of stuff” in its effectiveness, but ATC was mindful that a generation of theatregoers was increasingly

One South Auckland theatre collaboration between ATC and the Pacific Island Institute of Performing Arts had seen Facebook feature prominently.

“That has a large social media element to it.

There are 25 kids in the cast and they are heavily online. That starts the conversation going.”

Ask theatre veterans for examples of innovative developments in reaching audiences and two examples regularly pop up – the Royal National Theatre’s National Theatre Live venture and the

PLAYING THE LAW “There’s a part of me that feels copyright may have had its day,” says Auckland playwright Gary Henderson, a statement he admits is akin to “cutting my own throat”.

an internet disconnection provision that would

something,” says Jonas Öberg, Regional Project

be actionable by court order.

Manager for Creative Commons in Europe.

Technically, playwrights are covered by the

Öberg says the Creative Commons practices

beefed-up copyright provisions, but their work

of sharing and exchanging information and

Henderson is increasingly ill at ease with attempts by the creative industries to protect its intellectual property in a world where the internet makes mass distribution of work as effortless as a download or Bittorrent search.

rarely comes up in internet piracy discussions.

knowledge seem to fit performing arts

Henderson admits he hasn’t a sustainable

practices well.

alternative to increasingly restrictive copyright

“We’re also looking, though this is more into

provisions but, influenced by the work of writers

the deep future, at issues related to performers’

like Lawrence Lessig, a leading proponent of

rights,” he says.

“There’s a huge effort going into enforcing something that could be getting out of control as the digital age evolves,” says Henderson.

reduced legal restrictions on copyright, he sees

But copyright is still what protects the lifeblood

“I wonder if we shouldn’t be looking at other ways of earning a living from writing than expecting people to pay you every time they do your play.”

“The internet is like a news stand but it is so much

Copyright law in New Zealand and around the world has been beefed up in recent years in response to rampant internet piracy. Last year the Government introduced a ‘three-strikes’ anti-piracy provision that extends the reach of law specifically to the major battleground in internet piracy – the peer-to-peer file sharing networks where the latest Hollywood blockbusters and new release albums are traded in massive volumes.

One avenue for writers who want protection for

put on. But the more available a script is, the

their work, but are happy to see it shared and

more likely someone is likely to put it on.”

re-used in a less restrictive capacity, is Creative

Playmarket doesn’t use Creative Commons

New Zealanders identified as downloading content from such networks illegally are increasingly being served warning notices from their internet providers at the behest of the entertainment industry. The ultimate penalty for offenders appearing before the newly-formed Copyright Tribunal is a $15,000 fine, though the Government has reserved the right to introduce

an inevitable move away from our “Western capitalist notion of ownership”. more than that and we are trying to cope with it by legislating against all of its non-newsstand qualities.”

Commons licensing, which is internationally recognised.

But its uptake has mainly been in government, the education sector and pockets of the creative industries. A request to Creative Commons New Zealand to come up with names of active New Zealand playwrights using Creative Commons drew a blank.

Instead, they sent me to theatre’s traditional heartland – Europe.

of playwrights – royalties from performances of their work.

I don’t think the attitude around copyright is shifting,” says Murray Lynch. “That’s their livelihood, getting royalties from a play being

licences.

“I’m not sure what we would gain, but its something that we are keeping an eye on” says Lynch, who actively protects the rights of his playwrights, searching for unlicensed performances of clients’ works and policing the likes of Google Books for misuse of content.

“I don’t want to give stuff away,” says Henderson who acknowledges that the majority of work he has released under Creative Commons no longer

“While there is some interest from some of the

has commercial potential. “But I get the feeling

theatre groups around me here, none have actually

that something new has to be developed and

gotten to the stage where they actively want to do

Creative Commons is one attempt at that.”

“I felt like I was riding the winds of change. I had no clue, of course, that they would soon blow a gale right through my own house.” Honest to God / Philip Braithwaite PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 8

New York Metropolitan Opera’s The Met: Live in HD events.

Both involve live satellite broadcasts of performances to movie theatres. Now into its fourth season, NT Live plays can be seen on up to 700 screens, increasing the potential paying audience to tens of thousands of people.

Adams said ATC was looking into live streaming plays, but that doing so would be a major undertaking.

“Performances have to be directed if they are going to be filmed and making films isn’t easy.

You end up asking yourself, are we a theatre company or a film company? None of the venues have the infrastructure at the moment.”

One local experiment in filming theatre, both live and in-studio performances, was undertaken by Maori Television, which screened the Atamira series of six plays from the likes of Briar GraceSmith and Hone Kouka through April and May. Arthur Meek for his part is enthusiastic about the potential of web-streaming and recording plays.

“We are going to be shooting a series of five minute TED-style talks for the internet,” he says of the latest Meros play. “We want to start giving it an international flavour.”

Meek has also been merging narrative elements with technology through his company Mozivision, which has produced interactive mobile video guides for Wellington’s City Gallery and Rotorua’s Buried Village.

“I first saw this type of thing in Berlin. They used a single camera to film a journey through an old opera house, where they’d re-staged an opening night, full of people and music. The footage was then loaded onto an iPod Touch, and live audiences turned up to the now empty opera house. We were each given an iPod, and by watching the film, and following the movement of the camera, it was as if we were walking through the opening night crowd. It brought the past back to life. It was very ghostly.”

Elsewhere, the app revolution has been slow to hit theatre. Michael Adams said ATC had decided to optimise its website for mobile devices rather than invest in building an iPhone or Android app.

ATC may well soon have a purpose-built theatre on Auckland’s waterfront – funding permitting.

Adams said such a move could be the spur to develop apps.

“Maybe we could use GPS to find out how close to the venue you are so we can pour your pre-ordered drink.”

Overall, the increasing pervasiveness of the internet has been a two-edged sword for theatre,

says Lynch. The upside includes better marketing opportunities, easier research for playwrights and the fostering of communities such as Theatreview, the Big Idea and Dramanet.

for free – be it scripts for download or increasingly sophisticated video teasers.

“The downside is the dwindling attention span.

When we are busy with our technology we don’t go to the theatre, we watch internet TV.”

“If you can get people along by giving away your best joke, once they have bought the ticket and got in there I don’t think they are going to be ridiculously disappointed, he says. “It has to be about driving them towards the best thing, which is the live experience.”

Meek says playwrights need to come to terms with the idea that they will increasingly be expected to part with some of their content

Or as Lynch puts it: “There is nothing that beats the live experience. That’s survived quite a few centuries now.”

THE DIGITAL TOOLBOX

of tab, tab, tab write, tab, tab, really stopped me getting into a good flow.”

Sharing and storing scripts has become easier, thanks to the rise of free digital lockers that let you upload content to the internet from any device.

“I’m starting to get into Dropbox thanks to my girlfriend raving about it. It’s a good way to share files with people too,” says McGibbon.

“Dropbox is just crucial,” adds Arthur Meek.

It saves me from having to send the same thing

The iPad may have led us into the post-PC era but it’s a rare sight at play readings.

to ten different people. Dropbox is one of the

While some playwrights are opting for tablets and ebook readers to store and read scripts, the good old-fashioned print-out continues to reign.

The cost of tablets has a lot to do with that, but even the iPad struggles with text input. Often it’s just easier to scribble a line of dialogue or script note on paper.

Playwrights are also using the internet to research

But playwrights are on the search for new tools to make the writing life easier and for many that starts with script formatting software.

floes. But when they get there, they can’t feed

“I couldn’t see myself not using Final Draft nowadays,” says Gavin McGibbon. “The days

they are killed. It was a great fact, but it was a

most useful things that’s happened to me.” their plays. Gary Henderson devotes a lot of time to Googling details to make sure his stories and settings are authentic.

“I had an idea for a play set in Iceland in 1957.

I discovered on the internet that polar bears float across the Denmark Strait to Iceland on ice because Iceland doesn’t have ice floes, so they start scavenging and getting close to towns and metaphor about what the play was about.”

Macbeth (to Hamlet): “At least my story fits within the attention span of your average punter!”

No Holds Bard / Natalie Medlock, Dan Musgrove and Michael Hurst

9 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

called The War Artist. It’s about how the New Zealand Army for the first time commissioned an artist to paint and depict the war. This was George Butler. I saw his work and was very impressed. It’s not as naturalistic and free flowing as some of the later war artists but very evocative and moving.

I found a painting of New Zealand soldiers who were digging a mass grave and burying some of their comrades who had been killed. So I’ve written a play showing how that scene came to be painted. It’s a three-hander with Butler and two other soldiers who are digging the grave. It’s technically tricky because you do have to dig a hole on stage and bury five bodies. I’m at about the third draft stage with this one and I’ve been shopping it around.

Why did you start writing plays?

I’ve been involved in theatre since I was at school where I did theatresports. I then carried on, as The

RIGHT: Hweiling Ow in Two Fish ‘n’ a Scoop by Carl Nixon at Fortune Theatre. Image: Lara MacGregor

ABOVE: Carl Nixon

YES, THIS IS THE PLAY

Stuart Hoar in conversation with fellow playwright Carl Nixon

Court Theatre were running United Theatre Sports Sebastian Barry, who was over here for the

which I did for a couple of years, then the Scared

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival,

Scriptless theatre troupe started in Christchurch.

began his writing career as a playwright who

Because I was involved in theatre it seemed a

occasionally wrote novels. Now he’s a novelist

natural progression to start writing. The first thing

who occasionally writes plays. Do such labels

I wrote was a kids’ play. I co-wrote it. Basically we

matter to you?

went to the props room of the The Court Theatre

No, I just call myself a writer. In terms of time,

and looked at what props were available and at

over the last few years I have probably spent more

what costumes were lying around and created

time doing novels but that’s only because they take

a show around those objects.

more time. A novel takes me at least a year, that’s

Essentially it was a little bit of script and then

working five days a week on it, it’s just a very long

some improv games – something I now realise

process. But I wouldn’t describe myself as a novelist

is a lot harder than writing a conventional kids’

mainly because I have lots of ideas for different

show. And I did a few of those which became

stories and some of them don’t suit the novel or

progressively less improvised as we went.

short story format. I still think of ideas as ‘Oh, that’s

They were quite successful and then Craig

a play idea’ and they come up quite regularly. I just

Cooper, a fellow improviser, and I thought we

really enjoy the experience of writing for stage and

would have a crack at writing a mainstage show.

the experience of having work put on stage.

We tried to be as commercial as possible – we

And what new play or plays are coming

thought what could we write that would be

up for you?

saleable, that would really pack people in. One of

I finished writing my last novel Settlers’ Creek

the big plays of the time was Ladies Night and we

and then I was really sick of writing novels for a while and so I thought, right OK, I’ll write a couple of plays. Deliberately, I wrote one very commercial idea, one that really appealed to me, which is a play called Use It or Lose It about four quite diverse middle-aged people who are forced by various circumstances to take up exercise.

It’s a light comedy.

The other idea concerns the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I,

saw how at the end that big strip show had a huge commercial appeal, so we decided to do a story that built up to a big drag show. That play was called Kiwifruits. We pitched it to Elric Hooper – we pitched it while coming down the stairs at The Court, literally walking down these really narrow staircases – and Elric said “Yes, I love it.”

Next thing we knew it was scheduled. We ended up with a show that in commercial terms was really successful; it packed people in for six weeks.

which is coming up in 2014. People will be

Does theatre still excite you?

commemorating the start of the war so I wanted

Yes, it definitely does. Even just the idea of getting

to write a play for that time. I’ve written a play

actors around a table and having them read out

“We’re all Kiwis here eh. I can tell. Us fat people are very intuitive.

It’s what we do instead of sports” Two Fish ‘n’ a Scoop / Carl Nixon PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 10

your work is very exciting. It’s something you don’t get from writing short stories or a novel. Basically you send your novel out and it comes back as a book and it looks great, it’s nice to have but you never get that experience of watching someone’s reaction to it. Essentially it’s thrown out there and it’s gone, but with a play you can sit and watch three hundred people responding to what you’ve written, which is a totally different experience and one I really enjoy.

What have been the most positive and negative experiences for you?

I have had a lot of good experiences. People assume that because you’re giving your script to a producer and actors and a director you must have lots of really bad experiences. Maybe I’ve been very lucky, but I never had. Maybe because I deal primarily with The Court and there’s a good working relationship there.

I was really happy with The Raft which is quite a bleak script about a family. While the grandfather is looking after his grandson the boy drowns in a neighbour’s swimming pool and the play is set a year after this event. When I wrote it I thought that no one would want to do it because it’s not commercial but The Court got behind it and they did a really amazing production of it.

I loved it. John Bach was in it and I rate John as a great actor. He has huge gravitas. And that was something where I thought it was a good script but all aspects of the production, everyone who was in it, really surpassed my expectations.

People were crying in the audience then they were laughing then they were crying again. People said to me, “oh you bastard, you made me cry.” That kind of an emotional response to a play is very satisfying.

“oh you bastard, you made me cry.”

Are there any new theatres or theatre

novels, which have found success outside of

popping up in any ad hoc way in Christchurch

Christchurch. An adaptation of Lloyd Jones’ Book

right now?

of Fame premiered at Downstage, and toured

There do seem to be other things going on.

to Auckland Arts Festival, Christchurch Arts

There’s a production of The Crucible going on

Festival, and Centrepoint Theatre. I also adapted

down at the Rudolf Steiner School in Opawa,

J M Coetzee’s Disgrace with Auckland Theatre

people like Eilish Moran are involved and other

Company through their Next Stage programme.

experienced actors, and similarly in Lyttelton with

Have any of your plays been produced

The Loons group. People are staging things where

offshore?

they can with the resources that are available

No, none whatsoever but that would be a nice

so there’s a lot of innovation and lateral thinking going on, which is a good thing. Interesting things are happening which might not have happened otherwise.

thing to happen. Obviously there are a lot of plays in the world and just getting that attention is a hard thing. I think there’s a couple of my plays that would translate anywhere; The Raft

You say you don’t get out much but your

would work in any circumstance as the themes

plays travel.

of family and bereavement are universal, and

How is the state of New Zealand theatre from your viewpoint?

Yes, they do. I’ve been quite lucky.

The Birthday Boy which is a comedy and which

The Gingerbread Man which I co-wrote with

is basically about family again would be fine

I see what’s going on in Christchurch which has been severely curtailed recently but I don’t get out that much to see New Zealand theatre.

Dan Bain who is a young writer, is coming up

anywhere. But of course there’s got to be some

at The Court in September. I just had Two Fish

link. I’m pretty sure you don’t get your scripts

‘n’ a Scoop done by Fortune Theatre in Dunedin,

produced by just bundling them up and sending

which they also toured round in Otago and

them off and praying. There needs to be a

Southland for two weeks. Both The Raft and The

personal link or someone who’s seen one of

Birthday Boy have had professional productions

your plays and really liked it and has influence

outside Christchurch, and amateur productions.

somewhere.

I’ve got an amateur production of Kiwifruits being

And finally, how is it living in Christchurch

done by the Howick Little Theatre later in the year.

in 2012?

Amateur groups are increasingly doing my work,

Strange. It’s still very hard to get used to what

which is nice. Plays pop up in small theatres all

has happened here. Sometimes while I’m

over New Zealand – it just takes one person in an

working or at home I think ‘oh I must just go and

amateur group to say “yes, this is the play” and

drop into such and such a place downtown’ and

that enthusiasm generates through and suddenly

then you suddenly remember the place doesn’t

you’ve got that momentum and it happens.

exist anymore, that downtown as I remember

I’ve also completed adaptations of other writers’

it doesn’t exist anymore.

I understand from Playmarket that the percentage of New Zealand plays being produced has hugely increased from what it used to be compared to say even ten years ago, so that seems to be a very positive trend. It’s hard down in Christchurch for us at the moment because we’ve lost The Court Two venue, the Forge, and that means there’s only the main stage at The Court in terms of professional productions. That does make it really tricky. For me as a playwright if I’m thinking about doing something that’s a bit alternative or a bit quirky then I need to think twice because potentially it’s not going to be staged.

“On the strength of my full two years at Greymouth High School, I was sent to ask where Madam would like us to dig the necessary facilities” War Painter / Carl Nixon 11 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

ourselves and once one festival came onboard others came.”

There’s a very good touring circuit through the festivals, developed over the past 10 years, highlights Philip Tremewan, artistic director of Wanaka’s Festival of Colours and Christchurch Arts Festival. Festivals pool information and all look at new local work. “As well as checking out new shows in our theatres, we have these Show and Tells, where work is presented and we collaborate and make sure that some new work gets well produced and gets an ongoing life. It’s as important for us as for anyone that work gets a run-in and isn’t just three performances, then gone forever. We’ve had a track record of premiering in Wanaka, then hitting all the South Island festivals – and off and beyond.” Dave Armstrong’s Le Sud and Rita and Douglas for instance.

RIGHT: Michael Galvin in his play Station to Station, Passenger Productions. Image: Eryn Wilson

There’s always been a market for small packaged work and a huge amount has been done at a grassroots level to develop fringe networks. But what about bigger profile plays? Notably there are the hardy producer perennials like Indian Ink, Taki Rua and Capital E, whose lifeblood is tours, but are others getting on the bandwagon? And are there networks for getting these works out and about?

LEFT: Eli Kent in his play The Intricate Art of Actually Caring, Playground Collective. Image: Philip Merry

ON THE BANDWAGON

Natasha Hay on developments in making theatre mobile

Against the odds, the past year has been buoyant for local plays and theatre-going, despite a cashstrapped, distracted audience. There’s been an upsurge in the number of new plays being hiked around the country, and reaching areas previously untapped.

As yet, we haven’t had a sophisticated touring infrastructure compared with other countries but this is changing, with festivals, companies and venues collaborating more, as well as the presence of CNZ-funded consortia with a presenting-partnership philosophy.

Having upped the ante on the partnership concept four years ago, Downstage has been a role model in offering practitioners cash and assistance with a commitment to local contemporary work. After a perfect storm of challenges last year, Downstage is back on track.

Downstage has also been crucial in nurturing new producers, such as Eleanor Bishop, giving plays life beyond the fringe and profit-share environment. Bishop has toured Eli Kent’s Intricate Art of Actually Caring in a number of ways: “We have self-presented/risk-shared at fringe festivals and venues, we’ve been bought by venues and festivals… It was a hard sell as it was originally seen as a pretty risky work but we backed

“We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Dave.

We’ve been presenting his plays over four festivals and sometimes they’ve been produced

by Armstrong Creative and in one case, Auckland Theatre Company brought The Tutor down.

So we also collaborate quite closely with existing companies to give work more life, especially ATC, and we’re planning another one for next year.”

Currently, Kent’s Intricate Art’s in Wanaka thanks to Arts on Tour, a successful touring operation based in Christchurch. “In our off-year, we buy in Arts on Tour’s shows, and so we bought in Intricate Art. That was another example of giving a work an ongoing life.”

A lot comes back to affordability. Tremewan: “The criteria obviously are quality of the work, the audience – some plays work better in cities and not so well in the provinces – and the tourability. That means if the show has been designed to tour. Often you get a successful show in a big city and it’s got a gigantic set and there’s no way you’re going to tour it. And the size of the cast unfortunately is a factor so you’ll see a lot of solo plays touring. After four-handers they get a bit scarcer.

“Apollo 13 is an example that breaks my rule because what that does is create a huge splash – it’s a real festival show. You could probably look at that and possibly Live at Six as shows that break out of the usual well-made play into something else. It’s more sponsorable.”

He says there is a “fantastic” festival directors’ network that meets regularly. “Festivals have always collaborated. There are some festivals that coincide in timing so we sit down and plan together… so NZ touring work can get a couple of seasons that way and it works for everybody.”

“I love being from there, and I’m gonna love getting out of there, my own way, and making shit work my own way.” White City / Phil Braithwaite PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 12

With Show and Tells it can be just a concept that’s pitched. “Wellington’s just been calling for projects and proposals, and it may not even be a script…

“The shows we’ve been looking at for Auckland’s Watch This Space have all been playwright-led.

In the end you do need a producer to work on it, but initially it’s mostly the playwright coming up with the creative idea and script.”

Tremewan believes collaboration with Australia will grow too. “Already there’s been a strong collaboration with 10 Days on the Island Festival, which took Krishnan’s Dairy early on.”

Outside the festivals, how is the experience for a playwright with an independent producer with a largish work?

Having workshopped Station to Station, ATC weren’t interested in producing it, so writer Michael Galvin approached Passenger Productions with his play. “They were interested in producing it only if they could get enough funding to pay everyone, which I agreed was a good way to go. So I paid them a fee to do the CNZ application, which was successful. After an Auckland season at The Edge, Passenger expressed the desire to tour, which I was keen to do.

“I’m in a fortunate situation having been around the scene for so long that I know a few producers.

For instance, when Passenger weren’t interested in doing my next play, War Hero, I was able to contact Jonathan Alver, who is looking at producing it. Also a company has approached me about doing a tour of a cut-down version of War Hero for schools. So I am aware of the networks available to get a play on.”

“It seems well-balanced at the moment, with that system to tour the more risky plays, and companies like ATC taking the less risky ones on the road.”

CNZ initiated funding three consortia in 2010, each comprising around three venues in different towns – Creative Northland; Central North Island Arts; and Top of the South – to work together to arrange high-quality tours. The consortia have been a great vehicle for touring new work and have developed the capacity within regional venues to present or have joint ventures with local companies.

Nelita Byrne oversees the Central North Island Arts Consortium and says they are committed to showing new work and building audiences: “All the venues involved with the consortia have had to make a concerted effort to understand their regional audience and develop markets for New Zealand work.”

They have worked with companies like Massive, Indian Ink and Taki Rua. Also, ATC is touring more than they did five years ago, says Byrne.

“There is definitely more scope for larger companies to tour” “This year they are touring to Hamilton, Tauranga, Hastings and New Plymouth. We hope to do at least one production per year with ATC with a vision that this could increase to two tours per year, with the second production a more riskier piece. There is definitely more scope for larger companies to tour.”

Station to Station was one of the first plays to be taken on by the consortia. Passenger’s Rachel Lorimer said it was at the annual Performing Arts Network of New Zealand (PANNZ) market that she got the heads-up on consortium funding.

“It was around that time they were announcing the consortia. A lot of the people there were artistic directors and venue managers, and they had been asked to form consortia and apply for CNZ support.

So some of the venue operators formed consortia and two of them asked us to be part of their application. We had to agree on a fee and work out the logistics of that. It was a pretty straightforward experience. We would never have been able to tour the play to those centres otherwise.

“I found them really good but it was quite varied from venue to venue.” Some venues had a really strong outreach into the community; managers and staff really knew their audience and those venues were successful in terms of getting an audience. “Then there were other venues that were more just a venue for hire without a strong community and they were much harder.”

Part of getting funding is the consortia’s intention to attract punters. “I do think in some communities,” says Lorimer, “there is a lot of work to be done in getting people more used to coming to plays.

“We were very much in the first batch of all the consortia – they seemed to be touring two or

three plays – and the people I dealt with were really proactive and passionate about it.”

The nuts and bolts of producing is not – nor should it be – the forte of most playwrights.

But, says Michael Galvin, “The really good thing I was made aware of [with the consortia] was the set-up whereby it’s the theatres that apply – at the prompting of the producers – for the funding from the theatre development fund, meaning they take the risk and responsibility for getting people into their theatres, relieving the producers of financial risk and allowing them to focus on getting the play on. I think that’s a great system.

For writer/actor Yvette Parsons, it was a great experience when the consortia picked up her solo work Silent Night at PANNZ: “To actually have somebody pluck you from bobbing on the oceans and say, look, we’d love you to come and do your play in our theatres, and we’ll promote it and we’ll pay you what you deserve, and we’ll look after you and we appreciate what you can do for us to entertain us and make us think about life… it’s amazing.”

Not all shows need to tour, of course. So for the dramatist how crucial is it? “Not really,” concedes Galvin. “I’d be happier to have a play on at two or three theatres in the main centres. That said, the tour of Station to Station was much better than I thought it’d be – which is to say the play was much better received than I thought it would be.

It also depends on the play. I think War Hero, about WW1 conscientious objector Archibald Baxter, would be a great play to tour as it’s so much more accessible than Station to Station.

[Touring this] would be ideal rather than essential.”

“Querida familia: Today we drove north and the landscape was breathtaking – the river, pine forests, green rolling hills with little sheep grazing... una belleza! ” Nuclear Family / Desirée Gezentsvey 13 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

MARKS FOR POTENTIAL

As she departs Christchurch Arts Festival Steph Walker writes the city a report card Potential – the word that pops up on school reports throughout the years. It usually appears alongside the words ‘must try harder’, or ‘if only they applied themselves’. So when we start thinking about the potential for theatre in Christchurch post quakes, I tend to consider those accompanying phrases too.

Christchurch has always had a lot of potential, but now is the time to try harder, and to try different things.

There is a lot of talk about ‘the new normal’ in Christchurch city, and this extends into our theatre world as well. Many spaces have been wiped out or severely damaged – not just the performing venues, but those critical rehearsal spaces, wardrobe stores and offices. So what to do when all those traditional modes have been taken away? Create new ways of working and performing work within the city.

We’ve got new holes in the city, new spaces to gaze at the landscape; we’ll soon have new buildings rising up. Now is the time for more site specific works to be developed in Christchurch, perhaps referencing the rather rich history of so many of these sites, or the future of what is to come for this changing city. I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen more works of this type already, but given the challenging nature of the beast right now perhaps I shouldn’t be.

I’ve tried to wrestle with Council consents and come out bruised. No doubt many others have too.

At the time of writing the blueprint for the city centre had not been released, but it was recommended that a couple of spaces offer opportunities for theatre to be developed – one, an outdoor amphitheatre; the other, a 500-600 seat black box theatre. I’m most excited about the latter. Christchurch has been seriously lacking a space for touring work to visit within the central city, so much so that it feels like the Christchurch Arts Festival is the only opportunity to see visiting dynamic new New Zealand work, which is only every two years. That’s a long time between the proverbial theatre drinks.

I know many non-Christchurch people have been wanting a place in the central city to tour their work to for quite some time now – probably

since The Court Theatre took the programming of the very missed The Court 2 (AKA The Forge) in-house. (As a side note, let’s all pray that The Court works collaboratively to get a second stage up and running for new work, I’m sure their CNZ funding depends on it.)

I have loathed the discussion coming from various arts companies complaining that they can’t put any work on if they don’t have the venues they had pre-quake. What codswallop.

If the work you’re presenting relies that heavily on a certain type of venue dare I suggest you revisit what the work you’re doing is about?

This is where trying harder comes in. Yes, it’s tricky, but the opportunity and the potential to create something truly remarkable outweighs the trickiness, surely.

We’ll soon, I hope, start to see work about experiences of the earthquake developed by Christchurch playwrights and performed for Christchurch audiences. The polarising tour of Munted to Christchurch showed how much locals wanted to tell their own story and not have it toured to them.

Perhaps this is the time for theatre to step up and no longer be just about art for art’s sake.

To be a way to work with more social aims at the helm – community performance works with the red zoned communities, with the Search and Rescue teams, even with the staff of Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), would be a tremendous way to tell the unheard stories of the earthquake and help people understand what they’ve been going through. Wouldn’t it be amazing for Creative New Zealand to bring the Ministry of Health, CERA and all of those related governmental bureaucracies together on this? The beauty of this work is that it doesn’t necessarily need a ‘proper’ venue. It’s about the activity and the authenticity of the work. This is pretty key in a city that lost the bulk of its professional venues.

ABOVE: Cameron Marriott, Georgina Stylianou and Stephen Ingwell in Katydid by Lucy O’Brien, Elmwood Players, Christchurch. Image: Lance Burke

“this is the time for theatre to step up”

Christchurch surely gets an excellence mark for potential right now. The country, I am sure, is waiting with baited breath to see what develops.

Let’s hope it isn’t the same old same old.

“Feeling trepidation is not unusual. Liquids feel unstable, and when you’re living in these kind of new and unfixed parameters, it’s normal to feel a little more uncertain.” Honey / Joseph Harper 15 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

Playing conductor to this quintet of Polynesian passion highlighted for me the many universal challenges faced by writers, no matter their ethnicity.

One conclusion gathered from that day is that the art and craft of storytelling takes time and practice to develop. It requires an inner strength and fortitude many steer away from simply because the process can be at times soul destroying.

Yet at the end of writing a scene – euphoric.

After being cast in the role of a horse in Equus, I remember asking Jenni Heka back in 1992 why we should even bother continuing with David Coddington’s drama classes since there weren’t many Pacific plays for us to act in. Her response was simple: “Well, maybe you should write one”.

Jenni, however – as many established and upand-coming stage writers and actors will attest to – is well and truly in the engine room of 21st century Pacific Island theatre – primarily in her role as Maori and Pasifika Advisor for Playmarket.

Jenni networks between playwrights, producers and practitioners to support and encourage continued growth in this area.

As a former director of Playmarket, Mark Amery explains, “I was working with Dianna Fuemana. In 2003 we started the annual Pasifika and Matariki Playwrights’ forums and we got a lot of things aired.

This led to the establishment of Jenni’s role.”

RIGHT: Kila Kokonut Krew’s The Factory at Mangere Arts Centre

There’s a list of champions who have in the last decade and a bit, Pasifika and non Pasifika alike, all contributed to building the foundation for Pacific Theatre: Oscar Kightley, Dianna Fuemana, Justine Simei-Barton, David Mamea with the Banana Boat group, the Urale sisters, Victor Rodger, and the work currently being done by Vela Manusaute, Anapela Polataivao and Goretti Chadwick at The Pacific Institute for Pacific Arts (PIPA), the Playmarket team, and beyond.

ABOVE: Ali Foa’i in Birds by Dianna Fuemana

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Mary Lose Pahi on Pacific theatre in 21st century Auckland

Twenty years on and I’d like to say I made good on that challenge, however my stories remain etched only in my mind. Safely filed under ‘Finish Someday’.

Or perhaps more truthfully ‘Start and then Finish Someday’ – a pattern of writing shared by many.

There’s an affinity with Maori. Pacific theatre can often piggyback off the lessons learnt from the development of Maori theatre. A reminder of this dual journey was in November 2010 when Playmarket’s Brown Ink panel discussions were held at the newly opened Mangere Arts Centre.

On the panel were Briar Grace-Smith and Riwia Brown, alongside Dianna Fuemana, Miria George and Leilani Unasa, all willing to share, engage and encourage entry into the realm of story telling.

One thing the panel unanimously agreed on was that the process may be hard and tough, but it’s worth going through every time as it would be worse not to tell their stories.

I remember years ago when the funding was approved for the very lovely, plush Mangere Arts Centre complex. There was a covert line of discussion – Pacific people don’t go to theatre!

Who is going to go and watch theatre in South Auckland? $7.5 million for a complex in Mangere, really? What a waste of money…

Ema Tavola was until recently the Pacific Arts Coordinator at Otara’s Fresh Gallery, and has done much to increase an audience in South Auckland for the contemporary visual arts.

In 2010 I interviewed Ema and asked for thoughts on the opening of the Mangere Arts Centre.

Ema said negative commentary’s just another challenge for Pacific artists to contend with.

She said Pasifika communities would definitely show their support.

She was absolutely right.

Auckland’s Pacific community continues to put their bums on seats to see their stories told by their own creators in their own neighbourhood – and there’s been a great variety in the last eight months. A few examples: Vela Manusaute’s Love you Long Time I and II which brought his past stand up partnership with Canada Alofa (The Brownies) back to the stage as well as introducing some newbies; Leilani Unasa’s His Mother’s Son; PIPA’s Sinarella which, after adding another matinee and extra shows, was still sold out. The support among Pacific communities is enormous: mums, dads, grandmas, babies, everyone comes out to support their own.

So much for the line of thought that Pacific people don’t go to theatre. Our culture is based on oratory – we are genetically predisposed to theatrics.

When the Aotea Centre was created in 1990 at a cost of $128.5 million, no one placed the onus of its fiscal success on Kiri Te Kanawa or New Zealand Ballet. So why then should a $7.5 million drop in the bucket warrant any discussion contrary to celebrating a new home for Pacific arts?

“They say that if you eat a lot of bread during the day and when you go to sleep you will wake up with the ginger bread man next to you.” The Factory PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 16

In August alone MAC will host Samoan artist Ioane Ioane’s sculpture, installation and performance I Will Sea You in Hawaiki, exhibition Tolu Lima, The Laughing Samoans' Ete Eteuati and Tofiga Fepulea’i (for no doubt a sold out run).

Even palagis are coming to MAC with Red Leap’s Paper Sky. Kila Kokonut Krew are in the August mix too.

With a decade of creative work to their credit, South Auckland’s five-member entertainment group will be reviving their original hit play Taro King.

Vela Manusaute, the group’s founder, along with partner Anapela Polataivao, believes their achievements will have a profound affect on the next generation. He says family is very important to Pacific people and having the Krew’s kids involved in many aspects is essential to growing the art, but also confident Pacific kids.

One of the great things about Vela is his passion to push more Pacific talent into the entire process, be it writing, acting, stand up comedy, producing or staging.

“When I was growing up we had to look offshore for inspiration, like Elvis Presley. A lot of people might think that’s a joke, but he was the only successful guy around wearing an island shirt, singing and acting in Hawaii, doing it all. We try to set that example for our kids. All of our kids are involved in our productions – they have to be or they wouldn’t see us. And we want them to see us and say, ‘Wow I saw my mum and dad do this and talk in front of lots of people’. They themselves will pick up their own confidence and they will climb up the social ladder to succeed in whatever they want to do. That’s what life is about, doing what

you want to do and being happy.”

Vela knows only too well of what he preaches.

He and partner, on and off the stage, Anapela contribute to grow the next generation of Pacific performing talent with both the Krew and the work they do with PIPA. With plenty of Pacific performing talent graduating each year Pacific theatre needed a new home.

The development of Pacific playwrights has never before been so critical.

Maureen Fepulea’i as a playwright is a self confessed new kid on the block and was part of Playmarket’s Newbie Writers Workshops As Jenni Heka explains it, “Maureen basically rocked up to one of our workshops at the Metro Theatre in Mangere. She said I think I’ve written a play and after closer inspection, David Mamea and I agreed – yes you certainly have…. months later Maureen’s E Ono Tama’i Pato was performed as a live reading by professional actors in Auckland and at Te Papa and as I understand will now go to production.”

feedback so personally. I felt as if I was sacrificing my first born… .

“At Jenni’s invitation, I submitted the ‘improved’ script for the Brown Ink Development Competition and won! I submitted it for the Playmarket Adam Playwright Awards and won the Pasifika Playwright Award.

I am very humbled and proud to call Stuart Hoar my script advisor. From my experience, I can safely say that Pacific Island theatre has a staunch friend and supporter forever in Playmarket.”

Maureen’s entire journey wasn’t part of my original copy, but after fleshing out this piece I was reminded of the time I shared a dressing room with New Zealand’s own theatre royal, Elizabeth Hawthorne, who would joke, “Without the words baby, we’re just warm props” If you Google Pacific theatre it brings up references to soldiers of World War II and in many ways, for Pacific playwrights, I guess it has been and is a figurative battle.

That account makes it all sound so easy.

Maureen is a little more reticent – this is her account of a Pacific playwright’s baptism.

Though lives have not been sacrificed or lost, Pacific playwrights are demonstrating our culture, our voices and our stories are worth fighting for.

“That workshop blew me away, because I learned about the theoretical side of writing.

Maureen, like those before her and the many to come, signals those involved in Pacific theatre feel safe and supported enough to bring their stories to the stage. Multiple premieres by new playwrights like Iaheto Ah Hi and Victoria Schimdt recently are indicative of an upsurge of new Pacific Island voices in our theatre.

“It was a very nerve-wracking month before I received feedback from Stuart Hoar. Stuart who?

I had to Google this name as I had never heard of him before. And I felt the feedback was very clinical – and I felt as if I had failed. Then I found out that Stuart was a palagi man and I started to get angry!

“I applied Stuart’s feedback to my script. It was a very painful process because I had taken the

The old adage of many hands make light work rings true. The future of Pacific theatre is in many, many safe hands.

“Samoans ask me if I’m Samoan, Tongans ask me if I’m Tongan. I guess I just have one of those faces that can blend into many situations” His Mother’s Son / Leilani Unasa 17 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

“the play doesn’t owe me anything” I experienced in all its repressed festering foulmouthed scatological glory. There was a certain catharsis and even glee in bringing that back to life. I hope any audience would enjoy it – but I’m probably the audience that would enjoy it most.

How much of a regret/frustration/disappointment is it that John has yet to be produced? Not much, actually. It’s a complex large-cast play – half of which is full-on live music performance – which makes huge demands on a necessarily young cast. The right place, time and team have yet to intersect to make it a reality.

Writing is never a waste. Whatever happens – and in this article we’re talking about cases in which not a lot or nothing happens – the act of writing serves several purposes. It scratches the itch which is pushing a writer to express him or herself, to get something down, to connect brain to fingertips to page or screen. We write because we feel funny if we don’t. The same way a runner gets antsy if they don’t hit the street once a day.

The activity of writing is important quite apart from what happens to it once you’ve written it.

Writing is an active verb. Thinking about writing, talking about writing, is not writing. Only the actual physical act of writing is writing. That’s how you know you are a writer – and can call yourself one.

Early in that distant decade known as the ‘90s I enjoyed a glorious six-month period when I was given enough funding by the QEII Arts Council (as CNZ was then) to concentrate on writing plays. I wrote two of them – of which John, I’m Only Dancing was one – and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. So, on that level alone, the play doesn’t owe me anything.

ABOVE: Ken Duncum’s latest book, Plays 2: London Calling

THE BOTTOM DRAWER

Three playwrights on the one that got away – their unproduced play

John, I’m Only Dancing – Ken Duncum

19 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

But everything you write also teaches you something. And John, I’m Only Dancing definitely did that. It taught me a lot about structure, and the dialogue required to recapture the particular New Zealand schoolboy patois of the early ‘70s.

Writing the play excited and challenged me. It made me a better writer.

Then there’s the fact that of all my plays John, I’m Only Dancing is the one that’s most drawn from my own experience. The world of the midNorth Island mid-‘70s boys’ school is one that

But what kind of life has it had or could it have?

For a long time it was my great unknown play, referenced only in late-night foyer conversations and read by the very few.

The big development is that it has been published – last year in my collected Plays 2 – and that is important to me. Because I think there is a literary life for a play apart from its life on a stage. Reading a play often means experiencing it in a different way. When I read a play I notice different things than when I see it, and vice versa. The playwright – and this is certainly true of me – writes to be read. He or she writes so director, designers and actors can grasp the meaning, the drama and the feel of the play. But that also makes it accessible to a wider reading audience – if they care to look.

When I mentally catalogue my plays John, I’m Only Dancing takes its natural place in the order, no smaller in stature just because it’s never been spoken and sung aloud – and that’s why I included it in the collection of ‘music’ plays.

Plays 2 wouldn’t have been complete without it.

I happen to think John, I’m Only Dancing will be produced – even though twenty years have gone past without a serious bite. Perhaps every playwright needs at least one unproduced work. Something for that writer to look forward to, and for future practitioners and audience to discover – to shine light on something overlooked at the time of its making.

For spotters and academics the unproduceduntil-now play may form a missing link in their understanding of a writer’s work, a sort of outtake from their career; for practitioners it’s an opportunity for a fully-formed premiere from a distant and interesting theatrical period, simultaneously both new and classic.

“You know, I’m the sort of guy people give advice to – which I never take on a matter of principle.” Room to Move / Ken Duncum

“it must have caused major freak-outs at the endless board meetings” It is a highly theatrical piece of work. Brechtian in style – with heightened language, symbol and metaphor, and filled with contemporary Kiwi icons and idioms. It weaves early settler experiences with Maori mythology, Taranaki’s backstory taken straight from the legend.

It was my first play not to receive a production.

And it was my first play that I wrote on spec.

I don’t think these things are unrelated. I don’t want to be in a position again where I put years of work and heart and hope into a script for it not to come to fruition. It’s just too painful.

ABOVE: Pip Hall in water ballet troupe Wet Hot Beauties

It strongly argues that Pakeha have a vibrant culture and in turn, celebrates and pokes fun at who Paheka have become and where we stand in the world. The play was everything I set out to do. I love all my plays, but this has always been

For me, I’m happy that John, I’m Only Dancing

my favourite.

exists as an idea, as a script, as a book.

It is still waiting on production.

Now I try and work in partnerships with producers and companies and take my concepts to them at an early stage, to see if it is something that they would be interested in programming from the outset. By changing my process, it maximises the chance of getting work on.

That is enough in itself. But it’s also there as an enticement – sometime one of its readers is going to thirst to see it enough to set the wheels in motion...

The script had everything going for it. $26,000 worth of CNZ development. Theatre heavy-hitters, Michael Hurst, Gary Henderson and Hone Kouka working as directors and script advisors. An

I like the idea of John, I’m Only Dancing being like

Auckland Theatre Company reading. A ‘Show and

an unconquered mountain – a little mythological

Tell’ pitch. A rehearsed workshop presentation at

mist gathering to its peaks – challenging someone

the Taranaki Festival. Fantastic feedback and word

to climb it one day simply ‘because it’s there’.

of mouth. Yet, still it fell through the cracks.

I used to truly believe that if something was good

The Woman Who Loved a Mountain – Pip Hall

enough then it would get produced. I’ve found

The Woman Who Loved a Mountain was

this simply isn’t the case. Another of my plays,

inspired by an argument at the 2004 Playmarket Playwrights Conference that Pakeha didn’t have any culture. I was outraged. As a passionate lover of my country, I set about writing a play to prove the cultural doubters wrong.

Set in the 1800s, it is a love story between Georgia, a teacher who comes out from England, and New Zealand – specifically Mt Taranaki, that is personified as a man.

“Epic, romantic, risky, poetic, erotic, funny, physical, theatrical – a real play with a broad and deep canvas,” wrote Michael Hurst working on its 2006 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts ‘Show and Tell’ pitch. “We have real words, real emotions, real situations brought together in an

The 53rd Victim has won awards, was adapted for radio but is still waiting for it’s professional premiere. And I’ve seen New Zealand work on stage that is under cooked and still needs work.

I don’t think the quality of the piece is the main reason why plays do or don’t get productions.

So what is it? Large cast? Perhaps – but I’ve

For me, what is most disheartening about the lack of production of Mountain is that I think this is the kind of work we need to be putting on stage more, rather than less. With ticket prices what they are, plus competition from TV, film and the internet, theatre practitioners need to be giving audiences an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else. Often I see (and to be fair, write) plays that can easily be translated or even better told in these other mediums.

For theatre to survive, I believe we need to capitalise on the magic of theatre. Challenge our imaginations. Tell stories in a visceral way. Offer an experience that is different and special in an ever increasing technological world.

I am hopeful that as Mountain sits in the bottom drawer that it’s currency may be slowly increasing with time, rather than just gathering dust.

seen larger casts then seven. Is there an audience for this kind of play? Hype? Playwright profile?

Too big a budget? Relationship with the theatre companies? How can we market this?

The truth is that programming is a mercurial process and all these elements come into play.

Sometimes there is no real answer and you just have to suck up the disappointment and get on

extremely dramatic, theatrical environment. It takes

with the next one.

an essentially simple (but passionate) story, imbues

So what did I learn from this process? Mountain

it with heightened language, a flowing theatrical

taught me a lot as a writer. It was my first proper

style, characters who are at once both epic and

three act, full length play. With seven drafts,

domestic, and places all of these elements against

I learnt the art of rewriting. It’s the play I learnt

a backdrop which, especially for Antipodeans,

the most about craft. I developed relationships

forms an essential part of our identity – the colonial

with wonderful industry practitioners that I am

period of the nineteenth century.”

still working with today.

The Big Smoke – Michael Heath When I was asked to write about The Big Smoke, my first response was “why?” It just wasn’t around in my head any more. I couldn’t even remember who I spoke to about it last.

I wasn’t even sure if I had a copy, but eventually found it at the bottom of a moulding cardboard box, an original-typed version with large obliterated areas using Tipex. The last page says “The Big Smoke was written with assistance from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, whilst the author was Writer in Residence at Downstage Theatre, Wellington.” And the drafts are marked: September 1987, revised March 1988.

“What ifs. They’re a terrible thing.”

Ache / Pip Hall

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 20

ABOVE: Michael Heath in the Sunday Star-Times and Adam Play Reading Series 1997

The very nice assistance meant I didn’t have to hole myself up in the broom-cupboard at Downstage. I could live by the vast, spacious beach looking out towards Kapiti Island and write. I gave it to Colin McColl, Artistic Director at Downstage then, and he liked the play very much, but he had a pretty rough time with the negative reaction to it from ‘the Board’. I think this frustrating process happened for Colin many times.

that had subconsciously crept in. In my mind

Then in 1992 Paul Minifie programmed it for the Mercury Theatre in Auckland. I remember spending time with him going through the play.

We were about to start casting, and rehearsing, when the plug was pulled on the Mercury and that very week it all died.

centrestage as any sense of hope evaporates

It wasn’t until 1997, that the Adam Playreading Series at Downstage featured a rehearsed reading, directed by Roy Ward. It was wonderful hearing and seeing the play come alive for the first time. With Kate Harcourt, in full flight in a motorised wheelchair going crazy, and Tim Rose and Brian Sergent going for broke in some of the more emotionally-raw scenes. Then the play disappeared once again, re-joined the silent ranks of the unperformed.

with the darker side of the human condition in

Reading it again I was surprised at how familiar everything was. Things I had forgotten, influences

helped shaped the play and give it its many

there must have been Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, a play that has haunted me ever since I saw a production in London in my early days of writing, and Sam Shepard, the early works, in which the human condition is laid bare, without any compromise in language and situation. The unforgotten, the lonely and the sad, the abused and the bewildered, everyone in denial that there was anything wrong – they hold into its nihilistic, and mysterious conclusion.

Back in the late ‘80s, only low-budget American independent films dealt with these sorts of themes, from directors like David Lynch and Monte Hellman. There was no history of dealing New Zealand theatre.

During the years of writing The Big Smoke, I was journeying back down to the Southland of my childhood, staying on my sister’s farm just out of Edendale. Life was lived in isolation there, in small, dying towns and farmers had to deal with poor rewards from the land.

Wandering the fields and dirt roads, and the wildly changing weather and cloudscapes moods and levels.

The characters belong to a broken family – a solo father (Harris), trying to bring up an impressionable teenage son (Darryl), and dealing with his aging mother (Florida) who is in advanced stages of dementia. The ex-wife (Laura) is drawn back into the family sensing disaster, as is Harris’ mentally-unstable substance and people-abuser brother (Sean). Not exactly the quintessential perfect happy Kiwi family feel-good-night-out!

During the five acts of the play they all eventually meet up for a long, last day together to try and sort it all out – but nothing will ever be the same again... I envisaged it being staged in an old hall or shed, with minimal use of props. And only sound and very simple lighting.

The play still has a visceral level to it, and it’s extremely funny at times – in fact much funnier than I remember – and it must have caused major freak-outs at the endless board meetings it appeared before. I can almost hear them saying, “Oh God, not this one again!”

Maybe one day it will happen. Maybe not.

I don’t mind. The best thing is I am left with many other things that did make it through the mysterious process – that escaped, and made it into the light. And for these I am very thankful.

“I want you to know what happened back there – down the darkness of the road – back inside the poor man’s dream...” The Big Smoke / Michael Heath 21 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

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NO. 46 : SPRING 2011 :22

THE RAW THEATRE

Julie Hill on the workshop process and Whiti Hereaka’s Raw Men Writers in every media must necessarily become familiar with their work being critiqued, assessed, tinkered with or indeed mauled by a long chain of people before it is unleashed upon the world.

This interference on the part of others is supposed to improve the work, and sometimes this is even the case. A talented literary editor can make the prospect of a full rewrite of one’s novel seem unbearably exciting, while a good magazine subeditor gently finesses and polishes, correcting spelling and patching up factual errors.

Not everyone’s advice is useful, or even logical.

I recall a TV network executive objecting to a character’s name because it reminded her of a kid who was mean to her at school. Writers often have to walk a fine line of appeasing their superiors while exercising their right to say, no thanks, that’s stupid.

With plays, the script workshop can be of invaluable benefit. Traditionally, upon knocking up a reasonable first or second draft, the playwright meets with a director, a dramaturg and some actors for a reading or a few days of intensive work on the script. The play is read out loud, stage directions and all, possibly for the first time, after which the director, dramaturg and writer decide which areas need attention. The characters’ journeys may be unclear and need further explanation, the characters themselves might need fleshing out, or the play’s structure might need retuning.

Playwright Whiti Hereaka’s new work Raw Men is inspired by the poetry of Rowley Habib and created with Nancy Brunning. Hereaka received Creative New Zealand funding for a workshop, which was held in Taupo, where the play is set, and where its creators were born. Habib attended the workshop, as did choreographer Moss Patterson, while Brunning took on the roles of director and dramaturg.

In under a week, Hereaka rewrote the entire script, working in the evenings and bringing new pages to the workshop every day. “I have to restrain myself because I like to rewrite,” she says. “Even now that we’re having readings, it’s been difficult not to come in with new pages every day.”

Common problems that arise during a workshop, according to Hereaka, are tongue twisters, which reveal themselves when the actors read the script

ABOVE: Scotty Cotter, Rawiri Paratene, Maaka Pohatu in Playmarket’s Brown Ink Play Reading Tour of Raw Men

for the first time. She also checks the play’s pace, whether the jokes are working and, most importantly, whether the story is coming across.

The actors are allowed free reign to comment on the work. “I really enjoy hearing what the actors have to say and I think they’re really generous usually. I’ll fight for what I want in the story; I don’t think I’m a pushover, but I like letting other people bring their expertise to a piece. If it’s not going the way I think it should I’ll voice that, but it’s great having other people’s minds on the same project, because my mind is only as big as my mind is.”

Hereaka says her expectations heading into the workshop are that the script will improve, “because I don’t think my work’s perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And I’m also hoping that the people involved love the work and really take it to heart”. She says she decides which – and whose – advice to take up by letting all of the feedback wash over her, taking notes, then leaving it for a while to see what feels right. “It’s really to do with the story and what I want the story to say, so if a piece of advice doesn’t aid that, then I won’t take it. On the floor if someone’s got an idea you could have a go and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but it might just stay there.”

Negative feedback can be harsh, says Hereaka but it’s never personal. “In my experience it’s

“I hope when I go and see a show I don’t know what kind of work has gone into it. I hope it looks effortless” always from a good place. It’s people really wanting a story to work and wanting the play to be the best it can be.” On occasion, she has introduced suggested changes to a script, only to return it to the original later, “because sometimes in the original I have unconsciously captured what I wanted to say.”

Hereaka says playwrights should be careful not to put “uncooked” work on stage.

“And at the other end I hope it hasn’t been worked so much that it’s lost its soul. So I hope when I go and see a show I don’t know what kind of work has gone into it. I hope it looks effortless, that it’s just arrived perfectly – even though as a writer I know that that person’s probably sweated for years to get it to that point.”

“Believe me, a commercial kitchen is about as glamorous as Satan’s arsehole – it’s hot, it’s sticky, it stinks.”

Rewena / Whiti Hereaka

23 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

where, Jean Betts from Playmarket says, drama teachers have been made more aware of “what Playmarket can offer, the plays that are out there, and the logistics of finding, perusing, buying and licensing, and also an increasing understanding of compliance with copyright requirements.”

What’s exciting also now for students is being able to search Playmarket’s website for new and innovative plays. This has increased over my five years at this school.

RIGHT: Olivia Mahood in Assisted Living by Jo Randerson and Long Cloud Youth Theatre, BATS Theatre. Image: Philip Merry

When people discover I am a drama teacher invariably I am asked what productions I’m mounting. Those not connected to the education system may be surprised at just how many productions our drama department at Wellington Girls mount in a year. In 2011 we applied for eighteen sets of rights.

ABOVE: Te Kohe Tuhaka in Michael James Manaia by John Broughton, Taki Rua Productions. Image: Philip Merry

EXPOSING STUDENTS TO US

Rachel Steele on the growth of NZ drama in schools and what they’re looking for

In 2001 Playmarket issued 50 live performance licenses to schools nationwide. Ten years later, in 2011, that number had risen fourfold to 194.

Today secondary school drama teachers are driven by a relatively new curriculum, with a push to give their students quality learning programmes.

For drama students this includes exposure through plays to what it means to be a member of the New Zealand community.

It was not until the year 2000 that drama was officially acknowledged as an arts discipline with the introduction of the arts curriculum. From this date, drama has been recognised both as an arts subject and an academic one, with students able to use drama as part of their University Entrance qualification and sit a scholarship drama practical examination at Year 13. During its first five years of implementation drama was the fastest growing subject choice for young teenagers in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Curriculum demands that, “through their learning experiences, students will learn about the values on which New Zealand’s cultural and institutional traditions are based.”

What better way is there than exposing their students to the theatre, and the drama of Aotearoa?

A prime reason why New Zealand drama has become more accessible to teachers has been the internet. With the implementation of the Arts Curriculum, the Ministry of Education funded a website Arts Online. The discussion forum for teachers, known as Dramanet, has been one place

A second reason why drama teachers around New Zealand are more in tune with what is out there can be attributed to theatre company Ensemble Impact.

Since 2009 this touring company has performed excerpts from New Zealand plays in schools across the country. A strongly committed company of actors led by K.C. Kelly, their goal in 2012 is to perform in at least 70 secondary schools from Dunedin to Kerikeri. Their passion and commitment to bringing these plays alive has, I am sure, opened possibilities in both students’ and teachers’ minds.

It’s useful to understand what a teacher might be looking for in a play. If it grabs my students and me I might consider it but, more importantly, I am looking for a rich context. I’m keen to find a play that speaks about what it is to be living here, what it may have meant in history, what it means in terms of our culture and how politics also plays a part in our past, present and future. I lay a lot of weight also on what my drama teacher colleagues recommend on Dramanet as well. I am also very thankful to any suggestions the incredibly helpful Playmarket staff have had.

I’m also looking for what might extend my students’ repertoire, skills base and understanding of theatre.

If they have done a lot of naturalistic plays, for example, I might be looking for something more physical.

What has changed, says Betts, “is that there are fewer teachers asking for something ‘suitable for Level 2 and Achievement Standard 91213’, for example… i.e. schools assuming we are some branch of the Ministry of Education and know the curriculum backwards! Also,” she adds, “teachers appear to have more of an understanding that we can’t judge what plays are suitable for schools, as every school and every teacher is different.”

Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School has been conducting research into ways of innovating from the indigenous wisdoms of our country, something Annie Ruth has described as complex and challenging. This is true for me as well. Our central

“We have an ignorant, apathetic, self absorbed society of post colonial automatons.” Democracy / Richard Huber PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 24

“the fastest growing subject choice for young teenagers”

city school, full of predominantly white middle class girls, is far removed from Bruce Mason’s Te Parenga of the early 1960s, or Briar Grace-Smith’s tearooms, somewhere between Foxton and Palmerston North.

But if I don’t expose my students to these places and their complex relationships and situations what am I depriving them of? I am depriving them of something that is inherently about us; something that we can look back at and say, “yes, I’ve been past there… a place just like that…”

The curriculum for drama has four main strands.

The first is ‘Understanding in Context’ and specifically identifies New Zealand drama as an area students must experience. When working with Greek theatre or epic theatre students can learn about the theatrical form as well as explore some historical or current New Zealand political events or issues. Plays like Mervyn Thompson’s Children of the Poor get students thinking about epic theatre in new and exciting ways. A group of Year 9s in my school has embarked on a work of their own using the ideas of a Greek comedy to portray a serious current political matter.

Published New Zealand works suiting this age group and class sizes are harder to come by. But I caution here, as I don’t think that just targeting teens is the answer to quality writing. One play I have enjoyed using in class with Year 10 is Angie Farrow’s Falling. It deals with issues young girls are particularly interested in such as relationships, diversity and understanding mental illness. It also exposes them to another theatre form - physical theatre. The girls get a huge amount of satisfaction

and fun from trying their own new and interesting ways of presenting this work in a physical way.

One particular New Zealand theatre form identified frequently in achievement standard material is theatre marae. We were lucky during the International Arts Festival to see two outstanding examples: Hone Kouka’s Tu and John Broughton’s Michael James Manaia. Teachers are also very grateful that Maori television has recently broadcast Atamira, a series that brought full length Maori plays to television for the first time. Long may this sort of thing be made accessible and available for replay in schools. I look forward to being able to purchase the DVDs with commentary from the playwrights themselves. These resources will go a long way towards our students becoming more culturally and socially aware.

One question which school heads of drama grapple with is how much access we allow to scripts which deal with heavy issues like suicide, or that involve swearing, violence and the strip down to nearly naked. However, it’s becoming more widely understood that most playwrights are happy to edit their work to suit schools’ needs, when asked.

Our Year 13 students choose and direct their own plays annually. Our philosophy has been to tread carefully, ensuring they are taking into consideration the audience they are playing to.

Many students have younger siblings who come to see their plays. Students do go to great lengths to look for plays which deal with deeper issues and ideas, and the rule is that if there is controversial material they warn audiences about content. So far this has worked and things have gone without complaint.

By allowing these plays to be performed we open up opportunities for further discussion and in-depth analysis of the big question, “what is the purpose of theatre?” We take audience reaction seriously.

It is sad to report that a school earlier this year made a decision to not allow their Year 13s to perform a second night of Jean Betts’ play The Collective for reasons of censorship. As Jean stated to the press, “I really don’t know why it would be censored. Brecht’s attitude to sex and violence is a major theme, so can hardly be avoided – and other schools who have presented the play seem to have accepted this.”

If you want your plays performed in schools it’s got to have dramatic impact, contextual relevance and something students can relate to. It would be better if it catered for a reasonable number of students; although, a class could perform a play three times if there were eight to ten strong enough characters.

One Act plays are popular - anything over 40 minutes in length can be unmanageable.

At Level 2 NCEA (usually Year 12) students are required to perform “a significant role.” This could also be taken into consideration when writing a play for teenagers. Students like naturalistic plays, but opportunities for chorus work, kapa haka and working with ensemble can be just as compelling.

I believe it’s important for experienced teachers and playwrights to get together and thrash out ways to make plays more accessible for our students.

Playwrights like Angie Farrow have helped make their plays accessible by creating resources alongside their plays for teachers and students.

Ensemble Impact creates packs for schools about the plays they perform. It’s something other playwrights and producers could consider.

“Can’t we think a little bit more about what the children need? Oh Bess, will they shoot me for saying that?”

The Collective / Jean Betts

25 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

SUBSTITUTE LUTON FOR EKETAHUNA

Script advisor and playwright Stuart Hoar on Playmarket getting NZ plays overseas managers in these countries, especially Australia given its relative closeness.

Building on this work, Playmarket is aiming to assess new opportunities for building relationships. At the annual Playwriting Australia play festivals for example, where this year it was possible to meet many Australian artistic directors and literary managers, as well as literary managers from the UK, Singapore and the USA.

ABOVE: Giannis Laspias and Ioanna Stavropoulou in Luv by Thomas Sainsbury (translated by Kalliopi Anagnosti), Square Theatre Company, Athens, Greece. Image: Magdalini Stefanatou

Like many New Zealand playwrights I have tried to interest various overseas producers in my plays, but it is not an easy thing to do.

Having lived in the UK for a while some years ago I appreciate the fact that the sheer number of plays that flood into theatre literary managements (where they exist) means that usually your play will never receive anything more than a cursory glance before being set aside. That is simply the reality of the market out there.

While attending Playwriting Australia’s 2012 National Play Festival in Melbourne I was surprised, but not shocked, to hear Sebastian Born, literary manager of England’s National Theatre tell attendees that his readers were only required to read the first five pages of a play script, and if their attention was not held by what they were reading they must move on to the next.

In comparison to this policy was Polly Rowe, literary manager of the Sydney Theatre Company, who told attendees that the Sydney Theatre Company refused to read unsolicited scripts at all. This policy is not uncommon.

Yet despite all that, the number of international licences issued by Playmarket is steadily growing.

Thanks to Playmarket, the greater collective

knowledge of New Zealand playwrights and their plays is increasing overseas.

Over the last ten years or so Playmarket has been developing a more comprehensive strategy to ensure producers have better access to New Zealand plays, and increase the amount of local plays produced overseas.

It’s an interesting fact for me that the majority of overseas licences issued by Playmarket are to theatres in Australia. I thought our Australian cousins collectively despised us. It’s another comforting cultural generalisation I guess I have to let go.

Licences to Australia are almost double the number issued to the next country, which is the UK. Third in importance is the USA, but what perhaps is most surprising is that the fourth country (and one not far behind the USA in number of licences) is Germany. We have much to thank former Playmarket directors for building and fostering relationships with Australian, UK and German theatres, and Katrina Chandra who in her time at Playmarket made a trip to Canada, visiting many theatres there.

Other initiatives are being developed, such as exploring how international profiling impacts on the development of a playwright’s work, and exploring international opportunities to have plays given public or industry readings.

And working out the most cost effective ways of achieving face-to-face meetings, which still have a greater cache than simply sending scripts.

The issue of cultural specificity arises perhaps in a more pointed and convoluted way for playwrights here wanting our plays to be seen elsewhere in the world. To change or not change our scripts, in other words. Watching a recent production here of Nina Raine’s English play Tribes I wondered what would have been gained or lost if the setting had been changed to a New Zealand one. Not much really. The universal themes outweighed the quite specific setting and milieu of the play.

However, while in New Zealand we happily accept plays set elsewhere, I think it’s equally true that the rest of the world doesn’t quite have that same comfortable feeling with NZ plays. If the price to pay for getting a London production was to change the setting from Eketahuna to Luton would you do it? As a younger and more doctrinaire playwright I would have said – “No way! Accept my cultural referents for what they are! It’s Eketahuna or nothing!” Nowadays, as an older and possibly more desperate playwright my response would be slightly more nuanced: “Luton for Eketahuna? You know what? That might just work.”

It makes sense for Playmarket to focus on promoting plays to theatres and developing strong relationships with various literary

“She asked me to make an out of control, passionate connection. And the nature of the request was to do just that.

Without thinking. So I did.” Leopard / Shoshana McCallum PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 26

NEW PLAYS

Hui Mitch Tawhi Thomas

Raw Men

The Train Set

Whiti Hereaka

Joe Musaphia

Georgie’s discovery of his father sitting dead in his armchair one morning is the catalyst for all the estranged brothers to return home and face each other, after being scattered for twenty years. What follows is a night of confronting memories and revelations, painful secrets and major decisions.

This whanau is coming to terms with loss – but what are they losing and what gaining?

Winner: Adam NZ Play Award 2012. (1w 4m)

Created with Nancy Brunning and inspired by the poetry of Rowley Habib, the play follows the lives of three generations of Maori men navigating through the 20th Century – from the battlefields of WWII, to the music scene in the ‘60s and ‘70s and finally on campus at the turn of the new millennium. Raw Men is about fathers and sons and the sacrifices made for whanau.

Finalist: Adam NZ Play Award 2012. (3m)

A chilling comedy-thriller set in Berlin in 1939.

Mab’s Room Sam Brooks

White City Philip Braithwaite

Finalist: Adam NZ Play Award 2012. (2m 1w)

It becomes clear quite quickly that Ambrose and Oscar, his teacher, are meeting in the hotel room for some kind of illicit affair – until Oscar realises that Ambrose isn’t ready for that and gently talks him out of it. Instead, Oscar tells his story, mentoring Ambrose in a way that he didn’t expect.

This is a gentle, unusual, and beautifully told story.

Winner: Playwrights B4 25 competition 2012. (2m)

At a country school in the 1990s, a teacher and principal are locking horns over the fate of a 15-year-old Maori pupil, a constant offender.

Should he be sent to a new ‘full-immersion’ Te Reo Maori school for troubled Maori youth?

Or not? White City examines race relations in New Zealand, and the clash between political motives and personal ambitions. Runner up: Adam NZ Play Award 2012. (1w 4m)

Ache

A Jewish couple is selling up to start a new life in New Zealand. Among their chattels is a Marklin train set. Herschel is impatient to leave Hitler’s “anti-Semitic hellhole”, while willfully ignorant Vera still dreams of “my Germany”.

An SS officer knocks on their door, and demands, bewilderingly, to see and play with the train set. Or is the train set just an excuse to toy cruelly with the Stern’s predicament?

Another Stupid Wall Joey Moncarz A brave comedic exploration of the obstacles young people face as they inherit a problem-filled world. A Palestinian brother and sister sneak into Israel to seek revenge on a Jewish-owned bakery originally owned by their great grandparents.

Posing as Kiwi tourists, the two become involved in the life of the Jewish family now running the bakery, and life for everyone is forever changed.

Winner: Plays for the Young 2011. (4w 5m)

The Mooncake and the Kumara Mei Lin Hansen It’s 1929. Two Chinese immigrants hire two poor Maori workers for their gardens, land leased from a rough British immigrant and local landowner. This sets in motion a series of events which culminate in inevitable clashes and unexpected relationships, all punctuated with commentary from a 14th Century Empress. (4w 3m)

Pip Hall Ache is an unrequited romantic comedy.

Told through a series of vignettes, it follows the lives of two urban professionals as they navigate their way through their ever-changing relationship and the world around them. In turns achingly funny and achingly sad, the play is a modern love story about timing and seizing the day. Finalist: Adam NZ Play Award, and Winner of Special Pumphouse Prize, 2012. (2m 2w)

ABOVE (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): The company in The Butcher and the Bear by Michelanne Forster, Herald Theatre, Auckland. Image: Sacha Stejko; Blair Everson and Alex Grieg in Other People’s Wars adapted by Dean Parker from the book by Nicky Hager, The Bacchanals, BATS Theatre. Image: Vanessa Kendall-Fowler; and Philip Braithwaite in his play Be Glad You’re Not Neurotic, Pleasant Whining Productions, Globe Theatre, Dunedin.

Image: Aimee Storm

“I cannot sing with him the new moon songs, I am a small frog, content in my small well, playing my familiar ancient tunes.” The Mooncake and the Kumara / Mei-Lin Hansen 27 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Stephen Butterworth in a Playmarket reading of Mitch Tawhi Thomas’ Hui. Image: Aneta Ruth Phil Grieve in Around the World and Buck Again by Jenny and Laughton Pattrick, Capital E. Image: Stephen A’Court Michael Kime, Emma Johnston and George Parker in Hereafter

by Free Theatre. Image: Brigit Anderson Johanna Cosgrove in Tom Keeper Passes by Long Cloud Youth Theatre and Eli Kent. Image: Philip Merry Alex Lodge and Paul McLaughlin in Sketch by Kate Morris, Page Left, BATS Theatre. Image: Sylvie Kirkman

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON THEATRE PROGRAMME Master of Theatre Arts in Directing (MTA) Applications for study in 2013 are now open

The MTA is a two-year fulltime course combining practical and theoretical studies in directing technique, taught jointly by the Victoria University Theatre Programme and Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School. Teaching, supervision and mentoring are provided by preeminent academic staff and theatre professionals.

FHSS0075

For over 10 years graduates of this course have been demonstrating their artistic leadership in New Zealand and around the world.

MTA applications for 2013 close Monday 1 October 2012.

For further information on the course and how to apply, visit www.victoria.ac.nz/seftms

Educational excellence in Theatre since 1970

ON THE PAGE Ghost Train

JANINE: It’s a string quartet. It’s Beethoven.

She tucks the cord back in behind the furniture and starts tidying.

want to mess up my dress, I haven’t got everything straight yet, I’ll get ready when I’ve done everything.

BARRY: (realising what has motivated her musical selection) Shit. Did you buy it?

BARRY: You’ve been on your hands and knees all day, what haven’t you done?

JANINE: No.

JANINE: The bathroom’s not finished.

BARRY: You can’t do that. There is no bloody point. What’s the point in sitting down and making a pissy friggin’ budget if you’re not gonna stick to it? Make me give up everything –

BARRY: It’s bloody immaculate.

JANINE: Not everything.

JANINE: (a quiet wail) Nnnnnoooo –

BARRY: Bloody near everything –

She heads out to deal with it. He gets between her and the door and takes her by the shoulders.

Gently.

JANINE: Just discretionary items – BARRY: Fuck that. All the stuff I like. The SKY. JANINE: I said we can keep the basic package.

BARRY: It’s got no sport.

ABOVE: Fiona Samuel.

From Fiona Samuel’s play Ghost Train, in which a suburban dinner party turns into a train wreck.

Darkness. Then suddenly, an explosive and dramatic string quartet, played loudly – Beethoven’s ‘Serioso’.

The spirited music establishes. Then, in the darkness – BARRY: Fuck, Janine!

The lights snap up to reveal a large and balding man, naked but for brief underpants and black socks.

BARRY: (shouting over the music) Give it a bone!

A woman crawls out from behind a piece of furniture, bum first, reversing. She is also in her underwear, but more covered than her husband, as she wears a petticoat. She has an electrical cord in her hand. Both have to shout.

JANINE: That’s how they do it, Barry. They get you with the extras –

BARRY: Yep. Did a big dump. Skidded all the way down the side, then the bastard wouldn’t flush.

BARRY: I didn’t touch anything. Too scared to.

Just took a slash in the garden.

JANINE: Front or back?

BARRY: C’mon. I’m kidding.

BARRY: This is extras. Blowing thirty bucks on fucken Beethoven.

She doesn’t know whether to believe him or not, but chooses to be comforted.

JANINE: I borrowed it. OK?

BARRY: Relax. She’s not the Queen Mother.

BARRY: Who from?

JANINE: I know. I know that. It’s just –

JANINE: The library.

BARRY selects a CD and puts it in the player, while JANINE considers all the defects of her home.

BARRY: (disbelief and scepticism) You don’t borrow music from the library.

JANINE: Yes you can. It’s not just books.

BARRY: And why would you do that? Why would you trot down to the library and say to some old cow with a moustache – ‘I want some really horrible noise. Have you got any?’

JANINE: I don’t know. It just seemed like – the right kind of thing. More the kind of thing they might like.

BARRY: What are you doing?

BARRY: Sounds like a wanker in a polo neck tearing up a cat.

JANINE: I had to unplug something.

JANINE: We haven’t got anything like that.

BARRY: What?

BARRY: Cos it’s fucken awful.

JANINE: I think it’s the DVD. (looking uncertainly at the plug). I think that’s what it is.

JANINE: (feeling got at) You choose something then.

BARRY: No, this shit. THIS.

He picks up a handful of CDs and flicks through them, then watches for a moment as she plumps cushions and straightens things.

He grabs a remote, one of several scattered around, and points it at the stereo, jabbing the volume control. The music gets louder.

JANINE: (tensing) Did you go in there?

BARRY: I will.

JANINE: Have you seen their place?

BARRY: You know I haven’t. When would I have seen their place?

JANINE: It was in House and Garden.

BARRY: Yeah?

JANINE: It’s really flash.

BARRY’S musical selection starts to play, something up-tempo and subtly sexy with a South American rhythm. He starts to dance.

BARRY: See? This is what you need.

Get a bit frisky.

JANINE watches him. Although large, he moves well, and he is trying to charm her, relax her.

She starts to smile in spite of herself.

BARRY: Break the ice. Get loose.

He farts.

BARRY: Is that what you’re wearing?

BARRY: Ooops.

JANINE: The other way.

JANINE: (appalled) God no!

JANINE: I’ll have to spray in here now.

BARRY: Bloody thing. Can’t read the bloody – (buttons)

BARRY: Just askin’. Doesn’t look bad.

BARRY starts to waft his hands around as he dances.

BARRY mutes the music. Blessed calm.

BARRY: Thank Christ for that. What are you playing at?

29 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

He runs his eyes over her, appraising.

Her underwear is of the decorative, shiny variety. She wears a delicate ankle bracelet.

JANINE: It’s not what goes on top! I just don’t

BARRY: C’mon. I bet she’s farted once or twice in her life.

JANINE: I don’t know. She doesn’t look like she has.

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Sam Berkley and Georgia Wood in Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclary, adapted by Tim Bray, Pumphouse Theatre. Image: David Rowland Lara Fischel-Chisholm and Regan Taylor in Providence by Louise Tu’u, New Performance Festival, Aotea Centre Kevin Keys, Andi Crown and Josephine Stewart Tewhiu in Standstill

by Anders Falstie-Jensen, The Rebel Alliance. Image: Jonny Hair Adam Gardiner and Kip Chapman in Black Confetti by Eli Kent, Auckland Theatre Company, Herald Theatre. Image: Michael Smith The company in Bruce Mason’s The End of the Golden Weather adapted for a company by Murray Lynch, Auckland Theatre Company. Image: Michael Smith Geraldine Brophy and George Henare in Bruce Mason’s Awatea, Auckland Theatre Company. Image: Michael Smith Paul Glover in Beautiful Losers by Mike Hudson, TAPAC. Image: Jeremy Bright Gary Young and Ally Xue in The Bone Feeder by Renee Liang, TAPAC, Auckland Michael Lawrence and Sarah Somerville in Finding Murdoch

by Margot McRae, Q Theatre. Image: Margot McRae

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 30

AUCKLAND Kathryn Burnett

This has been a year of tears. I should have been adequately prepared but no, instead I’ve been blithely trotting off to theatre productions only to start leaking and snuffling like a wheezy cat.

Blub situation 1: moved to a trickle of tears by the falling snow in ATC’s production of In The Next Room – gorgeous. Blub situation 2: reduced to tears of mirth by Te Radar’s Eating The Dog and ATC’s public reading of Rachel Callinan’s Served.

Blub situation 3: reduced to stoic, secretive weeping thanks to Silo’s production of Tribes.

But the tears I’ve experienced more than any other have been tears of frustration.

In recent times our world has become prolific.

You can’t leave the house without tripping over a playwright or round a corner without running into a cluster of theatrical types collaborating on something. (What would you call that?

A scrawl of playwrights? Never mind.) The ground in Aucklandia has been thick with promotional flyers and the stained plastic cups of zero budget closing night parties. Simply put, everyone is at it.

The mainstays of professional theatre such as Silo and ATC have offered impressive line-ups – notably Top Girls (Silo) – Danielle Cormack was brilliant, Eli Kent’s Black Confetti (ATC), In The Next Room (ATC), Roger Hall’s A Shortcut To Happiness (ATC) and Tribes (Silo) – but this is just scratching the surface. Let’s not forget the plays in the smaller suburban theatres, the pop up plays that shine brightly for an instant then disappear, the improv shows, the musicals, the pantos, plays in festivals, plays in the Stamp programme, the work of Massive Company (celebrating its 21st birthday), plays in art centres, plays perched on park benches and in the corner of bars. Even with the addition of the lovely Q Theatre and the Mangere Arts Centre it would seem that space in Auckland is at a premium.

Just recently I wandered past a disabled toilet in which a couple were arguing. A small crowd was forming outside and I really had to stop and think – is it an argument or is it a performance? And the Auckland Fringe Festival didn’t even happen this year! There was even someone taking notes – a reviewer? No, I’m putting my money on an enthusiastic youngster assessing the feasibility of using disabled toilets for a run of one man shows.

The range of work available to audiences is wonderful. I don’t imagine many of us are making a sustained living but this is heaven for the enquiring arts mind.

But how on earth can one person possibly take advantage of this banquet? It’s impossible – hence, ladies and gentlemen, the tears of frustration. You needed to be more selective I hear you say. Yes – that’s jolly good advice except the minute I’d booked tickets or RSVP’d to a performance there was some Johnny on Facebook extolling the virtues of the play I didn’t book, the one that had its remaining performance the previous night.

Clearly we’ve been far too spoilt for choice.

It all started in February with the New Performance Festival at the Edge. This was a new festival curated by Stephen Bain, which offered a feast of new directions in theatrical performance and was an undeniable exercise in innovation and fun.

And that seemed to trigger an avalanche of shows. Take TAPAC’s line-up for this year for instance. It included Rudali the Mourner complete with live Indian orchestra, the heady Michael Frayn work Copenhagen, the whimsical Alice and Love and Money – a cirque/theatre play from Dust Palace – among others.

And then there’s The Basement Theatre – so annoyingly interesting of late with Mary-Jane O’Reilly’s In flagrante, Some Explicit Polaroids, Course Related Costs, Shoshana McCallum’s The Leopard and Chub – a painfully, hilarious work

by Thomas Sainsbury. And Rachel Callinan and Julia Truscott’s Checkout Chicks: The Musical, which is the first offering from Auckland Theatre Company’s youth initiative The Next Big Thing.

All of this was in competition with the shows on at Q – notably Anders Falstie-Jensen’s Standstill and a range of magnificent dance works. And when you throw into the mix play readings at ATC, Dark Mondays at The Pumphouse and Read Raw at The Edge into the mix – well, ladies and gentlemen – you can see how the derriere has been pulled in several directions.

Still I am left painfully aware of what I missed at the Mangere Arts Centre (Iaheto Ah Hi’s Plantation, Pipa’s Sinerella, the Kila Kokonut Krew’s musical The Factory), Lopdell House (Merchant of Venice,

ABOVE: Sophie Henderson in Yours Truly by Albert Belz, Rebel Alliance, The Basement Theatre. Image: Sacha Stejko

“This has been a year of tears.”

Some Girls) and the delightful Pumphouse Theatre (The Lion of Winter). And of course Bloomsday, one performance in a pub on K Road in Auckland’s red light district. Much like the plays that were part of the Comedy Festival – you blinked and they were gone.

Ah, the frustration. Ah, the desire for budgets that can sustain longer runs and bigger publicity spend. Ah, the non-theatre attending Auckland public who don’t know what they’re missing.

I could cry for them I really could.

“West coast – east coast feuds? Mine. Bubble tea? Mine. Shitty British Chav accents? Mine. Auckland is in perpetual puberty, adjusting to identities and never quite settling down.” Auckland Shakes / Sam Brooks 31 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Phil Grieve as Rob Muldoon in Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Dean Parker, The Bacchanals, BATS Theatre. Image: Vanessa Kendall-Fowler Jennifer Martin in her play Ivy, Capital E. Image: Lucy Bryant Stayci Taylor and Laura Hill in Hits of ‘83 by Lucy Schimdt and Stayci Taylor, Centrepoint Theatre. Image: Brendan Lodge Lyndee-Jane Rutherford in Sex Drive by Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry, Circa Theatre. Image: Stephen A’Court Robin Kerr, Ricky Dey, Leon Wadham and Gareth Hobbs in The Tinderbox by The Playground Collective, BATS Theatre.

Image: Philip Merry Jarod Rawiri in I, George Nepia by Hone Kouka, Tawata Productions, Circa Theatre. Image: Aneta Ruth Freya Sadgrove and Patrick Hunn in Yo Future, devised by Long Cloud Youth Theatre and Jo Randerson, Whitireia Theatre. Image: Philip Merry Holley Hornell and Kahu Tairoa in Revenge of the Amazons by Jean Betts, Whitiereia Theatre. Image: Richard Finn

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 32

WELLINGTON Paul McLaughlin

Considering what I’ve seen, heard about and worked on in the last year, I want to celebrate the success and dynamism the Wellington theatre scene continues to enjoy.

The works that stood out to me were the New Zealand plays presented with imagination, daring creativity and sound writing. Shows such as Dean Parker’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Hone Kouka’s I, George Nepia, Gary Henderson’s Peninsula; reprised seasons of John Broughton’s Michael James Manaia and Eli Kent’s indefatigable The Intricate Art of Actually Caring. Theatre that actively engaged audiences. Where writers, designers, production teams, directors and actors worked seamlessly to make theatrical magic.

There is a broad theme that resonates with me: that of a journey. We are drawn to telling stories about who we are, where we come from, where we grew up and why.

I also really enjoyed some of the riskier works; another area where Wellington has a great tradition of exploration. Those working outside usual venues – Party with the Aunties, the fast turnaround political satire – the Public Service Announcements series, and those really messing with the theatrical construct – An Oak Tree, from UK’s Tim Crouch.

I really admired the integrity and sheer hard work behind such works as Lonely Heart – The Musical, Glorious, Drowning in Veronica Lake and Nucking Futs. These were works driven by the perseverance and creativity of the individuals and many collectives that Wellington is lucky to call their own.

While these new works don’t always arrive fully formed on our stages, the fact that we’re getting our own works produced in lots of genre stands us in good stead for the future.

BATS continues to provide an environment where theatrical risk may be undertaken. The future looks set with the support of Sir Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh in buying the Kent Terrace building in late 2011, giving back to the little black box where so many of us first trod the boards.

Circa put out a good balance of big comedy hits, gutsy straight out dramas and, increasingly, NZ content (the only way to go in my opinion).

Along with thousands of others I thoroughly enjoyed Dave Armstrong’s The Motor Camp, while audiences and Chapman Tripp Award judges alike

celebrated the emotional and intellectual impact of shows such as Andrew Bovell’s When The Rain Stops Falling. Its also worth noting that community theatre has increased its attention to New Zealand work with Stagecraft producing works like The Wife Who Spoke Japanese in Her Sleep

by Vivienne Plumb and Ladies for Hire by Alison Quigan in the last year.

The challenging Rugby World Cup slot was a test for Downstage and Circa One and both I think dropped the ball. Tawata Productions, however hit the nail on the head in Circa Two with I, George Nepia. Hone Houka crafted another beautiful play, flawlessly performed by Jacob Rawiri and directed with flair by Jason Te Kare. A work of humour, passion and integrity, Nepia really showcased Wellington’s dramatic strengths during a time where rugby was seemingly the only show in Aotearoa.

Two more works featured at the International Arts Festival saw a welcome return to larger scale plays. Hone’s Tu, inspired by the Patricia Grace novel, and Toroihi raua ko Kahira, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida translated by Te Haumihiata Mason, were rapturously received by audiences.

The Festival was also home to the premiere of the well received Masi, by The Conch Theatre. These are two examples of creative challenges met and expectations exceeded. Larger cast works allow seasoned and new practitioners to work alongside each other and share experiences and learn the craft. I really hope more theatres will seize the challenge of large cast productions in the future here.

Then there’s the ongoing work of Capital E ‘get ‘em in there young’ – my three year old loved Around the World and Buck Again, as did I. Young and Hungry ably bridges the gap from high school to tertiary and the Fringe Festival has been an outlet for graduates to explore and create. The Fringe looked shaky for a while there, and even too expensive for many to enter, but Kokano Funding is secured for 2013 and entry fees are lower. The Wellington Fringe has a long and proud history of playing mid-wife to many shows that have gone on to bigger things.

There is a generation gap performers and writers must leap once moving from BATS to Circa. Some progress is being made by both Downstage (Live at Six) and Circa (Eight, Chekov in Hell) to provide

ABOVE: Alex Tarrant, Manuel Solomon and Alice Canton in The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton adapted by Dean Parker, Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School. Image: Stephen A’Court

“We are drawn to telling stories about who we are” a place for this transitional group, but there is still the siren call of the bright lights. Too many midcareer (and increasingly graduate) practitioners are drawn to Auckland, not only to their excellent theatre companies and collectives; but inexorably by the lure of television, commercial and film work.

Since the relocation of all the production houses up north there has been a dearth of TV work here.

Sure The Hobbit has extra roles, or more if you’re as fit, accomplished and good looking as Peter Hambleton; but the outlook is not otherwise fine.

“Green. Rabid vegetarian. They were both into it: composting, re-cycling, public transport. That’s what comes of living in Wellington.” A Shortcut to Happiness / Roger Hall 33 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Trubie-Dylan Smith and Abbie Howells in Hands by C.E. Gatchalian, Allen Hall, Dunedin. Image: Martyn Roberts Luke Agnew, Alexandra Ross and Rachel Feorg in The Road Has No Name by Emma Feather Shaw, Allen Hall Dunedin. Image: Martyn Roberts The company in A Shortcut to Happiness by Roger Hall, The Court Theatre, Christchurch. Image: Sabin Holloway Freya Johnson and Heather Fletcher in Goodnight Irene

by Paul Maunder, Dunedin Fringe Festival Kim Garrett and Clare Dougan in The Motor Camp by Dave Armstrong. Based on a story by Danny Mulheron.

Fortune Theatre, Dunedin. Image: Lara Macgregor The company of Lovepuke by Duncan Sarkies, Globe Theatre, Dunedin. Image: Feather Shaw Nadya Shaw Bennett in Super Nan! by Carl Nixon, Fortune Theatre. Image: Miquel Nitis Free Theatre’s An Earthquake in Chile

DUNEDIN & CHRISTCHURCH DUNEDIN – CLARE ADAM

Cabaret was also popular. Ad Hoc Productions

It has been a year of the old and the new.

A successful production by Globe Theatre of Waiting for Godot saw it winning best production and direction at the second Dunedin Theatre Awards.

The Globe also produced some new works such as Prufrock’s Love Story by Elsa May, an interesting take on TS Elliot’s poetry. Earlier this year they also produced a lively production of Duncan Sarkies’ Lovepuke. Great to see a new generation embracing this exploration of sex and relationships.

staged several and Talking House presented

Allen Hall continued to support emerging talent through Lunchtime Theatre. The popularity of Paul Rothwell’s writing in Dunedin continues with The Tramp. Newly created works this year included Miriam Noonan’s Frequency, Jacob McDowell’s Do You Want To Hear A Secret, and Breathe Out And I Breathe You In by Suzanne Inglebrecht, University of Otago Playwriting Teaching Fellow.

Fortune Theatre programmed several wellreceived New Zealand works. Dunedin playwright Simon Cunliffe’s The Truth Game received critical acclaim through its exploration of a New Zealand newspaper office. Roger Hall’s A Shortcut to Happiness and Dave Armstrong’s The Motor Camp proved popular and Carl Nixon’s Two Fish ‘n’ a Scoop toured Otago and Southland with an innovative set designed by Matt Best. It was great to see so many New Zealand works at Fortune.

Here’s hoping there will be more.

Cabaret Botanica during the Fringe, exploring the botanical environs of North East Valley and celebrating local practitioners.

It has been a wonderful year for theatre in Dunedin.

A lot of new works have featured, many devised, but still the old and popular are not forgotten.

CHRISTCHURCH – LIN CLARK The huge challenges facing the theatre community have released a power of creative energy and enterprise over the past year. Venues which would never have been considered in the comfortable past, have added fresh impact to things.

Churches, school halls, marquees in Hagley Park and even a disused tannery have all been successfully adapted. The Court Theatre’s new home, affectionately known as The Shed, is

ABOVE: Emma Johnston in I Sing the Body Electric by Free Theatre. Image: Bridgit Anderson

a cheerfully customised old granary store.

Determined celebration best describes the general tone. In the second half of 2011, the Christchurch Arts Festival, extended by the Body Festival of Dance and Physical Theatre, brought a wide variety of fresh faces and ideas to the city, with some crossover

“theatre continues to deal with the aftermath.”

works such as Carnival Hound and Raising the Titanics as well as He Reo Aroha and Macbeth.

The Court’s programme reopened with a perky new Roger Hall offering, A Shortcut to Happiness,

Stage South continued its Read Out Loud series of playreadings. Robert Lord’s Joyful and Triumphant proved a welcome Christmas treat and his China Wars worked well, the majority of the original cast from 1985 reprising their roles. Write Out Loud workshopped two contrasting plays – Democracy by Richard Huber and Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are by Brian Johnson.

followed by an indelible Side by Side by Sondheim,

There were several verbatim theatre pieces created. Theatre Studies lecturers Stuart Young and Hilary Halba created documentary theatre with their piece BeLonging, stories from migrants living in New Zealand. Theatre As Is talked about issues surrounding the drug Ibogaine in Listening To The Stars Breathe. Then there was I Will Remember My Name, and during the Dunedin Fringe Wom!n In Mind, taking the words from different people explaining significant women in their lives.

The Free Theatre, source of much experimental

the roistering Calendar Girls and the elegant fun of Much Ado About Nothing, before Dave Armstrong’s popular The Motor Camp. Productions on this site have room to breathe, as does the audience.

Although it’s been confirmed The Court will move back to the central city eventually, this space has a can-do charm of its own. work, has used various venues with undiminished vigour. The Earthquake in Chile was the result of a collaboration between The Free Theatre, the Centre for Performance Research (Wales), A Different Light and Richard Till. Food for mind and body, it proved hugely successful. The Free Theatre followed in February with Hereafter, staged in an old tannery and, more recently, an extraordinary collaboration with the University

of Canterbury’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, I Sing the Body Electric.

Stalwart amateur groups found new ways of operating. Elmwood Players contributed a wellreceived Katydid and their base auditorium provided a home for the indefatigable Canterbury Repertory Society’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Julius Caesar, while an ex-warehouse became home to whatever could be salvaged from its old home.

Touring productions were more important than ever, with Taki Rua’s Strange Resting Places. Uneclipsed triumphs were Waiting for Godot and Sir Ian McKellen’s subsequent return to help with fundraising for restoration of the Theatre Royal. Miriam Margoyles brought gleeful vitality to Dickens Women and she, also, gave up an evening for a fundraising chat. More recently, Munted, the sensitive and funny verbatim piece from The Bare Hunt collective, has proved a winner here, where it all happened, and where theatre continues to deal with the aftermath.

“I want more than headlines, deadlines, death and earthquakes and wars and all the shitty inhumanity in the world” The Truth Game / Simon Cunliffe 35 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

NEW ZEALAND ON STAGE Professional Productions of NZ Plays 1 September 2011 – 31 August 2012 TOURING & FESTIVALS

20 October – 12 November 2011

On The Upside-Down of the World

by Arthur Meek Auckland Theatre Company: Downstage, Tauranga Arts Festival, Fuel Festival, Nelson Arts Festival 24 August 2011 – 19 October 2012

Right Royal Cabaret Festival

I, George Nepia by Hone Kouka Tawata Productions: Circa Theatre, Q Theatre 7 September – 17 December 2011 Crims by Thomas Sainsbury Fingerprints and Teeth Productions: The Basement Theatre, BATS Theatre 4 September 2011 – 4 February 2012 Station To Station by Michael Galvin Passenger Productions: Nelson Arts Festival 12 – 13 September 2011 The First Asian A B by Renee Liang The Basement, BATS Theatre 13 September – 1 October 2011 Hamilton Gardens Festival 22 – 25 February 2012 Death By Cheerleader by Amy Waller, Julia Hyde and Claire van Beek Real NZ Festival: The Basement, BATS Theatre 14 – 24 September 2011 Strange Resting Places by Rob Mokaraka and Paolo Rotondo Taki Rua Productions: Christchurch Arts Festival, Q Theatre 17 – 24 September 2011 C’mon Black by Roger Hall Armstrong Creative: Christchurch Arts Festival, Nelson Arts Festival, Tauranga Arts Festival 22 September – 27 October 2011 The Boy and the Bicycle

by Joseph Harper St Kevin’s Arcade (Auckland), Freds (Wellington) 12 – 21 October 2011 Silent Night by Yvette Parsons Shamon Productions: Nelson Arts Festival, Tauranga Arts Festival, Hawke’s Bay Opera House, BATS Theatre 14 October – 10 December 2011

Adelaide Fringe Festival, (New Plymouth), Fuel Festival 2 March – 23 June 2012 Tic Tic by Michelanne Forster and Paul Barrett Strata Creative: Tauranga Arts Festival 25 October 2011 Goodnight Irene by Paul Maunder Kiwi/Possum Productions: Regent Theatre (Greymouth) 17 – 19 November 2011 Dunedin Fringe Festival 15 – 17 March 2012 Party With The Aunties by Erina Daniels, Cian Elyse White, Jamie McCaskill and Matariki Whatarau Miramar Rangers Clubrooms (Wellington) 23 – 27 November 2011 Brew Café (Thames) 2 – 3 June 2012 Dark Stars by Arthur Meek DS Productions: The Basement, BATS Theatre, Adelaide Fringe Festival (Australia) 10 – 26 February 2012 Be Glad You’re Neurotic

by Philip Braithwaite Wellington Fringe Festival, Dunedin Fringe Festival 21 February – 17 March 2012 Michael James Manaia

by John Broughton Taki Rua Productions: NZ International Arts Festival, Centrepoint Theatre 25 February – 17 March 2012 Frequently Asked Questions/ No Holds Bard by Natalie Medlock, Dan Musgrove and Michael Hurst Royale Productions: NZ International Arts Festival, The Basement, Fuel Festival 2 March – 7 June 2012 The Guru of Chai

Krishnan’s Dairy by Jacob Rajan Indian Ink: Singapore Repertory Theatre (Singapore), Q Theatre 21 March – 4 August 2012

Ka Hao Te Rangatahi

The Santa Claus Show by Tim Bray

by Boni Tukiwaho

Tim Bray Productions:

Smackbang Theatre: Fuel Festival

Pumphouse Theatre

28 June – 5 July 2012

5 – 23 December 2011

Around The World and Buck Again

by Jenny and Laughton Pattrick Capital E National Theatre for Children: NZ tour 7 April – 13 November 2012

Double Portrait: Finding Frances

A Krazy Kristmas by Thomas

Hodgkins by Jan Bolwell

Sainsbury, Fingerprints and Teeth

Handstand Productions:

Productions: The Basement

Fuel Festival

7 – 11 December 2011

Yeti is Dead/I Am Tom

by Natalie Medlock, Dan Musgrove and Tom Sainsbury The Basement, BATS Theatre 28 April – 12 May 2012 Bombs Away – A Musical

by Nic Sampson, Ryan Richards, Barnaby Fredric and Joseph Moore Joint Ventures and Joint Repairs: BATS Theatre, Q Theatre 1 – 19 May 2012 Constantinople by Barnie Duncan and Trygve Wakenshaw Theatre Beating: BATS Theatre, Civic Theatre (Auckland) 2 – 12 May 2012 In Spite Of Himself by The Seeyd Theatre Company Ensemble Impact: Schools Tour May – June 2012 Beautiful Losers Erupt Festival (Taupo), TAPAC (Auckland) 16 May – 8 September 2012 The Second Test by Jonny Brugh Erupt Festival, Fuel Festival 18 – 30 June 2012 The Intricate Art of Actually Caring

by Eli Kent Cuba Creative and The Playground Collective: Downstage Theatre, NZ tour 25 May – 30 June 2012 Standstill

by Anders Falstie-Jensen The Rebel Alliance: Q Theatre, BATS Theatre, Fuel Festival 30 May – 7 July 2012

6 – 7 July 2012

Armstrong. Based on a story by

Capital E National Theatre

Danny Mulheron.

For Children: NZ tour

Auckland Theatre Company:

21 July – 13 September 2012

Maidment Theatre 9 February – 3 March 2012

AUCKLAND The End of the Golden Weather

by Bruce Mason in a Company version by Murray Lynch Auckland Theatre Company: Maidment Theatre 1 – 24 September 2011

Herald Theatre, Fuel Festival

Fuel Festival

Circa Theatre

8 – 23 June 2012

28 – 30 June 2012

6 March – 21 July 2012 Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man

Revolver Studio 22 – 25 February 2012

29 February – 3 March 2012

Manbits by Rohan Mouldy The Basement 4 – 8 October 2011

Elephant Nation: The Basement

The Butcher and the Bear

by Michelanne Forster Time Out Theatre: The Edge 8 – 15 October 2011

with Tim Coughlin

Hairy Maclary by Lynley Dodd Adapted by Tim Bray Tim Bray Productions: Pumphouse Theatre 8 – 22 October 2011

New Way In Theatre:

Finding Murdoch by Margot McRae Landmark Productions: Q Theatre 13 – 23 October 2011

21 March – 7 April 2012

Fabulous Arts Aotearoa:

adapted by Geoff Pinfield

Q Theatre

Charlatan Clinic: French

Yours Truly by Albert Belz Rebel Alliance: The Basement 29 September – 22 October 2011

BATS Theatre, Fortune Theatre,

Drowning in Veronica Lake

by Phil Ormsby Flaxworks: Nelson Arts Festival, Tauranga Arts Festival,

Gisborne’s Lawson Field Theatre,

The Artefact Project by David Allnut

His Mother’s Son by Leilani Unasa

Mates and Lovers by Ronald Nelson

Theatre (Singapore), Erupt Festival,

13 – 18 February 2012

Heroes by Jonathan Hodge Catalyst Theatre: Maidment Theatre 23 September – 1 October 2011

and Arthur Meek

Rita And Douglas adapted from the letters of Rita Angus by Dave Armstrong. Armstrong Creative: Nelson Arts Festival, Tauranga Arts Festival, The Edge 16 October – 26 November 2011

Mangere Arts Centre

Providence by Louise Tu’u

A Thousand Hills by Mike Hudson Stamp: The Edge 20 – 30 October 2011

Indian Ink: Singapore Repertory

Music and Me by Victoria Schmidt

Raising The Titanics by Albert Belz Smackbang: Q Theatre 7 – 17 September 2011

A Shortcut to Happiness

by Roger Hall Auckland Theatre Company: Sky City Theatre (Auckland), Bruce Mason Centre (Auckland), Clarence St Theatre (Hamilton), TSB Showplace (New Plymouth), The Hawke’s Bay Opera House, Baycourt Theatre (Tauranga) 7 June – 4 August 2012

by Jacob Rajan

The Motor Camp by Dave

Magnolia Street by Dave Armstrong

We Should Practice: Aotea Centre 24 – 25 February 2012

Indigenous Theatre Group: Mangere Arts Centre

The Seven Funerals of Charlie Morris by Chris Neels 6 – 10 March 2012 Coffee with Eelco by Grae Burton Alleluya Bar 15 – 17 March 2012 Birds by Dianna Fuemana Mangere Arts Centre 16 – 17 March 2012 Ship Songs by Ian Hughes Q Theatre

The Wind In The Willows

by Kenneth Grahame.

Adapted by Tim Bray Tim Bray Productions: Pumphouse Theatre

Glorious by Richard Huber Plan D: The Basement 1-12 November 2011

31 March – 21 April 2012

The Bone Feeder by Renee Liang O.CO: TAPAC 9 – 20 November 2011

ATC and PIPA: Mangere Arts Centre

Making a Killing by Ben Van Lier Catalyst Theatre Company: Maidment Theatre 18 – 26 November 2011

by Ben Anderson

Sinarella by Goretti Chadwick and Sean Coyle 10 – 14 April 2012 This Kitchen Is Not Imaginary The People Who Play With Theatre: The Basement 10 – 14 April 2012

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 36

Everything She Ever Said To Me

by Keziah Warner Scratch New Writing: The Basement 17 – 21 April 2012 Chub by Thomas Sainsbury Fingerprints and Teeth Productions: The Basement 22 – 24 April 2012 Plantation by Iaheto Ah Hi Mangere Arts Centre 15 – 19 May 2012 Goodbye My Feleni by David Mamea Chocolate Stigmata: Herald Theatre 14 – 16 June 2012 The Revival by Chris Molloy Auckland Matariki Festival: Mangere Arts Centre 17 – 30 June 2012 Maui Magic by Albert Belz Smackbang Theatre Company: 22 – 27 June 2012 The Great Piratical Rumbustification

by Margaret Mahy, adapted

by Tim Bray. Tim Bray Productions: Pumphouse Theatre 25 June – 15 July 2012 Black Confetti by Eli Kent Auckland Theatre Company: Herald Theatre 28 June – 22 July 2012 Checkout Chicks – The Musical by Rachel Callinan and Julia Truscott Auckland Theatre Company: The Basement 7 – 21 July 2012 Awatea by Bruce Mason Auckland Theatre Company: Maidment Theatre 19 July – 11 August 2012

PALMERSTON NORTH Centrepoint Theatre The 39 Steps by Ross Gumbley from the novel by John Buchan 10 September – 8 October 2011 Hits of ’83 by Lucy Schmidt and Stayci Taylor 5 November – 17 December 2011 You Can Always Hand Them Back

by Roger Hall 14 April – 26 May 2012 At The Wake by Victor Rodger 28 July – 25 August 2012

WELLINGTON Slouching Toward Bethlehem

by Dean Parker The Bacchanals: BATS 31 August – 9 September 2011 Public Service Announcements

by James Nokise No Fefe Collective: BATS Theatre 2 – 17 September 2011 16 – 19 May 2012 Four Flat Whites In Italy by Roger Hall

37 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

The Adventures of Wendy the Wonderful by Jennifer Martin and Moana Ete Wellington Fringe Festival 11 – 15 February 2012

Assisted Living by Jo Randerson

He Reo Aroha by Miria George and Jamie McCaskill Tawata Productions: Circa Theatre 21 – 30 September 2011

Should We Stay Or Should We Go

by Nancy Kniveton and Brad McCormick Wellington Fringe Festival 14 – 18 February 2012

Tawata Productions: Circa Theatre

The Engine Room by Ralph McCubbin Howell Trick of the Light: BATS Theatre 27 September – 8 October 2011

Honey by Joseph Harper Wellington Fringe Festival 16 – 18 February 2012

Falling Sparrow Here Or There

by Sarah Delahunty 1st Gear Productions: Zeal 28 September – 1 October 2011

Part Time Prostitute: the Secret Life of a Wellington Hooker

by Lucy Johnson Wellington Fringe Festival 22 – 25 February 2012

Circa Theatre 3 September – 8 October 2011 Sketch by Kate Morris Page Left: BATS 6 – 17 September 2011

Sex Drive by Lorae Parry and Pinky Agnew Circa Theatre 15 October – 12 November 2011 Yo Future by Jo Randerson Long Cloud Youth Theatre: Whitireia Performance Centre 18 – 23 October 2011

Peninsula by Gary Henderson Circa Theatre: NZ International Arts Festival 25 February – 31 March 2012

Long Cloud Youth Theatre: BATS Theatre 23 May – 9 June 2012 Sunset Road by Miria George 20 June – 7 July 2012 Ivy by Jennifer Martin Capital E National Theatre For Children: McKenzie Theatre 30 June – 14 July 2012 Young and Hungry Festival BATS Theatre 6 – 21 July 2012 Flash by Kate Morris Gameplan by Dan Bain Deadlines by Adam Goodall Nuclear Family

by Desiree Gezentsvey Circa Theatre 24 July – 4 August 2012 Quiver by Gina Vanessi

Space Bitches by Hamish Parkinson and Erin Harrington R.A.D. Theatre: Wellington Fringe Festival 28 February – 3 March 2012

FOMO: BATS Theatre

Hurai by Harry Love Wellington Fringe Festival 28 February – 3 March 2012

2 – 11 August 2012

Tu by Hone Kouka Tawata Productions: NZ International Arts Festival 1 – 7 March 2012

4 August – 1 September 2012

Meat by Geraldine Brophy No 8. Productions: Bookfeast 29 November – 4 December 2011

These Are The Skeletons of Us

by Chris Neels Elephant Nation: BATS Theatre 27 March – 5 April 2012

21 – 25 August 2012

Toys by Dan Musgrove and Natalie Medlock BATS Theatre 7 – 17 December 2011

Floral Notes by Geraldine Brophy Songbook adapted by Jane Keller Circa Theatre 4 – 28 April 2012

Lonely Heart by Michael Nicholas Williams Lonely Heart Productions: BATS Theatre 17 – 28 January 2012

Little Red Riding Hood

by Rachel Henry Kidzstuff Theatre for Children 7 – 21 April 2012

CHRISTCHURCH

Nucking Futs by Cherie Jacobs and Alex Lodge Full Stop Theatre: BATS Theatre 12 – 21 April 2012

by Roger Hall

Live at Six by Dean Hewison and Leon Wadham Cuba Creative: Downstage 13 – 28 April 2012

adapted by Greg Cooper

You Be The Angel, I Be The Ghost

by Paul Rothwell Wellington Fringe Festival 8 – 12 February 2012

A Shortcut to Happiness

by Roger Hall Circa Theatre 14 April – 28 May 2012

23 June – 4 August 2012

Dancing In The Wake by Jan Bolwell Handstand Productions: Wellington Fringe Festival 9 – 12 February 2012

Other People’s Wars

by Dean Parker The Bacchanals: BATS Theatre 17 – 28 April 2012

Meeting Karpovsky

by Helen Moulder, Sue Rider and Sir John Trimmer Willow Productions: Circa Theatre 10 – 25 February 2012

Marching Toward Death With

Bikes I’ve Owned vs Girls I’ve Fallen In Love With by Joseph Harper Freds 19 – 22 October 2011 Aladdin by Roger Hall.

Lyrics by Paul Jenden, music

by Michael Nicholas Williams Circa Theatre 19 November 2011 – 14 January 2012

The Motor Camp

by Dave Armstrong Circa Theatre 21 January – 18 February 2012 Tom Keeper Passes by Eli Kent and Long Cloud Youth Theatre Te Whaea 3 – 12 February 2012

Wobbly Legs Like A Velociraptor

by Joseph Harper

31 July – 11 August 2012 Someone Like You by Chaz Harris Seriously Entertainment: BATS Theatre

West End Girls by Ken Duncum Circa Theatre

Tiny Spectacle/Shitty Lyricism

by Joseph Harper BATS Theatre

One Day Moko by Tim Carlsen BATS Theatre 23 August – 1 September 2012 Holding On by Gavin McGibbon BATS Theatre 28 August – 8 September 2012

The Court Theatre A Shortcut To Happiness 10 December 2011 – 28 January 2012 The Elves and the Shoemaker 18 – 28 January 2012 The Motor Camp

by Dave Armstrong

Why Are My Parents So Boring?

by Dan Bain 4 – 14 July 2012 Man In A Suitcase by Lynda Chanwai-Earle

The Little Jester by Jessica Latton 10 – 22 October 2011 A Shortcut To Happiness by Roger Hall 18 November – 17 December 2011 The Motor Camp by Dave Armstrong 18 February – 10 March 2012 My Dinner With Dick

by Richard West and Jimmy Currin Theatre As Is: Dunedin Fringe 15 – 18 March 2012 Two Fish ‘N’ A Scoop by Carl Nixon Fortune Theatre, South Island Tour 19 – 24 June 2012 A Paintbox of Clowns by Dan Bain 7 – 15 July 2012

INTERNATIONAL Four Flat Whites in Italy by Roger Hall Ensemble Theatre – Sydney (Australia) 16 September – 21 October 2011 Kia ora Khalid. Composer Gareth Farr. Writer Dave Armstrong Capital E: Victoria Arts Centre – Melbourne (Australia) 26 – 28 October 2011 Luv by Thomas Sainsbury Translated by Kalliopi Anagnosti Square Theatre Company: Nixon Bar – Athens (Greece) 25 November 2011 – 22 January 2012 No. 2 by Toa Fraser Strata Creative: USA and Canada tour 20 January – 11 February 2012 Where We Once Belonged

by Sia Figiel. Adapted

by Dave Armstrong Armstrong Creative and PIPA: World Theatre Festival – Brisbane (Australia) 15 – 19 February 2012 Skin Tight by Gary Henderson The Studio Theatre – Washington DC (USA) 28 April – 15 May 2012 Liar’s Bible by Fiona Samuel Sydney Independent Theatre Company (Australia) 1 – 19 May 2012 An Unseasonable Fall of Snow

by Gary Henderson Hoy Polloy Producitons: Melbourne (Australia) 1 – 20 May 2012 Skin Tight by Gary Henderson Epsilon Productions: Cygnet New Theatre, Exeter (UK) 29 – 30 June 2012 Skin Tight by Gary Henderson COR Theatre: Theatre Otunj – Chicago (USA) 31 August – 25 September 2012

18 August – 1 September 2012

DUNEDIN Fortune Theatre

Tararua Tramping Club

The Truth Game by Simon Cunliffe

3 – 4 May 2012

7 – 29 October 2011

IMAGES LEFT: Publicity image for Renee Liang’s The First Asian AB, O.Co. RIGHT: Publicity image for Miria George’s Sunset Road, Tawata Productions, Circa Theatre, Wellington

PLAYMARKET INFORMATION FACTS AND FIGURES 1 JULY 2011 – 30 JUNE 2012

and opportunities to teachers.

Professional performance licences issued: 93 Community performance licences issued: 87 International licences issued: 33 School/Tertiary performance licences issued: 210 Scripts circulated: 2049 Scripts/drafts received: 562 Script assessments: 20

Website

Editor: Aneta Ruth www.playmarket.org.nz COMPETITIONS AND PROJECTS Playmarket Plays for the Young competition 2011 winner: Another Stupid Wall by Joey Moncarz Bruce Mason Playwriting Award 2011

PUBLISHING Playmarket Play Series

winner: Arthur Meek

Two more titles published in the series November 2012

and Best Play by a Maori Playwright:

Urbanesia Four contemporary Pasifika plays.

Runner-Up and Best Play by a Woman

ABOVE: Eugenia by Lorae Parry, State University of New York,

A Frigate Bird Sings by Oscar Kightley, David Fane and Nathaniel Lees

U.S.A. Image: Jack Wade

Taro King by Vela Manusaute Rushing Dolls by Courtney Meredith

PLAYMARKET SERVICES Agent On behalf of client playwrights the Playmarket agency issues and manages performance

My Name is Gary Cooper by Victor Rodger Haruru Mai/Strange Resting Places Two Maori plays remembering the Maori Battalion Soldiers of WWII.

Adam New Zealand Play Award 2012 Winner Mitch Tawhi Thomas for Hui Playwright and The Play Press submission to The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize: Dawn Cheong for Remnants of the Silk Maker’s Ghosts Runner-up: Philip Braithwaite for White City Best Play by a Pasifika Playwright: Jonathan Riley for Makigi Pumphouse Theatre Prize for an Auckland Playwright: Pip Hall for Ache Playwrights b4 25 2012 winner: The Sacred

licences, advises on and negotiates commission

Haruru Mai by Briar Grace-Smith

and collaboration agreements, manages royalty

Strange Resting Places by Paolo Rotondo and Rob Mokaraka

by Sam Brooks.

Editor: David O’Donnell | Design: Sorelle Cansino Editing and production: Whitireia Polytechnic

Strathean, Otaki, 18 – 25 June 2012

Playmarket Annual Documenting and discussing the major developments for New Zealand drama on our stages for New Zealand and international readers.

Rachel Callinan, Briar Grace-Smith, Ben

Editor: Mark Amery | Design: Sorelle Cansino

with Stuart Hoar

eBulletin Published monthly and distributed via email, the eBulletin is full of news and opportunities for playwrights and those interested in NZ plays. Published the first Friday of each month February – December.

Wellington and Christchurch

Editor: Aneta Ruth

Kate Morris – Flash Dan Bain – Gameplan

NZ plays available to everyone, everywhere.

edBulletin A bulletin sent out to schools bi-annually

A comprehensive store of New Zealand plays

encouraging the continued growth of the

Robert Lord Cottage Residency 2012:

(published and unpublished).

NZ play in education, and offering resources

Rochelle Bright

payments, maintains an archive of playwrights’ work and materials related to it and circulates their plays to producers and theatres in NZ and internationally.

Advisor Playmarket offers advice to playwrights and producers, a raft of development resources, such as clinics, readings, and events; and industry knowledge, partnerships and networks.

Playmarket’s Auckland office runs a development programme for Maori and Pasifika playwrights. Funded by ASB Community Trust this programme acts as an advisory service and also manages a number of projects in partnership with local bodies.

Bookshop

Prodigies; Mab’s Room; and Auckland Shakes Playmarket Playwrights’ Retreat 2012 Aroha Awarau, Barbara Burke, Kathryn Burnett, Hutchison, Mel Martin, Hannah McKie, Victor Rodger and Phil Spencer.

Masterclass 2011: Testing the Conventions

Rebecca Mason Executive Coaching: Michelanne Forster and Sarah Delahunty (2011); and Pip Hall (2012).

Young And Hungry Playwrights’ Initiative 2012

Adam Goodall – Deadlines

“Christian meek are promised to ‘inherit the earth.’ Jewish meek don’t own the dirt they stand on or the shit they live in.” The Train Set / Joe Musaphia PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 38

CLINICS, READINGS AND WORKSHOPS 1 July 2011 – 30 June 2012 1000 Hills by Mike Hudson, clinic, Auckland Engaging Women compiled by Cathy Downes, clinic, Auckland Sex Drive by Lorae Parry and Pinky Agnew, clinic, Wellington West End Girls by Ken Duncum, clinic, Wellington Lonely Heart by Michael Nicholas Williams, clinic, Wellington You be the angel, I be the ghost

by Paul Rothwell, lab, Dunedin Makigi by Jonathan Riley, lab, Auckland Manawa by Jamie McCaskill, lab, Wellington Ache by Pip Hall, lab, Auckland The Truth Game by Simon Cunliffe, lab, Dunedin Third Person Present and Tense by Stephen Papps, lab, Auckland You Can Always Hand Them Back by Roger Hall, clinic, Auckland Remnants of the Silk Maker’s Ghosts by Dawn Cheong, lab, Auckland

ABOVE: Leilani Dave Ekepati, Hazel Tansley-Broad and Kalyani Nagarajan in Checkout Chicks by Rachel Callinan and

Someone Like You by Chaz Harris, lab,

Julia Truscott, Auckland Theatre Company’s The Next Big Thing Festival, The Basement Theatre. Image: Michael Smith

Wellington Gifted by Patrick Evans, lab, Christchurch White City by Philip Braithwaite, lab, Wairarapa C – A Musical by Paul Jenden, lab, Wellington MAORI AND PASIFIKA PLAYWRIGHT DEVELOPMENT 1 July 2011 – 30 June 2012 Brown Ink 2011 Crossfire by Noa Campbell, clinic, Auckland A Heart’s Path by Suli Moa, clinic, Auckland Pre-drinks by Max Palamo, lab, Auckland

BROWN INK 2012 Play Reading Tour Raw Men by Whiti Hereaka Created with Nancy Brunning Inspired by the poems of Rowley Habib 25 – 29 June The Basement Theatre Nathan Homestead Arts Centre Corban Estate Arts Centre Mangere Arts Centre Te Papa

Music and Me by Victoria Schmidt, lab, Auckland GrandFatherSon by Kirk Torrance, lab, Auckland Shot Bro – by Rob Mokaraka, lab, Auckland Play Reading Tour E Ono Tama’i Pato by Maureen Fepulea’i 31 October – 3 November The Edge Corban Estate Arts Centre Papakura Art Gallery (Southside Arts Festival) Te Papa Writers Workshops New Writers Workshop with Stuart Hoar and Victor Rodger Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton

Communications: Aneta Ruth aneta@playmarket.org.nz +64 4 382 8462 ext 2 Auckland office 11/44 – 52 Wellesley St PO BOX 5034, Wellesley St, Auckland Maori and Pasifika Advisor: Jenni Heka jenni@playmarket.org.nz +64 9 365 2648 Script Advisor: Stuart Hoar akscripts@playmarket.org.nz +64 9 365 2648

CONTACT US Wellington office Level 2 Cambridge Terrace PO Box 9767, Wellington 6141 Director: Murray Lynch director@playmarket.org.nz +64 4 382 8464 Script Advisor: Jean Betts scripts@playmarket.org.nz +64 4 382 8462 ext 3 Office Manager: Pania Stevenson info@playmarket.org.nz +64 4 382 8462 ext 4

Playmarket thanks our funding partners for their support: Creative New Zealand: ASB Community Trust; Adam Foundation; Auckland Council; Bruce Mason Estate; Chapman Tripp; Corban Estate Arts Centre; Downstage Theatre Society; FAME Trust; Mangere Arts Centre; Matariki Festival Trust; Museum Hotel; NZ Players Trust; Papakura Art Gallery; Southside Festival; Te Papa Tongarewa; The Edge; Toi o Manukau and Arts and Culture South.

“Here’s a cuppa tea babe, made it with the cigarette lighter in my car. Took ages. You ok?”

Checkout Chicks / Rachel Callinan and Julia Trustcott

39 : PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47

THE LAST WORD

Sam Trubridge writes of theatre’s smoke and mirrors With the 2003 amendment to the Smoke-free Environments Act 1990 law, New Zealand entered a group of nations that outlaw smoking from indoor public workplaces and hospitality venues. This includes the theatre. Although the UK makes an exception for smoking on stage, in New Zealand this remains an unresolved issue.

In conversation with a UK critic recently, the rationale given for their exception was that, although theatre is technically a workspace it is also an artform. And as an artform it often resists the status quo, or relies on the suspension of certain codes in order for it to operate. Take for example the ‘suspension of disbelief’.

The reason why this issue is so interesting for theatrical practise, is because it brings up the whole question of mimicry and pretense. After all, one can easily use an electric cigarette with a red diode at the end that regularly emits puffs of smoke; but these objects seem rather absurd and almost comic on stage. In a recent production of A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, it made a big difference for the characters to roll the smoke on their breath and exhale furious billows. Not only did it add a dramatic energy to the characters’ breath, but it made the performance tangible, authentic, smelly and raw.

Some could say that theatre is just about pretending. It is not. In theatre we share a real space with real bodies. Bodies that are aging in front of us. If something happens on stage then we cannot rewind and experience it again. Theatre is irreversible, irretrievable, and as fleeting as a sunset... or a cigarette for that matter.

The more make-believe and pretend that theatre is, the less it exists in this live world of actions and their consequence. An electric cigarette is just another sign for the perceived inconsequentiality of theatre: that ‘it is all just a dream’. This expands the divide between the performance and the world that it is trying to comment on, and reflect on. There are too many shows where the wine in the glass is just a lump of immovable red resin, or where someone wrecks their kitchen – a kitchen made entirely out of plastic plates and plastic wine glasses. With an audience used to critiquing the ‘realness’ of film props and special effects on their new HD TVs, this world of make-believe can seem rather earnest and inadequate by comparison.

For anyone who has seen a real live moment of theatre, where an emotional threshold has been forever crossed, or witnessed an event that shakes our very faith in what we are witnessing, then you will know that theatre is not about mimicry and make believe.

For me it was the moment at Melbourne’s Malthouse in 2006 in Societas Raffaello Sanzio’s BR#03: Bruxelles when a nine month old baby was left on the bare stage. It laughed at us. If there was ever an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ moment this was it: an auditorium filled with sincere theatre-goers all ready for the latest piece of wisdom that this European theatre company could bring us, and the baby laughed at us. It crawled to the front of the stage and giggled at our rows of expectant faces.

Cinema does make-believe so much better than theatre ever could. The point of difference that theatre will always have is that we share our space with the work. It doesn’t allow us to sit back in the safety of the auditorium. It can laugh at us and blow smoke in our faces. Don’t get me wrong, I dislike cigarette smoke too, but do you come to the theatre to feel safe? Do you come to the theatre to sit in the darkness squinting into the blinding light of fantasy and fabrication?

Give me cigarette smoke if that is what it takes for theatre to be a little more real. Extinguishing one cigarette on stage is a rather feeble attempt at propriety and cleanliness when in fact there are many more significant problems to address. As I smell the smoke of the performer on stage I am offended. But this is nothing compared with the harm we do with carbon fuels. Maybe the cigarette has the power to remind us of this? Perhaps the cigarette is a potent symbol of western first world excess that we need to hang onto until we are able to resolve much larger problems.

ABOVE: Tracey Zanelli and Tommaso Taddei in The Playground NZ’s The Restaurant of Many Orders, directed by Sam Trubridge, Rome, Italy, 2007.

“do you come to the theatre to feel safe?”

In the 2008 performance of Blasted at Toi Whakaari I wanted the cigarette smoke to linger, so that the awful catastrophe on stage could continue to assault all of my senses. To continue to force me to deal with the cruelties that we inflict on ourselves and on those around us: from the graphic scenes depicted on stage to the trivial domestic act of lighting up a cigarette.

But of course, I forgot theatre is make-believe.

It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s all just entertainment isn’t it?

“It’s funny how long you can sit in the dark without realising you can’t see anything.”

Hui / Mitch Tawhi Thomas

PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 40

Theatre in the Digital Age Technology and the NZ play New approaches to copyright

Out and About The mechanics of touring The NZ play in schools

Christchurch Potential Fiona Farrell on the Present Dan Bain in the Future

New Zealand Theatre 2012

NO.47: 2012