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THE PLAYMARKET eBULLETIN - SEPTEMBER 2014
News and opportunities for New Zealand Playwrights.
eBULLETIN


SEPTEMBER 2014


I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragoon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in theatre.
Eugene Ionesco

 
Kia ora <<First Name>>

I have recently returned from my trip to Edinburgh where, as might be expected, I saw quite a few shows and met several Scottish playwrights alongside Pip Hall and Phil Braithwaite who were in Edinburgh on the Momentum programme. Their Scottish playwright buddies were very helpful in introducing us all to a number of important contacts for the future. I met with several producers and organisations promoting our clients’ work but most importantly met with Fiona Sturgeon Shea from Scotland’s Playwrights’ Studio and we developed a full outline for our playwrights' exchange proposal. Hopefully next month we will be calling for pitches from playwrights for consideration for an exchange in 2016. I also had meetings with producers and agents in London. It was excellent to get a strong steer from the horse’s mouth on what work individual theatres are keen to read from this side of the world. We have longstanding relationships with many English theatres but getting to discuss in person the nature of the scripts we have been circulating to them was invaluable. I also had meetings in Singapore and there are potential exchanges in the offing there too. Once I have followed up these contacts and completed arrangements I will be able to report further.
 
The election is only days away. Be informed on the issues for the performing arts and literary sectors. Read up on the thinking of the parties on how they will work for the arts. The NZ Society of Authors prepared a questionnaire for the parties and this can be found here and those parties that have released overall policies on Arts, Culture and Heritage can be found on the individual parties’ websites.
 
We are soon to send off the Playmarket Annual to the printer. For this year’s Annual we widen our focus beyond the four biggest cities that have been the subject of our previous four Annuals to look at the varied and different sorts of theatre that might be labeled community theatre. We look at the connections between community and theatre everywhere. From regional theatre and amateur/ community theatre produced all over the country, to touring arrangements, ethnically centred groups such as Prayas and Black Friars, and reflections of diversity in performance throughout Aotearoa.
 
The two volumes of plays we are publishing for this year are in the final stages of being proofed by the wonderful Whitireia students and the playwrights themselves, Sorelle Cansino’s designs are being finalised, and so are the two non-fiction eBooks we are publishing for 2014. The shortlist for the Plays for the Young is announced below and is currently in the final stages of judging. There was a terrific line up of scripts to choose from. Our audit of all client scripts on file is coming to a close just in time for Nick Doherty to heave a sigh of relief from this huge undertaking. Nick is leaving New Zealand in a few days. The staff and myself thank him for the huge commitment and contribution he has made in his short time at Playmarket. He has made quite a positive impact for our clients and customers in his role as maternity cover for the Licensing Administrator. We wish him the very best in the next phase of his career and hope he stays in touch.
 
Nga mihi mahana
Murray Lynch - Director of Playmarket



NEWS

PLAYS FOR THE YOUNG SHORTLIST
Thank you to everyone who entered our Plays for the Young competition. All entries were read blind and we are excited to announce the shortlisted plays. Winners will be announced in the October eBulletin.

3 - 8 year-olds
The Purple Sea by Holly Gooch
The Laughalot Tribe by Ronelle Short

8 - 12 year-olds
The Purple Sea by Holly Gooch
Wide Awake by Mike Hudson
The Thing from the Place by Geoff Pinfield
Tawa's Last Adventure by Deborah Eve Rea

Teenagers
Uncle Minotaur by Dan Bain
Le Sujet Parle: And Then He Shot Me by Emily Duncan
The Quiet Room by Renee Liang
The Twenty Seven Last Days of Childhood by Tom McCrory
Grow Up, Juliet by Rex McGregor
Give It A Whirl by Andi Podesta
The Careers Room by Philippa Werry


CONGRATULATIONS
Peter Wilson and Little Dog Barking won a Fringe Review Oustanding Theatre Award for Peter's adaptation of Duck, Death and the Tulip at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.


Congratulations to Angie Farrow who won the award for Best Drama Script at this year's Short + Sweet Theatre Festival in Auckland, and also to Renee Boyer-Willisson who took home the Playmarket Best New Zealand Script award.


Congratulations to Sue Paterson, Executive Director of the NZ Festival, who received the award for Best Event Professional at the NZAEP awards.


SCRIPT WRITER AWARDS NZ 2014

Congratulations to our clients who have been nominated in the 2014 SWANZ Awards
 
BEST PLAY
Pip Hall - Ache
 








BES
T TELEVISION COMEDY EPISODE
Fiona Samuel  - Agent Anna: Series 2 Ep 10.
Fiona Samuel & Natalie Medlock - Agent Anna: Series 2 Ep 7
 






BEST TELEVISION DRAMA EPISODE

Fiona Samuel  - Nothing Trivial: Season 3 Ep  2.
James Griffin - The Almighty Johnsons: Series 3 Ep 13
James Griffin - Step Dave: Ep 6
Gaylene Preston and Dave Armstrong - Hope and Wire: Ep 5
 
BEST TELEVISION ONE-OFF DRAMA
Fiona Samuel - Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story


The SWANZ Awards will be held on Thursday 25 September at the Classic Comedy Club, Auckland. You can buy tickets here


THE BIG SCREEN SYMPOSIUM

The Big Screen Symposium is the annual event from Script to Screen that puts the filmmakers of Aotearoa New Zealand in one venue for the purpose of debate, discussion, information and inspiration. This year’s Big Screen Symposium will take place in Auckland on 27-28 September, 2014. 
The 2014 programme is built around the theme The Power of Voice and delegates will be immersed in two intensive days of conversations, workshops, panel discussions and case studies with a stellar line-up of local and international filmmaker speakers.
Check out the website here for more details.
OPPORTUNITIES


Image: Phillip Merry

ADAM NZ PLAY AWARD 2015
Submissions are open for the Adam NZ Play Award 2015.
Awards are given in the following categories:

  • Best Play
  • Best Play by a Maori Playwright
  • Best Play by a Pasifika Playwright
  • Best Play by a Woman Playwright

The competition is open to any New Zealand citizen/permanent resident. To be eligible, plays must not have had a professional production (pending productions, readings, workshops or amateur productions are fine).
Submissions close 1 December 2014. 
Visit here for more information

AUCKLAND MAYORAL WRITERS GRANT 2014
The Mayor of Auckland has established the Auckland Mayoral Writers Grant and requests proposals for a quality text work about living in Auckland.
The grant will be a spayment of $12,000. The decision to award the grant will be made by an external panel.
The work must be:

  • about living in Auckland
  • text-based and a new work (work already underway will be considered)
  • in English, Te Reo or a combination of the two languages
  • completed by 30 June 2015.

Applicants must be resident in the Auckland Council region and must be able to demonstrate a body of work.
Submissions close 26 September 2014
Visit here for more information.

 

KATHRYN BURNETT WORKSHOPS
Kathryn Burnett’s popular workshops continue for 2014. Upcoming workshops include Beat the Block on 25 October, a one-day creative workout that will reveal dynamic brainstorming techniques to help you generate new story ideas and find solutions to knotty story problems in existing projects on October 25. See Kathryn’s latest newsletter here for more.


THE NOOSA ARTS THEATRE NATIONAL ONE-ACT PLAYWRITING COMPETITION 2015
Open to writers of all nations, and offering a unique opportunity for the three finalist playwrights to see their new work performed on stage at the Noosa Arts Theatre One-Act Play Festival. The winner of Best Play will take home a prize of $3,000, 2nd place $2,000, and 3rd place $1,000. 
Entries close 1 October 2014
See their website here for more information


TAPAC STORY GENERATOR WITH PAOLO ROTONDO
Story Generator is a series of workshops in November designed to help you get the story you want to write out and into the world.
If you have a story, a theme, a great yarn, an image or even a vague idea that you would like to see transformed and made into something, these workshops are for you. Ideal for people with no experience of writing, people who work in the creative industries that have an idea worth developing, or those who have a gem of a story inside you but just don’t know what it is yet.
Applications close 3 October 2014
See the TAPAC website here for more details



NZ FRINGE FESTIVAL
7 FEBRUARY – 2 MARCH 2015

Registrations for the NZ Fringe Festival are now open! The Fringe is a community based open-access festival in Wellington providing the most concentrated mix of new talent across all art forms.
Registrations close 8 October 2014
See their website here for more details


AUCKLAND FRINGE
11 FEBRUARY – 1 MARCH 2015

Registrations for Auckland Fringe are open. Auckland Fringe is an open-access biennial Arts Festival.
Registrations close 8 October 2014
See their website here for more details


YOUNG AND HUNGRY
PLAYWRIGHTS’ INITIATIVE

Young and Hungry is accepting idea submissions for plays for the 2016 Festival of New Theatre. They are looking for fresh NZ voices to write plays for 15-25 year olds. Playwrights accepted into the programme will develop their scripts throughout 2015.
Submissions close Friday 10 October 2014.
For more information contact Diana Cable here or (04) 385 8227.


MICHAEL KING WRITERS' CENTRE RESIDENCIES 2015
The Michael King Writers’ Centre is inviting applications from NZ writers for four residencies in 2015, with stipends ranging from $8,000 to $30,000.
Projects can be in a wide range of genres, including non-fiction, fiction, drama and poetry.
Applications close Friday 10 October 2014

Read more here.

LEGACY PROJECT 2015
Submissions are open for writers and directors to create short theatrical works that deal with LGBT characters or experiences from a Kiwi perspective.
Six scripts will be chosen for development before premiering during Auckland Pride Festival 2015.
Submissions close 31st October 2014.
See their website here for more details.


DUNEDIN FRINGE FESTIVAL
12 – 22 MARCH 2015

Dunedin Fringe is an open-access festival and all artists interested in taking part are encouraged to register an event and join the world's southernmost fringe festival! Registrations are now open.
Registrations close 31 October 2014
See their website here for more details

ARTICLES

COLLECTIVE GROWTH: REPORTS FROM THE CONTINUIM OF A PLAYWRIGHT’S COLLECTIVE THEATRE
Trista Baldwin for HowlRound
There is no one producer. There is no one managing director. There is no Boss of Us. There is no shoulder to cry on. …Workhaus Collective has changed arms and legs, losing playwright-members and gaining new ones, all while keeping the collective heart beating and eyes focused on the same goal: to produce each other’s plays for the good of playwriting and the good of the audience.
Read more here

TWO THIRDS OF THEATREGOERS DO NOT READ REVIEWS – REPORT
Nicola Merrifield for The Stage
Only around a third of audience members read reviews or media coverage of a show either before or after they have attended the performance, a new study has found.
Read more here

THE SCOURGE OF ‘RELATABILITY'
Rebecca Mead for The New Yorker
Relatability has become widely and unthinkingly accepted as a criterion of value, even by people who might be expected to have more sophisticated critical tools at their disposal.

Read more here and a further response from Tim Cavanaugh in The National Review here

BELVOIR UNVEILS FEMINIST 2015 SEASON
Andrew Taylor for The Sydney Morning Herald
Belvoir's 2015 season will be dominated by women in a dramatic reversal of theatre's traditional gender imbalance. Eight out of 12 shows will be directed by women while four new plays and one adaptation are by female playwrights in next year's programme.
Read more here


WOMEN DIRECTORS PROGRAMME ALREADY PAYING DIVIDENDS FOR MTC
Richard Watts for Arts Hub
Five of 11 mainstage productions in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2015 season are being directed by women. Artistic Director Brett Sheehy says ‘I am especially proud of the new Australian works gracing our stages providing mainstage opportunities for four terrific Australian writers and two composers, and of the inaugural MTC Women Directors Programme bearing such immediate results, with five of the 11 mainstage productions being directed by women.’
Read more here


SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE 2015 THEATRE SEASON: NO BIG IDEAS, NO DIVERSITY
Steve Dow for The Guardian
Five Sydney and Melbourne theatres have been criticised for an absence of curatorial ideas in their 2015 seasons, failing to engage with contemporary Australian and world politics and for being “very cosy and white”.
Read more here


WEIRD THINGS CUSTOMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS
Josh Fjelstad for BuzzFeed
Jen Campbell, an aspiring English writer, maintains a blog where she posts examples of the bizarre things that customers at her bookstore, Ripping Yarns, say to her. Given the nature of many of these, it seems like most of these people have never even been to a bookstore before.
Read more here

WHAT'S ON?

Destination Beehive
by Pinky Agnew and Lorae Parry

Circa Theatre 29 August – 20 September 2014
Meet a batch of fresh faces – the newest candidates on the political platform. Who will be the power broker? Who will be the jobless joker?  Meet the flip-floppers and the name droppers. The backsliders and the backstabbers. The naggers, the knockers, the pleasers and the sleazes, as they hurtle towards… Destination Beehive!

Trees Beneath the Lake
by Arthur Meek

Auckland Theatre Company at Maidment Theatre 4 – 27 September 2014
William Campbell's political dreams and financial practices have hit the rocks. Facing an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, he returns to his mother's Central Otago home in a last-ditch effort to salvage his marriage, fortune and reputation. However, the place is not what it used to be. Past and present collide  as a family steels itself for a fight to hold onto the past.

You Can Always Hand Them Back
by Roger Hall. Music and Lyrics by Peter Skellern
The Court Theatre 6 September – 4 October 2014
Achingly funny New Zealand comedy. Roger Hall, NZ’s favourite playwright, takes you on a light-hearted journey through the joys and horrors of grandparenthood, with all its painful pleasures. Retirees Maurice and Kath juggle golf, gin and four tiny terrors, to the wry tunes of Peter Skellern.


God-Belly
by Rosie Tapsell and Andrew Gunn

Q Theatre 9 – 13 September and BATS 30 Sept – 4 October
Rapping Nuns. Crumpet demons. Explosive bouts of wrestling - 
God-Belly is an existential romp, a bold exploration of religion and our bodies that ricochets between a 13th Century French monastery and a student flat in 21st century Auckland. Highly Commended in the 2014 Playmarket Playwrights b4 25 competition

Wild Bees
by Phil Ormsby
Flaxworks at The Basement Theatre 16 – 20 September 2014
1991, Wellington. As $23 billion of New Zealand assets are flogged to the highest bidder and labour laws are rewritten, a union team renegotiates their contract with the company after it’s sold offshore. Polite tolerance between the parties turns to name-calling and petty-point scoring across the negotiating table before finally descending into betrayal, threats and illegal acts.

Lashings of Whipped Cream
by Fiona Samuel

Large Carpark Productions at BATS 18 – 27 September 2014
Mistress Dominique is coming to Wellington to share the secrets of her profession.For a very special hour, the theatre becomes a Bondage and Discipline dungeon, and the audience a block of prospective clients as 'Mistress Dominique' shares the dirty secrets of her profession.


An Unseasonable Fall of Snow
by Gary Henderson

Circa Theatre 24 September – 4 October 2014
Celebrated playwright Gary Henderson’s An Unseasonable Fall of Snow is not so much a whodunit but a wotizit. Liam walks into a room. Where is he? Arthur waits for him. Why? Father and son team Jed and Riley Brophy piece together the puzzle of what has happened.


Everything is Surrounded by Water
by Hannah Banks and Uther Dean
My Accomplice at BATS 30 September – 4 October 2014
This is the story about Uther's soul and how he got it back. It's a weird, beautiful, funny, kinda sad story. Winner: Best Solo, NZ Fringe Awards 2014.




Second Afterlife
by Ralph McCubbin Howell

The Basement Theatre 3 – 18 October 2014
Dan has been it all. Himself on Facebook, a slightly more Emo version of himself on Bebo, a vengeful warrior in Warcraft, and a spanish seductress on NZDating - but now he’s ready to unplug. To delete his profiles and wipe the slate clean. But the internet isn’t about to let him go without a fight. Deleting a profile requires an epic battle through the Second Afterlife.

Uncle Minotaur
by Dan Bain

The Basement Theatre 3- 18 October 2014
Greta is an outsider. The other girls bully her, Dad has left home and Mum is life hacking in cyberspace. And when her eye surgery doesn’t turn out as planned she starts seeing things that aren’t there. She has to make a choice – is she going to let this ride or get brave and wreak some classical Greek carnage?

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