eBULLETIN
JUNE 2018
Hilary Norris, Lloyd Scott, April Phillips, Steven Ray, Michael Morrissey, Colleen Cleary, Eddie Campbell and Jane Waddell at the clinic for April's new play, Swingers.
Kia ora <<First Name>>
We had a wonderful evening celebrating the Playwrights b4 25 competition on 22 May at the Herald Theatre. Auckland Live producer Anders Falstie-Jensen arranged a terrific opportunity for the shortlisted playwrights to go on a walking tour of Auckland’s professional venues - ATC, Q Theatre, Basement and Auckland Live - and meet with the producers or literary managers of those theatres. Auckland Live also generously gifted $1500 to the winner to work with them on the first stage of a new script. Details of the winner and runners-up below. Congratulations to the eight shortlisted playwrights – theirs are all terrific plays.
Last week saw the latest of the Canada Playwrights Guild, Playwrights’ Studio Scotland and Playmarket webinars. There’s a link to a video of the session in the sidebar below. In July the final one focus on our playwrights exchange with Scotland and it will be at the more Kiwi-friendly time of 10am.
Morna Young, our exchange playwright from Scotland, has arrived in New Zealand and BATS theatre, Toi Poneke and Playmarket are about to host her in Wellington. Morna will be at the Playmarket retreat with nine Kiwi writers, and will be writing a commissioned play over the next three months. We welcome her and look forward to engaging with her work and to learn more about the Scottish playwriting landscape.
We’ve just had a first stage upgrade of some backend elements our website and there will at some point in the not-too-distant future be a second stage including a fresh look and an improved search engine.
We’ve had a bit of a to-do with our emails recently. We are hopeful that the work done this end has improved things but please get in touch if you think we might have been contacting you but you haven’t received a message.
Last year we began a programme we are calling Playfellows. For a modest sum this programme matches a donor with a specific play in development and gives the donor tangible contact with the growth of new work and acknowledgement whenever it goes into production. Lori Leigh’s Uneasy Dreams and Other Things and Roy Ward’s stage adaptation of Charlotte Randall’s novel The Bright Side of my Condition have been the first of these Playfellows scripts. Our first Playfellows were The Wallace Foundation and Ruth Graham. We are looking for more Playfellows and I welcome enquiries.
I am a member of the Trust Board of Theatre Archives NZ. Our key objective is to encourage and advise on the deposit of theatre ephemera and records in existing archives throughout the country and to compile a database of where material is held. We are on a mission to encourage the older generation of theatre practitioners and societies to consider the future of material they might be holding. Have they considered discussing with their children or executors where this material might be sent when they pass, and have they included this in their will? We want to avoid important records being destroyed because the descendants are not aware of their value. If everyone reading this ensures they open this conversation we might save some more of the history of theatre in New Zealand for future generations to study.
Ngā mihi mahana
Murray Lynch - Director of Playmarket
NEWS
   PLAYWRIGHTS b4 25
We are thrilled to announce the winning plays and playwrights for 2018.
WINNER Peter Croft for Penalty
Penalty takes place in a changing room in Nazi occupied Kiev in the summer of 1942. A football team made up of Ukrainian ex professionals is about to play their final match of the season against a side made up entirely of German army players. They have become a symbol of hope for the downtrodden populace of Kiev, suffering greatly from hunger and repression from Nazi occupation as they have remained undefeated for the entire season.
HIGHLY COMMENDED Courtney Rose Brown for Running Late
Running Late explores the fragility of connection. It’s about trying to run away from your problems but being confronted by them anyway. With nothing but time on her hands, all Jamie has to do is sit and wait. But is it her boyfriend she’s waiting for?
HIGHLY COMMENDED Kieran Craft for 4 Nights in the Green Barrow Pub
The Green Barrow Pub has been run by the same family, in the same way, for generations, and Darragh Green is no different. But maybe he wants to be. His sister Aisling certainly wants him to be, but the pub regulars are like family to him. Over the four nights that newcomer Arad stays at the pub, Darragh will come to realise that something needs to change, and maybe he’ll find the strength to pursue the things he wants, rather than what his family expect of him.
Congratulations to Peter, Courtney, Kieran and to all our other finalists. Thanks to Auckland Live for awarding $1500 to Peter towards developing an idea for a new work.
CONGRATULATIONS
 Congratulations to Rex McGregor whose play Ebook meets Treebook won the Audience Favourite Award at the Stage It! Center for Performing Arts 10 minute play festival in Florida. His play Flight of the Cows was a nominee for Best Play at the 2018 Take Ten Festival in New York. If you'd like to read these plays contact Claire O'Loughlin.
 KIA MAU FESTIVAL
Māori + Pasifika + Indigenous | Theatre + Dance 1-16 June 2018
The contemporary Indigenous theatre and dance experience, Kia Mau Festival returns to Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui – Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2018, they are hosting Māori, Pasifika and First Nations artists and their companies, sharing work across the region from Porirua City to Wellington City to Lower Hutt City. Now marking its fourth year, Kia Mau is a creative celebration, helmed by Māori and Pasifika artists and built upon kaupapa Māori .
The playwriting festival Breaking Ground (11-16 June) is a vital development festival hosting playwrites and their new writing. The 2018 Breaking Ground playwrights are: Nancy Brunning (KIngdom of Women). Maia Diamond (Fishin' Chip) and visiting Australian Aboriginal playwright Henrietta Baird (The Weekend). Rehearsed readings of these works will be held at 1pm Saturday 16 June at The Pit, Te Ara Hihiko. The readings are free and open to all.
See here for the full programme.
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ARTICLES
THERE’S NO TOUGHER AUDIENCE IN THEATRE THAN CHILDREN
Thomas LaHood for The Spinoff
When your audience is children, and their attention spans are shorter than their tempers, how do you keep them entertained at a theatre show?
Read more here
CHILDISH GAMBINO AND HOW THE INTERNET KILLED THE CULTURAL CRITIC
Roland Manthorpe for Wired
The response to Childish Gambino’s This Is America shows the emergence of a new type of criticism: one done by fans. Anyone who follows theatre – or music, art, architecture, film or books – will see what is really happening. Cultural criticism in its traditional form is dying.
Read more here
THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT ARTS INSTITUTIONS LED BY WOMEN OF COLOUR
Teresa Coleman Wash for Howlround
Founder and executive artistic director of Dallas’s Bishop Arts Theatre Center Teresa Coleman Wash looks at the realities of running a theatre company as a woman of colour.
Read more here
WHAT A GIRL WANTS
Diep Tran for American Theatre
Amid the overwhelming amount of testosterone in most theatre seasons across America, just three plays making a splash around the country is enough to give the American theatre a much-needed burst of oestrogen. The Wolves, Dance Nation and School Girls, all by young female playwrights, show girlhood in all of its complexity and ferocity.
Read more here
BROADWAY IN A YEAR OF RECKONING
Jonathan Mandell for Howlround
New York critic Jonathan Mandell gives a glimpse at the recently ended Broadway season, and reflects on how some of this year’s biggest hits have handled the past as a way to adapt to our current sociopolitical moment.
Read more here
HOW COPYRIGHT LAW HIDES WORK LIKE ZORA NEALE HURSTON’S NEW BOOK FROM THE PUBLIC
Ted Genoways for The Washington Post
In many cases it’s not scholarly neglect that hides unpublished works from the public eye. Instead, the trouble begins with onerous and excessive copyright protections, protections that are meant to profit the Walt Disney Co. more than they are intended to enrich our understanding of American literature.
Read more here
DOCTORS MOVE CLOSER TO UNIFIED PLAN FOR ARTS ON PRESCRIPTION
Christy Romer for Arts Professional
27 healthcare providers in the North West have committed to developing a cultural prescription plan for new and expectant mothers to give children the “best start” in life.
Read more here
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PLAYS FOR THE YOUNG COMPETITION
EMERGING ARTISTS TRUST GRANT ROUND 2018
MATCHBOX 2019
INSTITUTE OF MODERN LETTERS CREW 353
YALE DRAMA SERIES 2019
That Bloody Woman
Still Life with Chickens
Waiora: Te-ū-kai-po (The Homeland)
My Best Dead Friend
Morningstar
Camp Binch
I am Not Margaret Mahy
The Atom Room
The Cherry Orchard
Cellfish
The Biggest
Once Upon a Dance
The Great White Man-Eating Shark and Other Stories
