THE PLAYMARKET eBULLETIN - APRIL 2019
News and opportunities for New Zealand Playwrights.

eBULLETIN

APRIL 2019

Murray Lynch presenting the Adam NZ Play Award to Mitch Tawhi Thomas. Image: Philip Merry.

Kia ora <<First Name>>

Life in New Zealand has changed since we issued our last bulletin. We send our thoughts out to those communities so horrendously affected and who have lost whānau. Many artists have very quickly responded and made an impact through their contributions. The part we play, as creators, is important to the ongoing health of the nation. Pertinent to this was the release last week of the government report on inquiry into Mental Health, He Ara Oranga. We are pleased to read Creative NZ’s advocacy for the addition of participation in the arts as a key to enhanced wellbeing.

Last weekend we celebrated the Adam NZ Play Award. An amazing line up of plays were shortlisted from a rich feast of plays submitted. Congratulations to those awarded as listed below. Mitch Tawhi Thomas took the overall award a second time! Can’t wait to see the play in production later this year.

We extended the deadline for entries to the Playwrights b4 25 competition by a couple of weeks and acceptance of scripts now closes this Friday, 12^th April. The result is that more plays are coming out of the woodwork and we have reached our usual number of submissions. However, we look forward to even more entries of exciting new writing.

The New Zealand Theatre Month Trust in partnership with Playmarket have made the decision not to proceed with NZ theatre Month this year. A number of factors led to this decision, but we hope that the event will return in future.

I completed a submission last week to the review of the Copyright Act. I raised a number of points on behalf of playwrights and if any playwright clients are interested, I will happily share that submission. I hope many clients also submitted to this important review of legislation.

Speaking of copyright, a significant milestone was reached last week when the European Parliament voted to adopt the EU Copyright Directive. This comes after three years of intense debate and campaigning and establishes an essential principle law of the rights of creators to proportionate remuneration for their work and means creators can claim remuneration from content platforms such as Google and YouTube. A quick search online will reveal more information.

On the subject of earnings, the Copyright NZ, NZ Society of Authors and Playmarket 2018 Writer’s Earnings in New Zealand report has been published. Although the report makes sober reading, pleasingly, 7% of respondents were playwrights which is a jump up from the last survey in 2016 and helpful in enriching the picture of earnings in NZ.

Playmarket’s new website is in test mode and should be online before the end of the month. Our Safety, Respect and Wellbeing guideline written by Fiona McNamara and Borni Te Rongopai Tukiwaho, is due back from the printer, and we have held workshops that run alongside this publication, in Wellington and Auckland. A South Island workshop is in preparation.

The 2019 publishing programme is underway, the Playmarket Annual articles are being commissioned, I attended the Musical Theatre NZ conference and Holly is about to attend the Drama NZ conference this weekend. Life goes on apace.

Ngā mihi mahana
Murray Lynch - Director of Playmarket

ADAM AWARDS

Playmarket presented the winning plays and playwrights for 2019 at Circa Theatre on 30 March. Congratulations to all!

Adam NZ Play Award and Best Play by a Māori Playwright:
Mitch Tawhi Thomas for Pakaru.

Adam NZ Play Award Runner Up and Best Play by a Woman Playwright:
Nancy Brunning for Taniwha Woman.

Best Play by a Pasifika Playwright: Benny Marama for thursdays.child

Highly Commended: Peter Croft for Penalty.

Congratulations also to our shortlisted playwights; Carl Bland, Kieran Craft, Emily Duncan, Rose Kirkup, Rene Le Bas, Rachel Lowe, Stanley Makuwe, Olga Nikora, Jenny Pattrick, Frances Steinberg and Craig Thaine.

Thank you to the Adam Foundation for their generosity and Circa Theatre for their support. You can check out the photo gallery of the event on our Facebook page here. Lynn Freeman's Standing Room Only interview with Mitch is available here.

NEWS

WRITERS EARNING IN NEW ZEALAND REPORT
This year's report looks at how New Zealand writers earn from their writing and has again revealed that very few are able to make writing their full-time career. The Writers’ Earnings in New Zealand report, undertaken by Horizon Research and commissioned by Copyright Licensing New Zealand in conjunction with the NZ Society of Authors, NZ Writers’ Guild and Playmarket, follows on from the same research project completed in 2016.
The full report is available here.

CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations to Angie Farrow recently received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award at the Manawatū Regional Theatre Awards. It’s the latest in a gamut of prizes she has received over her career, in recognition of her outstanding creative output on topics as diverse as love, death, refugees, the plight of the Manawatū river and Kafka, as well as her commitment to community theatre and her skill and passion in teaching theatre. Read more here.

Congratulations to our clients who have been selected for the new initiative from Script to Screen to develop scripted stories for, and about, Pasifika and Asian peoples. Leki Jackson Bourke is attached to two projects, Queen Street and Sis, Vela Manusaute will be working on Brutal Lives and Benjamin Teh will be developing his project The Mackenzie Brothers.

Congratulations to Vincent O'Sullivan who has been shortlisted for the $53,000 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham Book Awards.

VALE PETER WELLS
We were saddened to hear of the passing of author, playwright and filmmaker Peter Wells MNZM. David Herkt's obituary for Peter is available to read here and Russell Baillie's tribute in the NZ Listener is available here.

2018 PLAYMARKET ANNUAL
Free to all subscribers, clients and associates and friends. If you'd like a copy just email us here.

OPPORTUNITIES

PLAYS FOR THE YOUNG COMPETITION 
We're searching for the best new plays to inspire and excite young audiences.  Let your imagination run riot! It could be an original story or an adaptation of a classic tale, hilarious or heartfelt. It could be a play for adults to perform to children or a play for young actors to perform themselves.  We’re also keen to read any work created specifically for the classroom, whether by teachers or students themselves.  There are three categories.
 Plays written for:

3 - 8 year-olds
8 - 12 year-olds
teenagers

See our website here for more details. 
Submissions close 1 August 2019

DUNEDIN WRITERS AND READERS FESTIVAL
9 - 12 MAY 2019
There's a lot of great stuff in this year's festival. The full line-up is available here. We're really keen on these two events.

Scripting the Storyworld
with Emily Duncan
Thursday 9 May 2019
“As writers we can fall into the trap of letting our characters serve the story,” says Emily Duncan (award-winning playwright/dramaturg and 2019 Burns Fellow). “They become mouth or chess pieces for a bigger setting or regime at the expense of their individual rich and dynamic stories.” In this workshop, she’ll lead participants – and their characters – through an escape plan. Best suited to those who already have an idea for a stage play or an early draft.
Tickets available here

Vincent O’Sullivan
Saturday 11 May 2019
One of the most talented shapeshifters of the New Zealand literary world, Vincent O’Sullivan is a poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, librettist, biographer, editor and critic. His latest work, the secret-laden family saga All This By Chance, is his first novel in 20 years and a frontrunner for this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Reviewer Nicholas Reid called it “as outstanding a novel as has been produced in this country in the last 10 years”. Fergus Barrowman will quiz O’Sullivan on his latest novel, his 60-year career and how he got so darned accomplished.
Tickets available here

PLAYMARKET GUIDELINES SERIES
We have a forthcoming title in the Playmarket Guidelines Series available later this month, Working Together: Safety, Respect and Wellbeing. This essential guide is divided into two parts: Fiona McNamara writing on Safety and Respect: Sexual Harm Prevention and Borni Te Rongopai Tukiwaho writing on Hauora / Wellbeing.
Previous titles in the Playmarket Guidelines Series are available for $5 here.

Writing or Devising Collaboratively by Hilary Beaton.
Providing practical advice and ways to ensure the rights of all those involved in your collaborative venture is protected.

Working Together: Theatre Producers, Writers and Makers by Claire O'Loughlin.
Providing guidelines for performing arts producers, writers and makers to work together in the most productive and healthy way, in order to have the best experience and produce the best work that they can.

Working Together: Cultural Practice in the Theatrespace by Nathan Gray.
This resource is for theatre companies and venues which have not had exposure to, or practice in engaging with Māori, Asian and Pacific cultures and suggests ways to work with practitioners onstage or in other capabilities in their buildings.

ARTICLES

WHO'S UP FOR A COURAGEOUS CONVERSATION?
Kate Powell for The Big Idea
In March, New Zealanders and media outlets alike found themselves struggling for words in the aftermath of an act of terror committed by a white supremacist against our Muslim whānau. 50 dead. 49 wounded. We were forced to confront the devastating ramifications of racism in our country. We had to consider the notion that this is indeed us.
Read more here

NO WORDS
Professor Peter O’Connor for The Big Idea
The arts will be the way we resist and claim back the spirit of who and what we might be as a nation.
Read more here

BURNS FELLOW EMILY DUNCAN REFUSES TO SLOW DOWN
Standing Room Only
Otago University's 2019 Burns Fellow Emily Duncan is working on a memoir as well as premiering and directing her play Le Sujet Parle as part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival.
Listen to it here

POLICY RECOGNITION NEEDED FOR PROVEN LINK BETWEEN PARTICIPATION IN THE ARTS AND ENHANCED WELL-BEING
Michael Moynahan for Creative New Zealand
Creative New Zealand is calling on policy and decision-makers to formally recognise the contribution the arts make to well-being and a better functioning community.
Read more here

A TALE OF TWO WEST SIDE STORIES: MUSICAL THEATRE TO HEAL YOUR SOUL, BUT IS IT WHITEWASHING?
Cassie Tongue for The Guardian
Two very different Australian productions of West Side Story spark debate about Clashing cultures.
Read more here

VANUATU'S WAN SMOLBAD - CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF Pacific Islander THEATRE
Nick Awde for The Stage
Wan Smolbag Theatre takes its name from ‘one small bag’ in Bislama, the South Pacific nation’s lingua franca. “It stems from our idea in the beginning to show that theatre could be made from what you could carry in a small suitcase,” says artistic director Peter Walker. And for a nation spread across 70 islands, that’s a handy ethic.
Read more here

FREEDOM TO STRUGGLE
Christy Romer for Arts Professional
Given the choice, few people would opt for a career defined by crushing workloads, financial instability and mental strain. Who’d be a freelancer in the arts in 2019?
Read more here

BROADWAY DIVERSITY IMPROVES FOR ALL BUT ASIAN AMERICANS, REPORT FINDS.
Chris Fuchs for NBC News
Asian Americans were the only minority group to see a drop in representation on New York City stages during the 2015-2016 season, according to a report.
Read more here

RISING FROM THE RUINS: A THEATRE PERSISTS IN GAZA
Micha Danney for American Theatre
Even after their building was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, the actors and artists of ASHTAR Theatre keep the show going.
Read more here

WHAT'S ON?

Middle Age Spread
by Roger Hall
Centrepoint Theatre 9 March - 14 April 2019
It’s 1978 New Zealand, three couples meet for a dinner party that none of them want to attend and the tension is palpable. Colin is anxious about his recent promotion and ever-expanding waistline, Judy is feeling uneasy about her future, and Reg is already halfway through the scotch. Can they keep their mid-life crises at a simmer, or will it all eventually boil over along with the fondue?

The Road that Wasn’t There
by Ralph McCubbin Howell
Tourmakers National Tour 2 April - 23 May 2019
In New Zealand, there are some 56,000 kilometres of paper roads – streets and towns that exist only on surveyors’ maps. Or do they? A young woman strays from the beaten track and finds herself in a paper world. It seems to be a land of possibility, but she soon discovers that things that happen in the fictional world can have frighteningly real consequences.

The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate
by Margaret Many, adapted by Tim Bray, songs by Christine White
Tim Bray Productions at The Pumphouse 6 - 28 April 2019
Ahoy me’ hearties! Margaret Mahy's rollicking and funny pirate adventure, which makes for a brilliant family outing. The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate tells the story of Sam, an ordinary man who wears an ordinary suit and who works in an ordinary office. But his mother is an extraordinary mother – she’s a pirate and yearns to see the sea again.

This Long Winter
by Sarah Delahunty
BATS 10 - 20 April 2019
Shakespeare’s women have had it rough. It’s time for a change. Thought to be dead, Hermione (A Winter’s Tale) has escaped from jail and is searching for her lost daughter. On the road she meets fierce wahine toa dealing with their sh*t narratives. It’s time to start rewriting these women’s stories from a new perspective. An intelligent, poignant and remarkably funny play.

The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate
by Margaret Many, adapted by Tim Bray, songs by Christine White
Kidzstuff Theatre at the Tararua Tramping Club 13 - 26 April 2019
Sam be an ordinary man - and his Mum be anything but ordinary, she be a Pirate! Sam has never seen the sea, his Mum reckons he should. Do you? We think it be time for ye to sea! Grab ye eye patches, fasten ye belt buckles and transform ye selves into scallywag pirates. This be a story about fun, silliness, freedom, Mums, wheelbarrows and sons.

Luncheon
by Aroha Awarau
The Court Theatre Fresh Ink Reading 14 April 2019
The cameras are ready to catch all the glamour of the 1958 Academy Awards, the first Oscars to ever be televised. Four days before the ceremony, the five women competing for Best Supporting Actress get together for a 'cordial’ luncheon. Sometimes the real show happens before the cameras are turned on.

Paper Shaper
by Peter Wilson and Tim Denton
Little Dog Barking at Circa 16 - 27 April 2019
A charming story about a mischievous little man who lives in a rubbish bin.What happens to that little when no-one is looking? He creates a whole universe out of people’s paper, with a paper sun, paper trees, paper flowers and paper butterflies. When a long-faced man visits the paper shaper’s park for a picnic, the two start out as opponents, but soon become playmates and finally, friends.

How to be a Great White Man
by Natasha Lay
A Fresh Off The Page Reading by Proudly Asian Theatre 17 April 2019
Inspired by her 14-year-old self's ambition to leave a legacy like the white men in the history books along with a past vow to never sleep with, let alone date, a cisgender, heterosexual white man - Natasha Lay's play is a romp through issues of identity, reflecting on the ways we look at ourselves and others, and an attempt at measuring the space between our past and future selves.

MoodPorn
by Matthew Loveranes
Red Scare at BATS 23 April - 4 May 2019
Atlas and Jane are long lost friends from uni. It’s been years since they last saw each other and each are percolating some long-harboured secrets and passions. Seeing each other again seems to trigger an outflowing of emotion, some of it unwanted, and what comes out isn’t always pretty.

Badjelly the Witch
adapted by Alannah O’Sullivan from the book by Spike Milligan
Centrepoint Theatre 26 - 27 April 2019
Tim and Rose have lost their cow Lucy. She left tracks that lead into the big, black, scary forest that they aren’t supposed to enter! Together, with the help of Binklebonk, Mudwiggle, and Dinglemouse they must rescue Lucy from the clutches of Badjelly the Witch before she is eaten! Follow Centrepoint Theatre’s Basement Company as they embark on this iconic adventure.

The Gangster’s Paradise
by Leki Jackson Bourke
Auckland Theatre Company 26 - 30 April 2019
Wannabe gangster, Jayden is on the verge of being expelled from St. Coolio High until Brother G offers him a way out… by taking the lead role in the school production of West Side Story. Award-winning playwright Leki Jackson Bourke turns musical tropes on their head in this hilarious South Auckland redemption story with savage smack, rap and krumping.

My Best Dead Friend
by Anya Tate-Manning
Zanetti Productions at Southland Arts Festival 1 - 2 May 2019
December 1998. Dunedin. High summer in a town where there isn’t a lot to do. This is a comedy about death, revolution, unfulfilled love; and a possum. With music ranging from The Verlaines to the Backstreet Boys, My Best Dead Friend is a nostalgic, bitter-sweet comedy that celebrates friendship and the challenges of growing up, even if you are not really ready to.

Conversations with Dead Relatives
by Phil Ormsby
Flaxworks at Circa Theatre 1 - 11 May 2019
Stories, we all have them. You know the ones. Epic and incredible family stories passed down through generations about warriors, princesses, ratbags, preachers and visionaries. Stories that tell us where we came from and who we are. Maybe. And like all good stories there are clashes of ideals, epic adventures and romantic tales of love and hope. These are the stories of our ancestors.

An Unseasonable Fall of Snow
by Gary Henderson
Simple Truth Theatre at Orange Studio, Christchurch 4 May 2019
A bewildered young man is questioned by a ruthless interrogator, who circles like a predator, forcing him closer and closer to an awful admission. A compelling investigation of truth, consequences, and the ultimate value of human life.

Middle Age Spread
by Roger Hall
Tadpole Productions at The Pumphouse 9 - 19 May 2019
New Zealand in the late 1970s was another planet – big hair, bell bottom trousers, carless days – and cheese fondue the dish du jour…. three couples meet for a dinner party none of them really want to attend. As the evening progresses and the mid-life crises are exposed, it becomes a journey down memory lane, or an entertaining history lesson for the social media set of today.

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