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eBULLETIN APRIL 2012
I want Australian work, in all its diversity to form the core of our national theatre. I want it to be the main game. This is not an argument for the exclusivity of an all-Australian program. I think that what Sam Strong is doing at Griffin by continuing its tradition of introducing new Australian work whilst revisiting the company's own canon is smart. The curatorial approach to programming is strong and clear. But I would argue for the same approach to be taken by all the major companies. I would argue that Australian work should be their core business and international work the support act.
Some would argue that I am being parochial. I disagree. I believe that our work is good enough. I believe that our work is important enough. I believe that our work is diverse enough to occupy the core position of what we do. And it is only by being the central focus that it will continue to grow in strength.
Andrew Bovell (Australian Playwright/Screenwriter/tutor)
Kia ora <<First Name>>
A healthy dose of new work is opening around the country right now and last month’s International Arts Festival in Wellington revealed a strong showing of local plays. This year’s professional calendars are presenting more NZ plays than ever; Arts festivals around the country are announcing programmes containing more local productions; Fringe Festivals in Wellington and Dunedin were packed with new plays; there are some fine commissions on the way; there are regular play readings happening in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin and some soon to be announced in Wellington; there were several exciting pitches in the Auckland Festival’s Watch This Space programme recently; and Playmarket is providing development assistance to each of the auspicious works shortlisted for the Adam NZ Play Award. All of this reveals a pretty healthy climate for playwrights.
Of course there are many more plays than can get onstage at any one time and many frustrated client playwrights struggle to get their work in front of that person who will click with their play and produce or direct it. We do our best to circulate plays to the most appropriate prospective producers but welcome ideas you may have, particularly names of any person or organisation that might like to receive our occasional lists promoting new plays and those from the canon to be considered for staging.
In this bulletin’s Opportunites section you’ll find more avenues for getting your play read and news of Playmarket’s meeting recently with the Film Commission to partner in opening more doors for playwrights. There’s more information on this below and there will also be new initiatives between the Film Commission and Playmarket that will be revealed in the future.
We have received a record number of entries in the Playwrights b4 25 from playwrights of the future. We are currently reading and assessing these. An announcement is due in our June bulletin.
Playwrights please remember to update your bio with us. You’d be surprised how often your page is visited on our website and we’d love your information to be up to date. Contact Aneta.
Does anyone have a copy of Playlunch: five Short NZ Plays (Otago Studies in English, No.4)? It is now out of print. Playmarket has sold the last copy we had and we don’t have one for our library. We’d love to buy one.
It’s a bulging edition of the bulletin this month. Read and enjoy before you pop yourself in front of the computer to continue writing your next play.
Nga mihi mahana
Murray Lynch
Director of Playmarket
PLAYMARKET is pleased to announce the
ADAM NZ PLAY AWARD winner 2012:
Mitch Tawhi Thomas for his play HUI
"Hui's characters are ones that have been absent from our stages. This testosterone fuelled provocation invites the male population to look closely at themselves." says Director of Playmarket Murray Lynch who announced the win at Circa Theatre on 24 April 2012 alongside four other special award winners.
Best Play by a Maori Playwright: Mitch Tawhi Thomas for Hui
Runner-Up and Best Play by a Woman 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
A rehearsed reading of Hui followed the announcement.
Read more here
PLAYMARKET PLAYWRIGHTS' RETREAT
18 – 25 June 2012.
The Retreat is a chance to focus on your writing in a distraction free, comfortable and inspiring environment. There will be NO cooking or cleaning to do, NO T.V. or internet to distract, nothing to organise or prepare and no deadlines to meet.
It is just a time to write.
We are now accepting submissions so visit our website here for further information and submission details.
Submissions close 23 April 2012
CONGRATULATIONS TO...
Pip Hall - The first recipient of the Rebecca Mason Coaching sessions for 2012.
Dianna Fuemana - off to the Solomon Islands to stage her new play Birds at the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts in July this year.
Jeff Kingsford-Brown - appointed the new Artistic Director of Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North.
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Highlights of the Festival include an hour with prize winning and Booker-nominated Irish novelist, playwright and poet, Sebastian Barry; Kathryn Burnett's popular “directed creativity” sessions; an hour with expat New Zealand writer, scriptwriter and film director Anthony McCarten and ATC's reading of Stuart Hoar's Exile.
The 2012 programme is now online here.
STAGE TO SCREEN:
Playmarket and the NZ Film Commission
Playmarket and the New Zealand Film Commission’s Development team have been brainstorming ways to bridge the gap between stage and screen for working writers. The team conveyed a strong desire to work with more playwrights to develop complementary screenwriting careers, whether through creating new work specifically for screen or adapting existing plays for cinema. The NZFC is excited by the potential to work more closely with Playmarket and see this as win-win for writers.
Playmarket and the NZFC are now developing a number of initiatives aimed at supporting professional development and project opportunities for dramatic writers in New Zealand. In the interim, the NZFC encourages writers interested in developing projects for cinema to review the NZFC Development guidelines on their website and/or contact NZFC Development Coordinator, Faith Dennis with any queries and for guidance on the most appropriate steps to take.
(Playmarket will also be suggesting work that we feel might have feature film potential, so get in touch with us directly if you are keen for us to submit work on your behalf, or would like advice.)
When the NZFC reviews short story documents, its team looks for a clear sense of the story as the audience would see this unfold. It’s not about camera directions, it’s about capturing on the page the experience of engaging with the story in a visual way, rather than resorting to extensive dialogue or prose elements that explicate internal mental/emotional states but which an audience could not observe, intuit or feel. They are looking for simple, present tense, active language that is spare, visually evocative (without being florid) and avoids getting bogged down in scene detail at the expense of an unfolding, organic narrative.
New Zealand Writers Guild Treatment Workshops
The NZWG has been running a number of these recently with writers/script consultants Steve Barr and Kathryn Burnett. We encourage you to join the NZWG and to engage with these sessions. The NZWG website also includes a useful Beginners Guide for Film.
Script Factory
The NZFC has licensed a Foundation Script Development Training Workshop from the Script Factory, a leading UK-based private development training agency. This is a free two-weekend workshop for writers, developers, creative producers and all those who work with story. It’s now run by the NZWG and sessions are held throughout the country as demand and convenor scheduling permit. Contact Steven at the NZWG for more details or see the NZFC website for an overview of the format.
ARTICLES
Why Isn't Theatre Dead Yet?
Radio New Zealand Arts on Sunday
A panel recorded at the recent New Zealand International Arts Festival Writers and Readers Week in Wellington, debating the premise that theatre is dead. Ken Duncum, teacher of Victoria University’s scriptwriting course, led a discussion with playwrights and screenwriters Dave Armstrong and Robert Shearman.
Listen here.
Rethinking Intellectual Property
Isaac Butler for HowlRound
"There is a general sense—both within creative communities and the public at large—that efforts by large corporations to control their intellectual property have gotten out of hand."
Read more here
Arts Cuts - England
Nick Collins for The Telegraph
Some of England's leading independent theatres are facing an uncertain future after more than 200 organisations were told their Arts Council funding will be withdrawn. Some 1,333 arts companies applied for funding but from next April the Arts Council's portfolio of 849 regularly funded organisations will be slashed to just 695, which includes 110 new additions.
The settlement means hundreds of groups now have a year in which to find new sources of funding, restructure their finances or close entirely.
Read the full article here
Joining forces - the mother of invention
Michaela Boland for The Australian
When corporate Australia stumbled, and private donors watched their fortunes ebb and flow, arts companies who were reliant on their donations were forced to adjust expectations. Artistic Directors and major companies in Australia are now working together to create more opportunities for local talent.
Read more here
Write what you know - the most misunderstood piece of good advice ever
Nathan Englander on Big Think
The critically acclaimed author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank says that “write what you know” is one of the best and most misunderstood pieces of advice, ever. It paralyzes aspiring authors into thinking that authenticity in fiction means thinly veiled autobiography. If you’re a drunken, brawling adventurer, like Hemingway, no problem. But Englander, who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community of West Hempstead, New York, says he spent a lot of his childhood watching TV, playing videogames, and dreaming about being a writer. Was he required to write about the Atari 2600?
Read the full article here
ACE and BBC Theatre content online
The Stage News
Bristol Old Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe and Sadler’s Wells will be among the first companies to create theatre content for a new online arts channel being launched by Arts Council England and the BBC. The channel, called The Space, will launch on 1 May and will be available via PCs, smartphones, tablets and internet-connected televisions.
Read more here
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Congratulations to last month's winner Erin Banks who correctly guessed Squatter by Stuart Hoar and won a copy of Playmarket's latest publication Katydid
This month's From the Archives is in honour of NZ stage legend Grant Tilly, who passed away this week.
"Grant Tilly is magnificent and poignant in this Herculean role, one moment a monster, the next a devoted friend, one moment a child, the next a man alone" Lynn Freeman
What is the play? See here for competition details and to enter the draw to win a copy of the play.
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