The Next Stage - Annual Festival Of New Work

THE NEXT STAGE 12 – 16 October
Media Briefing

The Next Stage is Auckland Theatre Company Literary Unit’s annual festival of new work. Three new plays are selected for a week long workshop exploration and then revealed to audiences as work-in-progress in a short public season at The Musgrove Studio.

Dave Armstrong’s 2010 hit LE SUD, Victor Rodger’s acclaimed MY NAME IS GARY COOPER, Geoff Chapple’s HATCH and WHERE WE ONCE BELONGED have all been developed through this process and had their Auckland premiere productions presented by ATC.

The Plays

OUR MAORIS
Inspired by the memoir by Lady Ann Martin, wife of New Zealand’s first Chief Justice.
By Arthur Meek

A crippled English woman arrives in a savage land charged with civilising the natives and instead, discovers the key to her own liberation.

VILLAGE PEOPLE
By Victor Rodger

Four estranged half-Samoan siblings, come from all corners of the world to Samoa to celebrate the youngest becoming a matai and confront their difficult relationships with each other, their shared past, and Samoa itself.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT DAD
By Stephen Sinclair

Geoff comes home from hospital after a stroke, convinced things will soon be back to normal; but all around him, family members and business associates are sharpening their knives ..

The Playwrights
ARTHUR MEEK
A graduate of Toi Whakaari: The New Zealand Drama School and The University of Otago Arthur has written a steady stream of work for stage, screen and radio over the last ten years.
In 2009 the Downstage season of his play Collapsing Creation, about Charles Darwin won four Chapmann Tripp Theatre Awards, including Best Production, Best New Play and Best New Playwright. His 2008 show On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, co-written with Geoff Pinfield and Richard Meros, played to packed houses on its n ational tour, garnering a 'Production of the Year' nomination at The Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.
Arthur was a founding member of musical comedy band The Lonesome Buckwhips and was chief writer on Live at the Gold Guitars, their series for Radio New Zealand. Other writing includes the Young and Hungry commissioned play Yolk (2008), and several short films. Most recently Arthur is the co-creator, co-writer and anchor of the TVNZ satirical newscast, Feedback.
VICTOR RODGER
Christchurch-born Victor Rodger is of Samoan and Scottish descent. His first play Sons won Chapman Tripp Awards for Best New Play and Best New Writer in 1998 and he was awarded the Bruce Mason Playwrights’ Award in 2001. Other plays are Cunning Stunts (1997) and Ranterstantrum (2002), which was part of the International New Zealand Festival of the Arts, directed by Colin McColl. Auckland Theatre Company premiered his acclaimed My Name is Gary Cooper in 2008.

Since 2000 Victor has written for Shortland Street. He has been the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Island Writer in Residence at the University of Hawaii and was the 2009 Writer in Residence at Canterbury University. A graduate of Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School and he has also worked as a journalist in New Zealand and abroad.

STEPHEN SINCLAIR.
Stephen has been writing for the stage and screen for over twenty years. His hit comedy Ladies Night (co-written with Anthony McCarten), which won the Moliere Award in France for Best Stage Comedy of 2001, continues to be performed throughout Europe and South America, and is currently touring in Canada and the UK. The very successful Auckland Theatre Company production of The Bach enjoyed three return seasons and the play went on to be produced throughout New Zealand. The Bellbird featured in for the Auckland Theatre Company’s 2002 programme.

He has had a long screenwriting partnership with Academy Award winners Sir Peter Jackson and Frances Walsh, notably on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Recently he was commissioned by Peter and Fran to write a screenplay adaptation of his children’s story Bartholomew’s Birthday. He has written and directed several short films, and recently completed his first feature, Russian Snark, which premiered at the 2010 Auckland Film Festival and has been nominated for a number of awards in the 2010 Qantas New Zealand Film and Television Awards.

ENDS

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