THE PLAYMARKET eBULLETIN - MAY 2013
News and opportunities for New Zealand Playwrights.

eBULLETIN
MAY 2013

“A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”
Edward Albee

Kia ora <<First Name>>

A shortlist comprising ten selected submissions for the Playwrights b4 25 Competition is announced below. The ten plays cover a wide range of topics and forms. From a play with a cast list that includes a cloud to one that includes playwright Caryl Churchill as a character; from a satirical musical about contemporary politics, a poetic exploration of being a young queen, and being stuck in an elevator, to a play that presents internet conversation threads in a physical way. These are strong plays to narrow down to the final winner; an announcement will be made in the next bulletin.

Plans are developing for the series of play readings and workshops we will be running in Auckland in July with the title Under Construction. We have just secured an Australian playwriting tutor for a day-long workshop but full details will be announced next month.

A Moment or Two, a play by Arun Subramanium, and the winner of our inaugural Asian Ink competition last year, had a deferred clinic last weekend and the participants were all excited by this short play. We eagerly look forward to reading this year’s submissions. Entries have been arriving for this year’s Brown Ink too. There are only three weeks to get your entries in so don’t delay. More info is posted below.

Aneta will be taking maternity leave from her Licensing Administrator role in a few weeks. We will miss her from the office but we wish her the best for her time caring for her new arrival. In the next bulletin we will be able to announce who will be fulfilling those duties for the twelve months that she will be on leave.

Meanwhile there are clinics underway for plays that are soon to be seen in professional production; new plays are arriving and being assessed, licences are flowing out the door and contractual matters are under negotiation. There are also three publications in progress with our partners at Whitireia publishing course and the Playmarket Annual is also in preparation and the weather has definitely changed - how quickly the year goes by…

Nga mihi mahana
Murray Lynch - Director of Playmarket

NEWS

b4 25 COMPETITION SHORTLIST
Playmarket is excited to announce the Shortlist for our b4 25 competition.

Ben Anderson - Just Above The Clouds
Sam Brooks - Another Dead Fag and Queen
Adam Goodall - Rageface
Patrick Hunn - Modern Bodies
Jess Sayer - Elevator and Speak
Amber Snell - Face to Face
Finn Teppett - Reading Lamouche
Cassandra Tse - Right Dishonourable

Each shortlisted playwright will be offered some development assistance. b4 25 is open to any New Zealand citizen/permanent resident aged 24 and under at time of application. Winners will be announced in the June eBulletin.

BROWN INK AND ASIAN INK: SCRIPTS WANTED

Submissions close Friday 31 May 2013. For more details or contact Script Advisor Stuart Hoar here or click on the images above.

SALLY MARKHAM MNZM

We were very sad to hear of the passing of Sally Markham on Tuesday 9 April 2013. Sally was a brilliant arts educator, teacher, patron, consultant and administrator.
You can read tributes from Sam Scott, Artistic Director of Massive Company here and from Kerry Lynch, former Drama New Zealand President, here.

AUCKLAND WRITERS & READERS FESTIVAL 2013

150 guests from New Zealand and around the world will appear in more than 100 events in the largest programme of writers and sessions yet presented at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival from 15 – 19 May 2013.
We're particularly excited about Play Relay. Auckland Theatre Company’s Literary Unit, in partnership with the Festival, presents an insight into the process of playwriting. Three playwrights, one shared play written especially for the Festival over six hours and then read by the writers themselves.
Saturday 18 May 2013 10am – 7:30pm, Aotea Centre. FREE
Read more here

OPPORTUNITIES

PLAYS FOR THE YOUNG 
 A competition to find strong, original and inventive writing for young people! From those new to writing for the young, and the experienced, from  adaptations of fairy tales for tiny children, to plays written by teachers especially for the classroom, to the most searing explorations of adolescence written by teenagers themselves.
Submissions close Wednesday 31 July 2013
See here for more information.

TE TIRA TA MAI TE UPOKO
Having the support of a writers' group can be invaluable to the development of a playwright and their work - it is a place where you can debate ideas, learn new skills and, most importantly, hear your work.
Playmarket’s new writers' group for Maori and Pasifika playwrights in the Wellington region will be meeting every second Saturday of the month at Playmarket's Wellington office.
The next meeting is 11 May 2013 11am - 1pm.
Please come along with your ideas, work and kai to share. For more details contact Whiti Hereaka here.

ROBERT LORD COTTAGE RESIDENCY
Robert Lord's worker's cottage in Dunedin is run as a rent-free residency for writers.
To date, playwrights who have lived and worked there include Gary Henderson, Renee, Jan Bolwell, Vanessa Rhodes, Vincent O'Sullivan, Branwen Millar and Paul Rothwell.
To apply for the residencies in 2013 send your cv and a statement of the project you propose to work on to Murray Lynch.
Applications close Monday 1 July 2013
Read more here

THE ROBERT BURNS FELLOWSHIP
The Robert Burns Fellowship is New Zealand's premiere literary residency. The annual, 12-month Fellowship provides an office in the English Department and not less than the minimum salary of a full-time university lecturer. It is open to writers of poetry, drama, fiction, biography, autobiography, essays or literary criticism who are normally resident in New Zealand, and who, in the opinion of the Selection Committee, have established by their published work, or otherwise, that their writing would benefit from their holding the Fellowship.
Read more here
Applications close 1 June 2013

CIRCA THEATRE ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR 2014 PROGRAMME
The Circa Council is currently encouraging submissions from established professional theatre directors to be considered for the 2014 Circa Theatre programme. There will be a Pitch Presentation Day on Saturday, 20 July, at which Circa will invite those submissions of interest to present.
Submissions will be accepted until Friday 14 June 2013 for inclusion in the Pitch Day.
Read more here

BANANA BOAT
Banana Boat, a loose bunch of Pasifika and Maori writers, meets once a month to share and share alike. The next fono is at Toi Ora Live Art Studio, 6 Putiki St, Grey Lynn on Thursday 23 May 2013 at 7pm.
Read more here

SCREENWRITING WORKSHOPS
Kathryn Burnett’s popular Auckland workshops continue throughout 2013. See her website here for courses and dates including Beginner’s Guide to Screenwriting, a two day intensive designed to demystify the nuts and bolts of screenwriting.

READ RAW – AUCKLAND PLAYWRIGHTS’ COLLECTIVE
Red Raw is back for 2013 and looking for new full-length plays for rehearsed readings in front of an audience.   Read Raw focuses on the writer and the writer’s development process ensuring that the one-day workshop, public reading and discussion session is a positive experience providing the writer with the necessary assistance to move onto the next draft of the play and eventually a theatre production.
Read more here

DANZ
Dance Aotearoa New Zealand has released their Professional Development Programme for 2013 including the DRIVE/ARAHI cross-sector arts networking events. Read more here

CLNZ/NZSA RESEARCH GRANTS
CLNZ/NZSA Research Grants are now open for 2013 applications. The first grant (for either fiction or non-fiction) will be for a fellowship at the Stout Centre in Wellington. In addition to the $3500 this grant offers a residential fellowship at the Stout Research Centre at Victoria University for up to three months.
The open research grant, also for a $3,500 award for fiction or non-fiction, will be awarded to a project-based application where the applicant is able to specify where the research is to take place.
For more information visit the NZSA website here or contact the National office here
Submissions close 26 June 2013

ARTICLES

HOW GREAT PLAYS ARE (EVENTUALLY) MADE
Jessica Goldstein for The Washington Post
Five nominees for the 2013 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical discuss the evolution of their scripts from earliest draft to opening night. “It’s easy to forget when you see a play that what you’re watching didn’t spring fully formed out of somebody’s forehead. At first, it’s a rough draft, with the emphasis on rough. Writing takes forever. Rewriting takes a few back-to-back forevers”.
Read more here

MY DRAMA: GETTING A NEW PLAY STAGED IS ALL COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
Steven Levingston for The Washington Post
“About three years ago I did something that only a puffed-up fool would do: I wrote a play. For three weeks I was maniacal about it, and when I dropped the final curtain I nodded my head knowingly — this baby was a winner: All I had to do was get the script into the right hands, and before I could belt out.
Thus began my tale of what Eugene O’Neill might call a lunatic’s pipe dream, a story of innocence, hope and crushing neglect”.
Read more here

SIR NICHOLAS HYTNER: ARTS ARE ECONOMIC GOLD FOR BRITAIN
Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr for The Telegraph
UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller says arts organisations must make the case for their economic worth. Well, here it is.
Read more here

IS NEW WRITING RIPE FOR POLITICISATION?
Fin Kennedy for The Stage
In a year in which arts and culture are being attacked from all sides, caught in a perfect storm of government cuts, local authority cuts, audiences with less to spend and ferocious competition for what philanthropy remains, British theatre is finally beginning to mobilise against the government.
Read more here

THE WRITER’S TECHNIQUE IN THIRTEEN THESES: WALTER BENJAMIN’S TIMELESS ADVICE ON WRITING
Maria Popova for Brain Pickings
The legendary German literary critic, philosopher, and essayist Walter Benjamin offers thirteen essentials of the writer’s technique.
Read more here

A selection of articles from The Humana Festival of New American Plays.

WHAT THE HELL IS A DRAMATURG?
Suzi Steffen for engine31
An attempt to squeeze the job description into one sentence, or one tweet - with some associated questions about why it's not dramaturge.
Read more here

SEE ME AFTER CLASS: PAULA VOGEL ON PLAYWRIGHTS AS TEACHERS
Chris Arnott for engine31
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel has taught for over twenty years in universities and reflects on her relationship with her students past and present and the role of mentor.
Read more here

PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST: NEW MEANING AT HUMANAFEST
Anthony Byrnes for engine31
Have America’s playwrights despaired of life as an artist? Anthony Byrnes surveys the plays in this year’s Humana Festival and finds the image of the artist in the plays is not only unfulfilled but also profoundly dark.
Read more here

WHAT'S ON?

Shop ‘Til You Drop
By Alison Quigan and Ross Gumbley
Centrepoint 13 April – 25 May 2013
Six strangers, two hotel rooms, one eventful Aussie weekend! Three couples embark on an epic misadventure on a trip to Oz over Bledisloe Cup weekend. Even the best-laid plans go hilariously awry in this classic comedy.

You Can Always Hand Them Back
By Roger Hall with music and lyrics by Peter Skellern
Fortune Theatre 27 April – 25 May 2013
Follow Maurice and Cath as they settle into enjoying their retirement. Instead of luxuriating in the precious time they have to spend by themselves however - with the birth of their long-awaited first grandchild - they find themselves dodging dirty nappies, dealing with sleep deprivation and becoming providers of a free babysitting service.

Midnight in Moscow
By Dean Parker
Circa 11 May – 8 June 2013
Lunches, hunches, romance and the occasional whiff of home. In the NZ Embassy in Moscow in 1947 the staff must question their loyalty to themselves, their friends, and their country, when suspicions arise that someone is leaking classified information.

Patua
By Renae Maihi
TAPAC 15 May – 26 May 2013
Two year old baby Moni lies in hospital beaten to within an inch of her life, a life wrought with poverty, desperation and broken hearts. In the end, justice will be done, utu will be exacted and a baby will be laid to rest, her life not in vain. Winner of the 2013 Adam NZ Play Award for Best Play by a Maori Author.

No Holds Bard
By Natalie Medlock and Daniel Musgrove
Downstage 16 May – 1 June 2013
The show is over, the audience has left, and Hamlet comes home to his dingy flat to face the final curtain. But can he make up his mind to do it? Hilarity ensues when Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello arrive to help the hapless prince decide whether or not to be or not to be… or not.

Coaltown Blues
By Mervyn Thompson
BATS 28 May - 1 June 2013
Originally written and performed by Mervyn Thompson, Coaltown Blues is an intensely personal play with music. It depicts both the tragedy and comedy of poverty, politics and struggles throughout Thompson's childhood in a West Coast mining town. It is both a celebration of and a lament for the working class roots from which he sprang.