September 25, 2009

WELLINGTON PREMIERE PLAY PRODUCTIONS BOOM AS WRITE OUT LOUD RETURNS

Write Out Loud  
New works by Wellington playwrights
Circa 2, Saturday October 3

Wellington is currently enjoying a boom of New Zealand play premieres. There are new New Zealand plays in all major theatres, with work by Jo Randerson, Roger Hall, Lucy O’Brien, and Vanessa Rhodes in this month alone. Two of these plays were first presented last spring as part of Playmarket’s Write Out Loud Wellington (WOL), a weekend of rehearsed readings. WOL returns this October introducing Wellington audiences to readings of two exciting new works; guaranteed to further shake up new theatre production in Wellington.

Write Out Loud at Circa 2 on Saturday October 3 sees two new plays presented by teams of Wellington’s finest theatre practitioners. The weekend’s focus is to nurture relationships between writers, actors, directors and our theatres, with the support of Wellington City Council, so that Wellington writers get to see the high quality productions that they deserve.

From last year’s programme Where Are You, My Only One? by Vanessa Rhodes, is now showing at Circa 2 and Postal by Lucy O’Brien at BATS Theatre.  

Write out Loud is presented with the support of Wellington City Council and Circa Theatre.

Saturday October 3
1pm Holding On by Gavin McGibbon
A drama about a therapy group and how these people deal with grief, loss and phone sex in their own special way.

3pm Sketch by Kate Morris
Helped by a spirited artist, a terminally ill woman put her last days on display in an art gallery.

PLAYWRIGHTS BIOS

Gavin McGibbon

In 2003 Gavin graduated from the New Zealand Film School. In 2005 he completed his M.A. in Scriptwriting under Ken Duncum. In 2006 had his first play staged After Service which went on to open the Dark Room Theatre at Centrepoint, this was followed by a short Radio Play Captive Truths which was produced and broadcasted by Radio New Zealand.

In 2007 his second play was produced Stand Up Love which was commissioned into a feature length radio play by Radio New Zealand and broadcasted on National Radio. In 2008 Gavin had two plays hit the stage Shipwrecked Beneath the Stars and Handy Man. He was also part of the Wellington Write Out Loud 2008 with his play Under the Hood. He currently studies at Victoria University at the school of Modern Letters and works as a film tutor.

Kate Morris

Kate Morris is a three-time NZ Young Playwright winner, holds an MA in Scriptwriting from Victoria’s International Institute of Modern Letters and was the NZ delegate for World Interplay in August of this year held in Cairns.  She was voted favorite new writer at the 2006 Gibson Awards (NZ Comic Book Awards) for her commissioned work on Otago Museum’s Cosmix project, has had work published in Pictozine, is currently developing a piece with Capital E, and about to begin a big screen adaptation of the New Zealand novel Breakwater by Kate Duignan.

Playmarket is New Zealand’s only playwrights agency.