April 1, 2008

BREAKING NEWS: SAM NEILL TO HEAD DOWNSTAGE
– HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY TO ALL! – [this phrase added late April 1] 
As Catherine Downes heads north (from Wellington to Waiheke Island and an Auckland-based freelance career as an actor and director), Sam Neill is poised to come north from his Gibbston Valley (Otago) Two Paddocks vineyard to revitalise Wellington’s Downstage Theatre as its new Artistic Director.

It was amid widespread industry consultation about the future direction of Downstage that Cathy Downes happened to catch up, in Melbourne, with her old university and Downstage late-night revue colleague John (Fred Dagg) Clarke. Sam Neill (Clarke’s partner in Huntaway Films) was also there and the conversation about Downstage’s future provoked him to reassess his career and lifestyle.

While yet to be officially announced, reliable sources suggest the appointment is largely inspired by the precedent of Cate Blanchett becoming artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company. There is no doubt her public profile has elevated awareness of the STC enormously. "It’s all about marketing," said an unnamed source. "Who would have booked for Blackbird at the International Arts Festival if Cate Blanchett had not directed it? Would it have even been scheduled? And does it matter that it was her first time directing a full-length play?"

Now past his ‘three score years’ and into his seventh decade of life, Sam is keen to put something back into the community that first nurtured his creative spirit. His theatrical pedigree – dating back to when he still used his actual name, Nigel – includes involvement in Ngaio Marsh’s celebrated Christchurch productions of Shakespeare, playing Roux in the infamous 1970 Downstage season of Mervyn Thompson’s University of Canterbury Dramatic Society production of Marat/Sade and touring for a year with the New Zealand Players Drama Quartet, which some may argue was as good as any drama school course.

Even when he worked as an editor, narrator and director with the National Film Unit, his activities included a documentary on the Red Mole theatre troupe. And over that time, Sam remained involved as an actor in fringe theatre and short films. He is not the first screen actor to say that his creative soul is rooted in live theatre, and that is where all the great actors, directors, writers, designers and technicians learn the most important lessons of their craft, facing their audiences in real time and space.

The word is that Sam is fully committed to the vision of Downstage becoming a major development centre for new NZ work and a production house for homegrown plays old and new. To this end he plans to make his Two Paddocks vineyard facilities available for intensive residential development workshops, bringing his knowledge of the craft of wine-making to the theatrical process, aiming to turn what might otherwise have been a "quaffable plonk" into a highly valued vintage.

From 21 April to 3 May, while the theatre is ‘dark’ and once he has relocated to Wellington, Sam will be having a ‘play’ (if not an actual play) in the space to realign himself to the live theatre dynamic, and inviting people in to audition and otherwise pitch their skills and ideas. Rather than solo auditions, he would rather see groups of people do excerpts from recent or even long past productions. Theatre is as much, if not more, about interacting than solo acting so that’s what he wants to evaluate.

Then, from 6 to 10 May, Downstage presents The Pick of the Fringe @ Downstage followed (30 May – 28 June) by Irish playwright Geraldine Aron’s My Brilliant Divorce with Ginette McDonald, directed by Geraldine Brophy.  In the wind to follow is a brand new New Zealand play …

Forum responses to this April Fools Day jape may be found under ‘Jen Lal must be gutted‘ and ‘New director at Downstage‘.