Past Playwrights

Young and Hungry has been very fortunate to have worked with some of New Zealand’s most talented playwrights.  Many have gone on to earn prestigious awards as well as national and international acclaim.  We want to continue to celebrate and promote New Zealand work, so if you’re a past Young and Hungry playwright, let us know what you’ve been up to and we’ll share it with our friends!

Jackie Van Beek

Born in Twizel, 1976. Educated in Johnsonville 1981-1993.
Jackie works as a writer, actor, director, script adviser and teacher. She is a client writer of Playmarket Inc., a member of the NZ Writers’ Guild and a member of Actors’ Equity. She is represented by Auckland Actors.

Jackie came out of school and went straight into acting. She moved quickly into devising her own work and branched out into writing plays. Her commissioned works include, The Forcemeat Incident for Young and Hungry, The Swimming Lessons for Silo theatre and Space Migrant for Ohio Northern University.

Jackie is one half of Geeks and Snakes, a company dedicated to developing and producing films. They have just completed their first short, As Far as I Know and are currently working on their feature, Bruiser.

She enjoys performing in theatre, film and radio. Her recent roles include: incestuous salsa dance instructors, evil Scandinavian schoolmistresses, bearded ladies and super-strong swimming worms.

Over the past few of years, Jackie has worked as a script adviser with devising companies and emerging playwrights. She taught drama and playwriting in Auckland and stepped into a directing role to work on Crash Mat for Silo Theatre’s Open Home season before touring with My Brother and I Are Pornstars.

Jackie lives in Melbourne with her husband Jesse and daughter June.

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Kathryn Van Beek

Kathryn is a graduate of UNITEC’s School of Perfroming and Screen Arts where she majored in writing.

Kathryn is a winner of many of The National Young Playwrights’ Competion and has successfully staged her work at the Wellington Fringe Festival.

In 2002 she is working towards her Masters at Victoria University’s Institute of Modern Letters.

Her new play The Language of Angels is in development work with the Auckland Theatre Company’s 2econd Unit.

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Craig Thaine

Craig has been writing since 1980 when his first work, a children’s play, Gruzzlefummit! (1980), was produced at Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North. Stagger (1981), his first full length play, was also produced at Centrepoint.

From May 1981 until June 1982, Craig worked as a playwright-in-residence at The New Zealand Drama School. His time there resulted in Today’s Bay (1982), written for the 1981-82 student intake. During the early eighties, Craig wrote two plays for Radio New Zealand, Woolf ‘n Stone (1982) and Only When It Hurts (1983), and his stage play New Day In The Valley was workshopped at the 1982 Playwrights’ Conference.

In the eighties, Craig lived in Egypt, England, Italy and Sweden. During this time, he completed Body Dreams (1985), Ponte Vecchio (1987), written with the assistance of a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Bursary, and Digging For Europe (1989).

Since returning to New Zealand at the end of 1991, Craig has lived in Auckland and continued writing for the stage, television and radio. In the mid-nineties, he wrote for Shortland Street for just over a year. His 1998 play, Retro, was performed as part of the Young and Hungry Season at Bats Theatre, Wellington in 1989.

His most recent work for theatre was Telling Stories produced at Circa Theatre, Wellington, in 2003. His most recent work for radio is Piccole Storie (2007) previously given a public reading by Auckland Theatre Company under the title The Italian Album.

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Thomas Sainsbury

Born in Matamata, Thomas moved to North to study English Literature and Theatre at Auckland University. Since completing his BA he has been involved as a writer, director and performer for both university productions and the underground theatre scene in Auckland.

After graduating he formed the theatre company Fingerprints and Teeth Productions. With this company he has written and produced his plays Main Street, Basement and Caustic.

In 2007 Thomas directed the University of Auckland Outdoor Summer Shakespeare, won Playmarket’s Young Playwright competition for the fourth time, has represented New Zealand at the Biannual World Interplay festival in Townsville, Australia, and is having his play, Caustic, workshopped in the Adam Playreadings at Downstage.

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Victor Rodger

Victor was born in Christchurch in 1969.

He has been a journalist in Christchurch, London and Auckland.
His first foray into professional writing was writing stories for EARS, National Radio’s children’s programme.

His semi-autobiographical first play, Sons, was accepted into the 1994 Australasian Playwrights Workshop and subsequently premiered at the Court Two, Christchurch in 1995.

In 1995, Victor attended Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School, graduating in 1997, the same year as his second play, Cunning Stunts was performed at BATS as part of Young and Hungry 1997.

In 1998, Victor re-wrote Sons and it was performed at Downstage Theatre. It subsequently won four Chapman Tripp Awards including Most Outstanding New Writer and Most Outstanding New New Zealand Play.

Victor has worked for Shortland Street as a writer and storyliner as well as having acted in various films, plays and televison series’ including Stickmen and Mercy Peak.

2001 was a particularly successful year for Victor when he was commissioned by the New Zealand Festival 2002 to complete his new work, Ranterstantrum which features in the Festival’s 2002 programme. He also won the 2001 Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.

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Jo Randerson

Born in Auckland in 1973 Jo moved to Wellington in 1977, attended Clifton Terrace School and then to Wellington Girls College where she was Head Girl.

After choosing Theatre and Film as her major at Victoria University, Wellington, she was involved as a writer, director and performer in revues and theatre productions for VUWSA Drama Club. She also performed at BATS and appeared doing stand-up comedy on A Bit After Ten.

Jo spent a year in Australia as a youth worker and nurse at an old people’s home, and upon her return formed the theatre group Trouble with Andrew Foster, Jo Smith and Jason Whyte.
In 1995 Fold was written and presented at the Young and Hungry Festival of Youth Theatre at BATS, and later returned to Downstage.

In 1996 Jo participated in the prestigious creative writing course at Victoria University with Bill Manhire, and has since published two books of short stories: The Spit Children and The Keys To Hell. Jo formed Barbarian Productions in 2001 and has been touring and performing in her own shows since then – playing in France, Norway, Edinburgh, Belgium, Australia as well as around New Zealand.

Jo was the 2001 Burns Fellow at Otago University, Dunedin and has recently been nominated for the IIML Prize in Modern Letters.

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Vivienne Plumb

Born in Sydney in 1955 to an Australian father and a New Zealand mother, she is an award-winning playwright, poet and fiction writer who has published three collections of poetry Salamanca, Avalanche, Nefarious, a novella The Diary as a Positive in Female Adult Behaviour, a novel Secret City, a short story collection The Wife Who Spoke Japanese In Her Sleep, and two playscripts Love Knots, Fact or Fiction: Meditations on Mary Finger. Her work has also appeared in numerous N.Z anthologies.

Love Knots was awarded the Bruce Mason Playwrighting Award in 1993 and Fact or Fiction was invited to be performed at the 2000 International Women Playwrights Conference in Athens.

She originally trained in drama and worked as an actor before she began writing in 1990. She is a past president of the N.Z. Poetry Society and was a founding member of The Women’s Play Press. She is a member of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship committee (N.Z) and the Varuna writing residency Alumni (Sydney).

She has been the recipient of the Hubert Church Prose Award (Best First Book) and she has held many writing residencies including the Sargeson Fellowship (N.Z, 2001), the University of Iowa International Writing Programme (U.S.A, 2004), and more recently she was writer in residence at Massey University (N.Z, 2006), and at the Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong, 2006), and she held the inaugural Rotorua Writer In Residence position (N.Z, 2007).

Her play, The Cape, premiered at Circa Theatre in August, 2007.
She also has a listing in the Oxford Companion to N.Z Literature and on the N.Z Book Council site.

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Conrad Newport

Conrad Newport is a director, writer and actor based in Wellington. He has recently directed King and Country for its much acclaimed season at the New Zealand International Festival in Wellington as well as it’s pre- Festival National Tour. In 2005, he also directed Lashings of Whipped Cream for Downstage Theatre in Wellington and Maidment Studio in Auckland; was the Dramaturg for The Tutor at Circa Theatre; and directed Niu Sila in Wellington, Auckland, Palmerston North, Wanaka and Taupo. He has also written for Te Papa (Versace Exhibition) and written and directed a number of shows including Lucky – The Ugliest Dog In The World (for children), The Hand Job (for adults) and Spin – the graduation play for the Wellington Performing Arts Centre in 2005.

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Danny Mulheron

A graduate of the New Zealand Drama School in the early 1980′s, Danny has worked extensively as an actor and director throughout the country. At present he is working for television in Wellington as both director and performer.

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Branwen Miller

Branwen has an MA in Scriptwriting from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her play Armslength premiered at Circa Theatre in January 2008, and Swan Song was commissioned for the 2008 Young and Hungry Festival of New Works at BATS Theatre. Her first play Noisy Shadows was produced as part of the Santa Barbara Festival of New Works and won the Dorothy E Corwin Award for Best New One Act Play. She won the New Zealand Young Playwrights Competition in 2007 and spent part of 2008 as Writer in Residence at the Robert Lord Cottage in Dunedin. In 2008 she was nominated for the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Outstanding New Playwright and was also shortlisted for the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.

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Arthur Meek

Arthur Meek is a graduate of Toi Whakaari: The New Zealand Drama School and The University of Otago. Since Arthur’s first play Mando The Goat Herd was read at the 2003 Playmarket New Zealand Playwright’s Conference, he has written a steady stream of work for stage, screen and radio.

His 2008 show On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover took the country by storm, playing to packed houses, garnering best production of the year nominations and picking up awards throughout the country.

Arthur’s musical comedy band The Lonesome Buckwhips were Billy T Nominees and Arthur was chief writer on Live at the Gold Guitars, the four-part series they recorded for Radio New Zealand.

Other work includes the Young and Hungry commissioned work Yolk (2008), the short film Being John Campbell (2002), which won awards around the country, as did Laughtrack: The Benjamin Docker Story (2003). Return of the Lonesome Buckwhips (2007) was awarded Best Comedy at the NZ International Fringe Festival, while his play The Cottage (2006) saw him lauded as the Best Newcomer the previous year. His 2006 short film Rangimoana’s Magical Murder Mystery still plays on the Rialto channel. In 2008 he was commissioned to write Collapsing Creation. Following a successful premiere in Christchurch in February, it was staged at the Nelson Festival of the Arts in the lead-up to its four-week season at Downstage as part of the worldwide celebrations of the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

Arthur has spent time with Great Southern Television, one of New Zealand’s fastest growing television companies, developing drama and telefeatures.

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Gabe Mcdonnell

Gabe is a Hutt girl at heart and was born in the Valley in 1974. Completing an English and Art History degree at Victoria University, she began writing seriously in 1996 when accepted into Bill Manhire’s Original Composition class.

After writing and producing one act plays like Dear John and Two Boys at BATS Theatre, she was commissioned for the 2000 Young and Hungry season with Hark (BATS). The same year she premiered her first one woman play The Inept at the 2000 SheBang Women’s Playwright Festival at BATS, which saw her nominated for the Peter Harcourt Best New Writer award at the 2000 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. Included in the anthology Red Light Means Stop (Women’s Play Press, 2003) Hark is recommended for female actors in their 30s to 50s looking for a strong solo performance work.

In 2001 Gabe completed an MA in Creative Writing at Victoria. Her thesis was her first full-length play Year of Grants, a drama examining the internal and external pressures facing an ordinary New Zealand family over the course of a year. This play was chosen for the 2002 Adam Playreading Series at Downstage and was produced by The Other Theatre Company in Auckland in 2004.

In 2003 Gabe had a lab season of her one-woman play Talent at BATS, which went on to be produced at Circa Studio in May 2004. Bright White was a one-act Commission for Allen Hall, Dunedin, produced in 2003. Theatre collaborations include Welcome to Superbia! (BATS and Silo, 1999), FatMan Fox Livingstone (BATS, 2002) and Black Body (BATS, 2002).

Gabe has also written for television (Telly Laughs 1 & 2, The Strip and Freaky! (Gibson Group) and has had short fiction published in Takahe and short story anthologies like Creative Juices (Harper Collins).

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Bevin Linkhorn

Bevin grew up in Lower Hutt and was immersed in a loving family culture of Petone club rugby, softball and competitive swimming.

He is a graduate of Victoria University’s Theatre and Film Department, where he also gained degrees in Geography and Commerce. While at Victoria Bevin developed his interest in writing and performing, and was involved in the Drama Club productions such as Capping Revues, Lunchtime Theatre and large-scale collaborative projects, like Bodyplay directed by Duncan Sarkies.

Bevin received two playwright commissions from the Young and Hungry Youth Arts Trust. Awesome Foursome and Confessions of an Adolescent Stormtrooper both played to large audiences with critical success at BATS Theatre (Wellington) in 2000 and he was nominated as Best Writer at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards (Wellington) for Confessions of an Adolescent Stormtrooper.

His play Motormouth was toured by for Capital E National Theatre for Children in 2004. Bevin currently works as a Development Executive for Wellington production company The Gibson Group.

An experienced actor, Bevin has performed in a number of professional productions in Wellington, and undertaken a variety of film and television roles. He has also worked as an events manager, communications advisor, a lifeguard and a snorkelling instructor.

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Hone Kouka

Hone Kouka: Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungungu, Ngati Raukawa, was born in Balclutha in 1968, and raised in Rangiora, the potiki of a large whanau. In Dunedin he attended King’s High School and Otago University, graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor Of Arts in English. In that year he also co-ordinated the first production of John Broughton’s: Te Hara – The Sin. He went on to study in Wellington at Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa: The New Zealand Drama School, graduating in 1990.

Hone has worked as a sawmiller, forestry worker, journalist, actor and director but is best known as a playwright. As well as writing for theatre, he appeared in several plays at Taki Rua/Depot Theatre in Wellington.

Hone is also well known for his play Waiora which premiered at the 1996 International Festival of the Arts and went on to tour Brighton, UK, and for three months in New Zealand. He is also known for his play Nga Tangata Toa based on Ibsen’s The Warriors At Helgeland which premiered in 1994 and Ahi Kaa – Homefires which premiered at the 1998 International Festival Of the Arts. He has won a string of New Zealand’s most prestigious playwriting awards including three Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, and since his Writer In Residency at Canterbury University in 1996, lectures in Maori Theatre on an annual basis.

Hone also writes for television, has acted as a script advisor and has written a novel. He has furthermore worked on Te Kakano – a Maori language series for ETV in 1997 and has edited a collection of Maori Plays for Victoria University Press.

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Mel Johnston

Mel is a playwright, performer, journalist and mum to her son Stan. She was born in Gisborne in 1972 and moved to Palmerston North when she was nine. She went to Palmerston North Girls High School and Awatapu College. Her mum was a teacher and her dad produced programmes for National Radio.

In 1991 she moved to Dunedin where she studied for a law degree and a BA in English. After being in a capping show in her third year, she quickly changed her BA major to Drama and soon began writing and performing with Rochelle Savage as the comedy duo Laura Get Your Gun.

She wrote and directed her first play Naughty Bad Girls for the 1996 Wellington Fringe Festival which went surprisingly well. Later that year she was commissioned to write Phobia for the STAB season. Ten days out from this show she discovered she was rather pregnant with her son Stanley. After taking a break from writing in 1997, she received a commission to write The Rising Scone for the 1998 Young and Hungry season. Since then she has written and performed her solo comedy show I’m having it off with Ajax and last year she wrote and directed How he hated the Grand Canyon.

This year Mel has stepped sideways into fiction writing and documentary making. She lives in Island Bay and she shares the care of Stan with his father Duncan.

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Helen Varley Jamieson

Helen Varley Jamieson is a theatre-maker whose work includes writing, directing, producing, devising and networking; since 2000, she has been experimenting with the internet as a site for live performance, developing a new artform – cyberformance.

Helen’s interest in theatre began with childhood classes at Dunedin’s Globe and Playhouse Theatres, and in 1982 she and her sister Philippa won the Junior Playwriting Cup at the Otago One Act Play Festival. She studied theatre, directing and playwriting at Otago University, graduating in 1992 with a BA (English and Theatre).

Helen Varley Jamieson is a theatre-maker whose work includes writing, directing, producing, devising and networking; since 2000, she has been experimenting with the internet as a site for live performance, developing a new artform – cyberformance. In 2008 she completed a Master of Arts (Research) at Queensland University of Technology, titled “Adventures in Cyberformance: experiments at the interface of theatre and the internet”.

Her first professionally-produced play, Women Like Us, was commissioned for the Centenary of Women’s Sufferage and premiered at the Globe Theatre, Dunedin in 1993 then toured to the Wellington Fringe Festival (Taki Rua Theatre) in 1994. That year she co-directed Riwia Brown’s play The Debate in the first Young and Hungry festival, and in 1995 her next play, Risky/Risque premiered at BATS Theatre. Her third play, Between, was commissioned by Young and Hungry and premiered at BATS Theatre during the 2001 Fringe.

Helen is a Trustee of the Magdalena Aotearoa Trust (a network of women in contemporary theatre) and the Web Queen of the international network, the Magdalena Project. She creates cyberformance with the globally dispersed troupe Avatar Body Collision (including Swim – an exercise in remote intimacy which was presented at BATS during the 2005 Fringe and the[abc]experiment at BATS, 2002) and is currently managing a software project, UpStage, which provides a web-based environment for live online performance. In 2005 she produced the STAB show Demeter’s Dark Ride – An Attraction, directed by Madeline McNamara. She has also written and directed short videos, creates net.art and is a web copywriting specialist. One of her lesser-known skills is creative knitting.

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Lauren Jackson

Lauren has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Auckland in German and Film, TV & Media Studies and a Bachelor of Performing Arts from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. She has directed and written her own short film and documentary and had her writing on the German and New Zealand film industries published here and in Germany.

Lauren attended film school in Germany in 1998 and in 2004 represented New Zealand at the 40th International Young Theatre Practitioners Forum in Berlin. Lauren has taught and directed theatre at the Otara Music Arts Centre. Last year she won the Chapman Tripp Most Outstanding New Playwright of the Year Award for her play Exchange, which she has since adapted for Radio New Zealand.

Lauren Jackson began her career playing the lead in the NZ feature film Alex following her graduation from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 2001, Lauren has enjoyed constant stage, screen and radio work. Most recent theatre performances include Mr Marmalade, Land of Make Believe and Mr Kolpert at the SiLO Theatre. Other shows include the Downstage productions Up for Grabs and Foolish Acts, Speed-The-Plow, Motormouth at Capital E National Childrens Theatre, Laughing Wild, Play 2, Abigail’s Party and Te Kauta.

Her most recent screen work includes playing Simone Weston in Maori Televisions Korero Mai, Steph in Glen Standring’s feature film Perfect Creature (2006) and the role of Daisy Cook in Terry Johnsons BBC tele-feature Not Only But Always. Lauren has also appeared in feature films 1nite and Futile Attraction and in the television series Good Hands.

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Dean Hewison

Dean created the theatre company Out of Bounds’ – which has produced such theatre gems as Brain Power, FootBallistic and Hypnotastic. He had a supporting role in the award-winning short film Half a Horse, and has featured in several others. As a general rule, if he wrote it, he finds a way to put himself in it. Except for The Henchman, which he wrote as a Young and Hungry Commission 2007. His Two Day Plays competition won Best of Fringe 2009 and had a second season at BATS Theatre. Recently Dean co-wrote with Leon Wadham and acted in the 2009 STAB show Live at Six.

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Gary Henderson

Gary Henderson was born in Geraldine in South Canterbury, and gradually spiralled his way north to Auckland where he has lived for eight years.

Gary’s plays have been professionally produced around New Zealand, in South Africa, Australia, Great Britain, Canada and the United States. His most well-travelled play is Skin Tight which won a coveted Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1998 during a sell-out season at the Traverse Theatre. It was also produced in New York in 2006, UK in 2007 and Canada in 2008.

Gary received a Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for the best new short play in 1996 for Mo & Jess Kill Susie, and a Fringe Award for Excellence for The Big Blue Planet Earth Show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 1992.

Home Land, commissioned and produced by Fortune Theatre in Dunedin (2004) and Peninsula, commissioned by the Christchurch Arts Festival and directed by Gary at Court Theatre (2005), were written in Dunedin while Gary was resident in the Robert Lord Writers Cottage, and teaching at Allen Hall, the home of the Otago University Theatre Studies Programme.

More recent commissions include Lines of Fire for Wow! Productions, a site-specific work presented at the Dunedin Railway Station in the Dunedin Festival of the Arts 2006 and Stealing Games for Capital E National Theatre for Children.

Gary has also directed the work of other New Zealand playwrights; in 2000 he directed Ken Duncum’s Horseplay for Dunedins Wow! Productions at the Fortune, and in 2003, Carl Nixon’s The Book Of Fame based on the novel by Lloyd Jones, at Downstage in Wellington. He has also served many times as a director and mentor in the development of scripts by new writers.

Gary currently teaches playwriting at Unitec’s School of Performing and Screen Arts in Auckland.

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Pip Hall

Pip has worked as a full time writer since 1995, after graduating from the University of Otago with a degree in Drama.

Pip’s early theatre writing began at Allen Hall theatre and followed with commissions from Young and Hungry Youth Theatre company. Her play Red Fish, Blue Fish was selected as part of the Silo New Works Programme and then played at Circa as part of a similar programme.

Two of Pip’s major works – The Woman Who Loved a Mountain and The 53rd Victim were both developed through the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts Show and Tell programme in 2006 and 2008. The 53rd Victim then went onto win the New New Zealand Play Award in 2009, selected out of over 70 scripts. It has also been adapted for Radio New Zealand.

Pip’s work, Up North is programmed for premiere at Centrepoint in June 2010.

Pip also co wrote with father, Roger, Who Needs Sleep Anyway? a musical and comedy revue commissioned for the Plunket Centenary.

Her one-act play Shudder was published by The Play Press in 2003 and is widely produced in high schools throughout New Zealand.

Pip also works extensively in television and film as a writer, story liner, story/script editor, developer, creative producer and actor. She lives with her husband and children in Westmere, Auckland.

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Briar Grace-Smith

Briar Grace-Smith affiliates to the Ngati Hau hapu of Ngapuhi and to Ngati Wai. She has worked as an actor and writer with Maori theatre companies Te Ohu Whakaari and He Ara Hou.

In 1994 Briar trained as a script advisor with Playmarket and in 1995 made her debut as a playwright with Nga Pou Wahine, which received the Peter Harcourt award for best short play at the 1995 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. In 1995 she was also recipient of the Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.

Her more recent plays are Purapurawhetu (which won best New Zealand play award at the 1997 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards), Potiki’s Memory of Stone, When Sun and Moon Collide and 100 Cousins.
Briar has also had her short stories published in various anthologies including The Six Pack, published by New Zealand book month 2006.

National Radio has produced her stories for children (EARS) and she has also adapted the stageplays When Sun and Moon Collide (2006) and Potiki’s Memory of Stone (2007) for RNZ.

Briar won an Arts Laureate Award in 2000, an initiative of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, and was writer in residence at Victoria University for 2003. Her television credits include Being Eve and Fish Skin Suit.
Her feature film screenplay The Strength of Water was selected to be part of the Sundance Screenwriters Laboratory in Utah in 2006 and was filmed in Hokianga in 2007. Released in New Zealand in 2008.

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David Geary

David Geary (Nga Mahanga, Taranaki) grew up in Rangiwahia, a small village in the Manawatu hill country. His first experiences of theatre were listening to the shearers spin yarns in his fathers gang. A Palmerston North Boys High old boy, he was persuaded to pursue law at Victoria University by the Paper Chase TV program, his school teacher Mum and an encounter in an Ohakune caravan. At Victoria, David discovered Bill Manhire´s creative writing course, theatre studies and the University Drama Club, for whom he wrote several experimental short plays.

David then applied to Toi Whakaari NZ Drama School, studying as an actor, and graduating in 1987. Since then, David has continued to be an allrounder; writing, directing and acting for theatre, television and film. He co-authored short satires before his first full-length play Kandy Cigarettes was workshopped at the 1988 Playmarket Conference. In 1991, his comedy about a womans rugby team Pack of Girls premiered at Downstage, and became a national hit in both professional and amateur theatre. 1991 also saw David win the Bruce Mason Award for Most Promising Playwright.

In 1992, Lovelocks Dream Run was workshopped at the Australian and NZ Playwrights Conference in Canberra. It premiered at the Auckland Theatre Company to critical acclaim, with further productions throughout the country and in Australia. Victoria University Press published the play in 1993. It is studied in several New Zealand Universities, and is popular with high schools.

David received further success with The Learners Stand and The Farm and collaborated with Mick Rose and Tim Spite to create Backstage with the Quigleys and The Rabbiter´s Daughter. With a youth audience in mind, David wrote King of Stains, a short play which completed a return season at BATS Theatre in June 2004 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Young and Hungry initiative.

In recent years, David has moved into teaching storytelling and scriptwriting. David currently divides his time between New Zealand and Canada. His short play Menu Turistico was performed at the Walking Fish Festival in Vancouver, 2004.

For NZ television, David co-wrote and co-directed the 1991 TV documentary The Smell of Money, which won a NZ Film Accolade. He worked as a storyliner and scriptwriter for the popular television series Shortland Street, Jacksons Wharf, Mercy Peak and Hard Out.
In 2003, David branched out into fiction, with VUP publishing his short story collection A Man of the People. Hes currently completing a novel; working on two new plays; and is developing film projects. His work is characterised by powerful dramatic action, strong comic elements and a dark satirical streak.

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Sarah Delahunty

Sarah Delahunty was born and lives in Wellington. She is the author of over thirty works for the stage and focusses on work for young people.

In 1984 she wrote of the motherhood experience in Stretchmarks a musical written with composer Michelle Scullion. The play premiered at Circa Theatre in 1985, and was performed throughout New Zealand. Delahunty and Scullion collaborated on a follow-up, Lifelines, which premiered at Circa in 2002. In 1987, Delahunty won the prestigious Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.

Since that time, Sarah has been teaching, directing and writing. Her works include two plays for the ‘Young and Hungry’ season at BATS Theatre in Wellington. Sarah has written and directed many adaptations of well-known stories for children.

She has directed the premieres of her original work in the 2005, 2006 and 2008 Wellington Fringe Festivals, and she also wrote and directed two seasons of Playstory, a storytelling and performance series for children at Downstage Theatre.

In the past three years, two of Sarah’s plays have toured New Zealand secondary schools: Driving U Crazy, about driving safety for teenagers, and Another Planet, which covers issues around healthy and unhealthy relationships. In 2008, 2b or nt 2b was nominated for Outstanding New New Zealand Play in the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.

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Riwia Brown

Riwia Brown (Ngati Porou, Te Whanau-A-Apanui and Taranaki) has been involved with Maori Theatre in Wellington since the early eighties, performing as an actor with Te Ohu Whakaari. Her first play Roimata premiered at The Depot Theatre in 1988 and was later adapted for television and published in He Reo Hou, a collection of Maori plays. She continued to write successfully for theatre and in 1992 adapted Alan Duff’s novel Once Were Warriors into an acclaimed film. Since then she has worked on several national and international film and television projects as well as two further plays. Riwia lives in Paekakariki, north of Wellington.

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Phillip Braithwaite

Philip Braithwaite is an award-winning playwright and theatre practitioner. Amongst his credits are the BBC World Service/British Council International Radio Playwriting Award 2001, the Sony Award for Radio Drama and the Massey University Cultural Award.

Philip’s work has been performed in New Zealand, Australia and Europe, and he has collaborated with devising groups from the Royal Court Theatre in London, the BBC and the highly acclaimed SEEyD theatre company.

He has also worked as a scriptwriting teacher at Massey University, Victoria University, the Wellington Performing Arts Centre (WPAC), and Whitireia Polytechnic.

In 2008, two of Braithwaite’s plays premiered: Hail to the Thief and Shining Armour. Hail to the Thief is a re-telling of the story of King David with a 21st century spin, while Shining Armour is a modern-day story of knights and chivalry. Both deal with the subject of morality and how to conduct one’s life.

Philip has been awarded several commissions from Radio New Zealand, including his forthcoming play Archie, for the ‘Worldplay’ series.

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Jean Betts

Jean is a founding member of Circa and Taki Rua Theatres, Playmarket, The Play Press (www.playpress.co.nz) and the Womens Play Press.

She started out as an actor and director and has considerable professional experience both in New Zealand and away and a long association with all of Wellington’s theatres in other capacities.

She has two sons and lives in Wellington.

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Stephen Bain

Stephen is a Toi Whakaari graduate who has been working as a theatre maker for the past 15 years. As well as acting extensively for theatre and television, he has directed many shows for the Wellington stage. He is co-founder of Under Lili’s Balcony Theatre Company who created choreographic theatre pieces from 1996 to 2002, gaining a reputation for innovation and visually adventurous theatre.

Stephen has more recently been working in video, creating performance pieces under the guise of Digital Cabaret. He has also produced a music videos, a dance-theatre video, and a multimedia piece for the City Gallery Wellington Cinema as part of the Fringe Festival 2004 (Turbulent Flux). He is also a musician, having written and recorded music for many theatrical productions. As a playwright his produced plays include Frank Austin’s Garage Sale (BATS 1998) and City of Hands (BATS 1994).

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Dave Armstrong

Dave Armstrong has twice won the award for Best New New Zealand Play at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards (Niu Sila, The Tutor) and Best Comedy Script at the 2003 AFTA Television Awards (Spin Doctors).

His musical play King and Country, which marks New Zealand’s role in the WW1 Battle of Passchendaele, has played to over ten festivals throughout New Zealand, and the radio adaptation was highly commended in the 2007 Media Peace Awards.

Niu Sila (co-written with Oscar Kightley), was performed at the 2007 Pasifika Styles Festival in Cambridge England and The Tutor has had seasons at Wellington (Circa Theatre), Auckland (Auckland Theatre Company), Palmerston North (Centrepoint Theatre), Hamilton and Wanaka.

Dave has adapted a number of books and stories for the stage including Margaret Mahy’s The Singing Bus Queue (Downstage Theatre, Taranaki and Bay of Islands Festival) and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Downstage Theatre, Wellington and Auckland Theatre Company). Most recently Dave has adapted Sia Figiel’s novel Where We Once Belonged for stage production by the Auckland Theatre Company for the 2008 International Festival of the Arts in Wellington and for a season in Auckland.

Co-creator of the TV comedy Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, which has screened in New Zealand and Australia, Dave’s other television credits include Skitz, The Semisis, Spin Doctors, Bro’town (script editor) and Staunch (script consultant).

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Whiti Hereaka

(Ngati Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa)

Whiti is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the International Institute of Modern Letters.

She has had several plays produced in Wellington: Fallow (Tawata Productions 2005), Collective Agreement (Young and Hungry 2005), I Ain’t Nothing But/A Glimmer in the Dark She Said (Open Book Productions for STAB 2006) and Te Kaupoi (Bush Collective 2010). Te Kaupoi was also performed at the Hawkins theatre in Papakura in 2010.

In 2007, Whiti was the writer in residence at Randell Cottage in Wellington where she worked on her debut novel. That novel, The Graphologist’s Apprentice, was published by Huia in 2010. Her play Te Kaupoi won Best New Play by a Maori Playwright, Adam New Play Awards in 2010.

Whiti is a member of Writers Block, Wellington and is a trustee for Baggage Arts Charitable Trust (BACT).

“It is exciting whenever a piece of work is up but I am especially excited that For Johnny will be part of the 2011 season for Young and Hungry. The play is based on my own experiences (and that of my friends) of grief as a teenager. I wrote it to honour my friends and to, hopefully, help young people who may have to deal with loss for the first time.”

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Thomas Sainsbury

Thomas Sainsbury was born in Matamata and currently resides in Auckland. His work has been performed in the UK, USA, Australia as well as New Zealand. Thomas’ plays The Mall, Loser and The Christmas Monologues have been published by The Play Press.

Thomas’ many accolades include, four-time winner of Playmarket’s Young Playwright Award, two-time nominee of the Bruce Mason award, and finalist for the Adam NZ Play Award and Live Screenplay Competition.

More recently Thomas has been writing for television and film. His first television show, Super City, will hit screens in early 2011.

Thomas’ first play, Butt Ugly, was commissioned by Young and Hungry in 2003. He is very excited to be working with the company again and loves the opportunity to create an off-the-wall, exciting script for a young cast.

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Aaron Alexander

Aaron Alexander was born in Christchurch and trained at The Hagley Theatre Company, studying playwrighting under Tony McCaffery and writing his first produced play Process, in which an individual tries desperately to prove their existence to a megalithic bureacracy.

After training at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School he worked as an actor throughout New Zealand for ten years. He has two small boys and recently became Marketing Manager for Downstage, New Zealand’s longest running professional theatre.

“Just yesterday I watched the cast of Hearts Encoded doing their first run of the entire play. Aside from my own excitement, it was amazing to see a team of talented people inspired to creativity by something I wrote. Hearts Encoded began as a confluence of big ideas sloshing around in my head, boiled down by Jeremy Macey and the Playwrights Initiative programme, and now Rachel Lenart and the team have drunk that Kool-Aid and are off on a trip of their own. You feel slightly guilty laughing or being moved by your own words, but the creative team have brought so much to it that I was absolutely discovering it anew.

I can’t wait to see the play at full noise, with tech elements and fully fleshed performances. Now that it’s in their capable hands I can say, without hesitation, that’s going to be great. Together we’re creating a world that’s at once totally bizarre and completely familiar. Or if it’s not familiar to you now, just wait five or ten years… you’ll probably be living there.”

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