Playmarket, with Auckland City Council and ASB Community Trust, proudly provides support for Pasifika playwrights through development of new work and an annual chance to come together and learn from each other.

Celebrated playwrights Gary Henderson and Oscar Kightley will lead this must attend workshop for those who are currently writing or wanting to write for theatre.

The Essential Craft of Play Writing – Basic Building Blocks, Story structure, characterisation and dialogue. – Gary Henderson

Writing a Play is Hard - Oscar Kightley

When:
May 2nd 2009

Where:
Upper NZI Room, Level 3, Aotea centre, THE EDGE.

Time:
10am – 1pm

For more details call Jenni at Playmarket on 09 3652648 or email jenni@playmarket.org.nz
Do not miss this opportunity to learn form the best. Book your place now!

Oscar Kightley

Oscar was born in Samoa and came to New Zealand when he was 4. After a lovely childhood in West Auckland, his working life began as a journalist for 4 years before going moving to Christchurch for a short TV job. There he became a founding member of Pacific Underground, which produced plays he co wrote such as Fresh Off The Boat, Dawn Raids and numerous school shows.

He won the Bruce Mason playwright's award in 1998 before going into Television comedy as a writer for Skitz. Around the same time he and his boys formed the Naked Samoans who continued to do stage shows building. Later he was also a founding member of the Island Players theatre group.

The Naked Samoans' shows became the inspiration for the award winning comedy series ‘bro'Town’ and the hit movie Sione's Wedding that he co-wrote.

In 2006 he was awarded an Arts Laureate and this year became of member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to television and theatre over the last 15 years.

Gary Henderson

Gary Henderson’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.

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. Home Land later won five Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, including Best New New Zealand Play.

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.

Places are Limited. To book your place email jenni@playmarket.org.nz or call Jenni on 09 3652648 in office hours for more details.
An event not to be missed, so bring your play and come to learn at this once in a lifetime workshop.

You should be there NO EXCUSES!

Playwrights Conference
NEW WRITING / NEW PRODUCING: FORUM MARCH 6-8, AUCKLAND

Playmarket has announced the programme for a rare and vital opportunity for the national theatre industry to come together around new New Zealand work in March, and is now inviting registrations from playwrights, playmakers, theatre producers and presenters to participate.

Please go to playmarket website to download the full programme.

Please go to playmarket website for a registration form to copy and paste into your email. Registration is due by 5pm Friday February 20.

http://www.playmarket.org.nz/opportu...

The NEW WRITING / NEW PRODUCING forum, March 6-8, in Auckland at The Edge, is an event that with addresses, discussions, plays and parties gets playwrights, playmakers, producers and presenters working together and sharing ideas. Playmarket welcomes registration from anyone interested in the creation and production of new New Zealand work anywhere in the world, be they a playwright, theatre practitioner or supporter.


NEW WRITING / NEW PRODUCING will consider the ways New Zealand plays are being developed, produced and toured, says Playmarket Director Mark Amery, and how we can build on our strengths. Scheduled to coincide with the opening weekend of the Auckland Festival's bevy of exciting new NZ work and the PAANZ Performing Arts Market, as well as the inaugural Auckland Fringe, this two-day forum forms the second part of Playmarket's Aotearoa Playwrights Conference 08-09 development platform, funded by Creative New Zealand. There is also a parallel programme for choreographers, hosted by DANZ.

Two new New Zealand plays will be showcased, selected from those submitted for this year's Playmarket new New Zealand Play Award. New Zealand playwrights, producers and playmakers will present and lead discussions, including looks at development processes, literary management, national and Auckland regional infrastructure, self-producing, and the international stage. Most importantly the weekend will be full of opportunities to meet each other over a drink or an issue of shared concern.


Speakers, facilitators and the plays to be presented will be announced in the new year in an updated forum programme.

Registration is free to all Playmarket client playwrights and members. If you are not a Playmarket member ($30 Playwrights, $40 non-playwright Fan membership) please register by return email and join up either on-line or on arrival at the forum.

"The forum," says Mark Amery, "is part of Playmarket's recognition that both Auckland and New Zealand theatre are at an important stage in their growth, as established and independent activity continues to grow nationally, with much to be gained from a weekend providing for mixing and mingling, inspiring visions and hearty relaxed discussion between all participants. We invite you to join us there not as an audience but as a participant."

A plot is not jus events... the chronological retelling of occurences. A plot is created by the way in which the incidents are narrated to the reader. No matter what method you use to create your plot, the story must finally include:

1. The Initialising or Inciting Incident
- delineate characters
- introduction of location

2. The Rising Action
- conflict emergence
- protagonist action/reaction
- antagoist action/reaction
- reversal
- point of no return

3. The Climatic Events and Resolution
- crisis
- dark moment
- climax
-resolution

Checklist on Plot Conflict
Conflict = Problems
Make the conflict fit the scope of your story
eg. small for cosy/tradtional story - major conflict for intricate story

1. any conflict introduced should induce action by your characters
2. that action should change the course of the plot
3. conflict should chnage your chracters
4. that 'change'process should be challenging

Ackowledgement:
The Writers Sandwich - Clare Scott