As part of our Connections Through Culture programme, ten New Zealand playwrights will work with one of the UK’s most influential contemporary playwrights, Simon Stephens, in a Playwrights’ Masterclass at Auckland Theatre Company this February.
Led by Stephens and co-designed with Aotearoa theatre artist Jason Te Kare (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui), the Playwrights’ Masterclass is a three-day intensive workshop for mid-career to established Aotearoa playwrights.
Among the ten playwrights are Karin McCracken and Ana Scotney, who were part of the rōpū British Council New Zealand and the Pacific sent to Edinburgh with Creative New Zealand as part of the Edinburgh Festivals Intensive Programme.
The other playwrights taking part in the Masterclass are Dan Bain, Kathryn Burnett, Cindy Driver, Anders Falstie-Jensen, Renee Liang, Victor Rodger, Ankita Singh and Tawhi Thomas.
Simon will also lead two writing workshops during his time in Auckland. The first, a half-day professional development workshop for kaiako/teachers teaching drama in schools and kura across Aotearoa, will result in a practical resource made available to all kaiako through Auckland Theatre Company and Whakaari Aotearoa Drama NZ, courtesy of Networks of Expertise. The second workshop will be with Auckland Theatre Company's Emerging Writers Table and alumni.
Also as part of the Masterclass Project, a live reading of Sea Wall by Simon Stephens will be performed by the playwright himself for one performance only on Saturday 21st February.
Sea Wall is a haunting and intimate monologue about love, faith, and the fragility of the world we build around ourselves. Alex, in direct address to the audience, warmly draws us in through reflections on joyful memories with his family, before casting us into a deep exploration of grief.
Poignant and profoundly human, Sea Wall is a powerful theatrical experience that hits with the force of a wave you never saw coming.
In this special one-off reading, Simon Stephens will perform Sea Wall for a public audience, followed by an in-depth conversation and Q&A led by distinguished New Zealand broadcaster Mark Amery on the important role that theatre plays in all of our lives.
Simon Stephens’ work includes The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (staged by ATC in 2016), Sea Wall, Blindness (presented at the 2021 Auckland Writers Festival), Pornography and Birdland. His plays have been produced internationally across Europe, Asia, Australasia and the Americas. Simon’s visit to Aotearoa marks his first return in nearly two decades.