FLASHBACK: Roughing It

From November 2007 (lightly edited): Let’s say I have to write a scene with corporate suits speaking corporate-speak. I want it to be fluid – a language that’s appropriate to the characters but still accessible to the audience. Minutes and minutes of talking heads yakking at each other – but interesting. Touchstones are Oliver Stone‘s JFK, …

Share

STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: final week in Wellington

The Wellington season, despite some early nerves, has gone very nicely with good houses and great reviews from Theatreview and The Theatre Times. Speaking of nerves, the extended Mamea aiga attended the opening night: our Stern but Loving Parents, Awesome Sister and her girls, and Staunch Bro and his family. They said they enjoyed the show and I …

Share

STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: final approach to Wellington premiere

It’s all “Still Life”-this and “Still Life”-that, some of you are carping. I can’t help it. It’s a big thing for me. It’s a week out from the show’s Wellington premiere and my anxiety has increased considerably. Why the nerves, you may ask, when 1). box office returns must be pretty good, and 2). touring is the fun part …

Share

2017 in Points

Fair use, Link My reading output (input?) this year was better than last year. But it coulda should’ve been much better. Standouts from the reading diary: Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver — I maybe should’ve read this when the Lovely Wife suggested it before agreeing to follow my wife to rural Northland; Ratatouille (2007 draft) by …

Share

Filter

My humble running ipod is approaching its tenth anniversary. Before I had it for musical accompaniment, I made do with whatever songs I could huff and puff to*, invariably resorting to music from films from a misspent youth. I was on an away-mission recently and I forgot to pack it for my travels. I still went for …

Share

Lud

The first warning signs showed a couple of years ago. Fortress Mamea runs on 10.6 Snow Leopard, an operating system that’s now seven generations behind the current OS. We like 10.6. It works for us. The Lovely Wife can still watch ponies galloping in slow motion on Youtube, while I can keep in touch with friends …

Share

Eleven Years

Last Sunday was the eleventh anniversary of this website. I kid you not:  unless my maths is awry, we opened in 2006, our first anniversary would’ve been 2007, which means 2017 makes this site eleven. Years. Old. I’ve a few productions under my writing belt, I’ve been published, and now I’m also writing for theatre. …

Share

Home Again

The Lovely Wife and I have just returned from a few days south where we — saw a couple of great shows (one of which must, must, tour), I  — cue name-dropping! — schemed with Benedict Reid (yes, that Mr Reid) and Simon Boyes, soon after which we three mouseketeers pitched a show to the Circa Theatre …

Share

Melbourne

Melbourne was fun. Hard to believe it was only a month ago that the Lovely Wife and I were across the ditch. She had Her stuff. I had mine. Yeah, it’s been almost a decade since my last budget-blitzing-blast at Forges, so it was naïve of me to think it’d still be there, the passage …

Share