What: The Next Stage with the Auckland Theatre Company
Where: Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre
When: October 13-17
Until 18 months ago, Brian Hannam knew little about internationally acclaimed New Zealand artist Len Lye. Hannam, a theatre director, actor and writer of plays 73rd Day, The Waitara Purchase and The Siege, told a friend he wanted to write a new script. The friend suggested he use modernist film-maker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye as the starting point.
Hannam says his research has become a way of life over the past year, almost bordering on obsession, as he uncovered more and more about Lye.
Described as brilliant, sexy and an international wanderer, Lye's artistic endeavours took him on a 40-year journey through Australia, the South Pacific, Europe and the United States before he arrived back home in 1977.
"Len Lye is an international art figure and I think people will be astonished to learn these things about him," says Hannam. "He really is an iconic artist who probably does need to be honoured more."
He honours Lye's legacy through Len, a play adapted from research and material from Roger Horrocks' biography and included in the Auckland Theatre Company's The Next Stage.
An annual festival of semi-staged readings, The Next Stage features three new New Zealand works. Readings are followed by audience feedback with the author and director of each work.
Hannam joins actor-writer Fiona Samuel, along with actor and aspiring playwright Lisa Chappell in having work selected by ATC literary manager Philippa Campbell for inclusion is this year's Next Stage.
ATC is bringing Australian director John Bolton to Auckland to work with Hannam on Len and has cast Carl Bland in the one-man show.
While Len takes a fresh look at the artist, Samuel's play Ghost Train examines the inner workings of marriage. It is Samuel's first play for 12 years, although she has worked on a number of film and television projects including telefeature Piece of my Heart with Emily Barclay and Keisha Castle Hughes.
"The idea [for Ghost Train] first came to me about two years ago quite suddenly one afternoon," she says. "I am interested in what goes on inside marriages. Often there are public events, like Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, that explode all over the news and I'm thinking: 'What's going on at home?"'
Ghost Train, a joint commission between the ATC and Christchurch's Court Theatre, features two couples who meet for a Saturday night dinner where relationships are tested and shocking truths revealed.
It will be directed by Peter Elliott and features Michelle Leuthart, Sean Duffy, Sara Wiseman, Toby Leach, Sally Stockwell and Patrick Wilson.
Chappell's script Don't Hold Your Breath is a play with songs which takes a light-hearted look at the entertainment industry and sibling rivalry. "This is my first play," says Chappell, who has starred in two ATC productions. "I started with a desire to write a larger than life character to perform as a contrast to the naturalistic characters I was playing on television."
That character is Letitia Lush, who dreams of being the most famous singer of all time - no matter the cost.
Ben Crowder directs Rachel Nash, Rachel Forman, Christopher Chapman and Jeremy Randerson while Penny Dodd provides musical direction.
Developing and presenting home-grown plays is a core part of ATC's programming - and if audience numbers for the recently staged The Pohutukawa Tree are any indication, theatregoers are hungry to see New Zealand works. The production, starring Rena Owen, set a new ATC box office record with more than 9500 people going along to see Bruce Mason's 1955 work. Those numbers outstripped ATC's previous international hits such as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
"Bruce Mason was a pioneer in writing and performing our stories and as the only theatre company in New Zealand with a dedicated literary unit, developing and promoting New Zealand stories for the stage remains a high priority for Auckland Theatre Company as well," says artistic director Colin McColl.
ATC is soon to announce next year's programme which will feature at least one crowd-pleaser from last year's Next Stage.
