What: TWACAS (The West Auckland Cardigan Appreciation Club)
Where and when: Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, February 17-27
Sam Berkley reckons he knows what it's like to feel as if you're the odd one out.
Almost exclusively home-schooled until he was "dropped into" college, Berkley, now 25, made himself at home in the drama department. He'd always taken acting lessons because it was a great place to let his hair down and meet other kids.
"I identified acting classes with feeling more confident. When it came time to leave school, I followed the white rabbit." He went to Unitec to study acting and two years after graduation hooked up with former classmates Ora Simpson, Ben Van Lier, Kura Forrester and Jonathan Hodge to form Catalyst Theatre Company.
Now he's written the company's second play. TWACAS, or The West Auckland Cardigan Appreciation Society, is about the three individuals who founded the society so they wouldn't feel alone.
The arrival of two newcomers - the fashionable Lara and sporty Bruce - promises excitement for the founding trio but they soon find their quiet world unravelling in a tangle of sex, drugs, deceit, love triangles and prison.
It might sound serious, but Berkley says it's a comedy, akin to the deadpan style of The Office.
"It's about a group of characters who normally get overlooked because they are too shy to speak up," he says. "They're the underdogs and I wanted to make an exciting, dramatic and humorous story about who they are, why they're different and what they do to try to fit in.
"I think everyone can relate to feeling as if they're the odd one out and the ways in which we try to find our place in the world."
Catalyst's members are determined to create a place for themselves in the theatre world by writing plays that are direct, contemporary and aimed at New Zealand audiences. TWACAS stems from Catalyst's debut show, A City of Souls, performed late in 2008.
That show was a democratic effort, with each member of the team writing certain sections and characters, then meeting to meld them into one story.
The result was a hard-hitting piece about a group of 20-something Aucklanders trying to find their feet in the world.
When one of the characters Berkley crafted didn't quite fit in, he went away to "reinvigorate it". The result was TWACAS.
While Berkley wrote the show, he says he wasn't entirely alone. He turned to Catalyst members for regular feedback.
