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Keen to create work for themselves when they returned from Australia, Jared Turner and Anthea Williams founded a competition which gives New Zealand playwrights a turn in the spotlight.
Now, after nearly a year in the making, PlayRight: The Season starts this week with the three winning entries on stage for all to see, and Turner and Williams are already thinking about next year's competition.
They were inspired by a similar event organised by Sydney's Naked Theatre Company, and in March called for new one-act plays, no longer than 30 minutes, under the umbrella of their company Smackbang.
They gave playwrights free rein, saying they could tackle whatever issue or topic they liked in whatever style they chose.
Turner says they had no idea how many entries to expect and figured they might get about a dozen. They received more than 80 scripts from New Zealanders at home and overseas.
The calibre was interesting, Turner says.
"Given that it was only a one-act, it made it accessible for more people. So we did have, for example, some short film scripts which had been converted into plays and you could see that making the transition to the stage was going to be difficult.
"There were 20 or so, though, that were very good and we really struggled to get it down to nine plays for the public readings."
With just five weeks before public readings of those nine, the pressure to get through them all was intense.
Turner and Williams looked for scripts with strong storylines that said something about life in New Zealand, and for what would work best on stage.
Actors including Sara Wiseman (Mercy Peak), Miriama McDowell (No 2), Renato Bartolomei (Shortland Street) and Fleur Saville (Shortland Street) took part in the public readings in May.
A judging panel of theatre practitioners - Pip Hall, Roy Ward and Gary Henderson - then chose their best three for performances at the Herald Theatre.
They are: And Then You Die, by Thomas Sainsbury; Rogue State, by James O'Sullivan; and The Real You, by Colin Moy and John Davies.
Sainsbury, who has won the Playmarket Young Playwright Competition three times, is considered by those in the know as one to watch. His black comedy And Then You Die has Aidee Walker (Outrageous Fortune) as Debbie, a young woman with two personalities (Nisha Madhen and Stephen Fitzgibbon) competing to be in charge of their own destiny. Eventually, Debbie has to take drastic measures to bring those personalities under control.
It is directed by Patrick Graham, whose own work made it to the PlayRight semifinals.
James O'Sullivan has written children's theatre for 10 years. Rogue State, a political satire that considers what would happen if the United States decided to liberate New Zealand, is his first work for adults.
Gary and Janet are watching rugby when American soldiers arrive to save them from the insurgents in their house. Gary is not amused. Actors Rex McIntosh, Joy Watson, Will Wallace, Ben Farry and Jonathan Hodge are directed by Toby Leach (Wheeler's Luck).
Shortland Street scriptwriter John Davies wrote The Real You with Colin Moy, established actor and former Auckland Theatre Company literary manager, and the two will perform it.
The play is about a cowboy, an artist and the tragedy that keeps them apart. The Real You is described as "a roughly physical piece dappled with captivating and powerful images that takes the audience into the men's inner world".
Turner and Williams say that the endeavour exceeded all their expectations in terms of the number of entrants and the quality of the three plays.
Help from The Edge's creative development programme, called Stamp, was invaluable, as was the support of Auckland City Council's Arts Alive funding.
"The experience of getting a whole bunch of people together to create new work has been fantastic and we hope it appeals to young and new audiences who may think theatre is all 'To be or not to be'," Turner says.
"We really hope this will become an annual competition."
* PlayRight: The Season is at Herald Theatre, Nov 30-Dec10
