Today's Bay

Playhouse, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts

Knighton Rd, University of Waikato, Hamilton

Saturday 18 August 7-8.40pm

Sunday 19 August 2-3.40pm

Entry by koha

Opus bar open

Come and see Carving in Ice Theatre present a staged reading of New Zealand work Today's Bay by Craig Thane, directed by Gaye Poole. Members of the cast include Melanie Allison, Kendra Boyle, Henry Garfit, Tara Given, Lily Gladstone-Gallagher, Biahga Larden, Kelly Petersen, June Potifara, David Simes, James Smith and Kirsty Young. For more details see Carving in Ice Theatre.

Written for the NZ Drama School in 1982, this play focuses on a group of university students studying Katherine Mansfield's short story At the Bay. The students are instructed by their tutor to act out various pieces of the story and give their responses to them, some with enthusiasm and others, reluctantly. The play covers themes such as: What does it mean to be a New Zealander? Should Mansfield have stayed in New Zealand or left? Was she an English or New Zealand writer? Why are New Zealand writers so preoccupied with childhood?

Playwright Craig Thane's first work was a children’s play, Gruzzlefummit!, produced at Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North. Craig has been playwright-in-residence at the NZ Drama School where he wrote Today’s Bay (1982). Craig has lived in Egypt, England, Italy and Sweden and, since 1981, has lived in Auckland and continued writing for the stage, television and radio. In the mid-nineties, he wrote for Shortland Street for just over a year. His most recent work for theatre was Telling Stories, produced at Circa Theatre, Wellington, in 2003. His most recent work for radio is Piccole Storie (2007) previously given a public reading by Auckland Theatre Company under the title The Italian Album.

This event is sponsored by The University of Waikato.