Radio drama is making a real comeback. Aside from the popularity of podcasts, there are new initiatives like the audio series from wahine Maori and va'ine Pasifika writers' collective Maranga Mai. The five radio plays were written as part of the Breaking Ground playwright's festival during the 2020 Lockdown. They'll all be broadcast here on RNZ National, as well as streaming on Kia Mau's digital platform Moana Nui. Lynn Freeman invited Miria George, who worked with the five writers on their...

History has just been made with the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.   For the first time in its 40-year history, the $10,000 prize goes to a team - two writers who together have written several award-winning productions. Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken are a dynamic duo whose company is called EBKM.   Eleanor is also a stage director who works across theatre and opera..... Karin meanwhile is a theatremaker and performer who's just back from Canada where EBKM's production of Yes Yes Yes - a...

Bit Part Actor is the name of Frank Edward's memoir, but he's selling himself short. Over a career of more than 60 years on stage and screen, he's also had some lead and really memorable roles. But those memories are shared with the disappointments, failed auditions and scenes ending on the cutting room floor that are all actor's lot. As a jobbing actor, Frank's worked on Wellywood's biggest hits - certainly many of Sir Peter Jackson's blockbusters - though you won't always see his name in...

An imagined series of puzzling artefacts from a time travelling civilisation has taken out this year's top Portage Ceramic Award for their creator, Richard Penn. His collection's called Artefacts. Richard and his family moved to Aotearoa from South Africa just a couple of years ago. He's taught ceramics at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland and Otago Polytechnic and held residencies at Auckland Studio Potters and at Driving Creek Pottery in the Coromandel. Lynn Freeman...

There is a right way of washing dishes and a wrong way - and Kiwis do it the wrong way according to Joanna Cho's debut poetry collection, People Person. The South Korean-born, now Wellington-based, writer has a keen sense of irony and a refreshing honesty in her autobiographical poems. Joanna completed her MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2020 and received the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry. She talks with Lynn Freeman about her inspirations, and...

It's had more than 20 years championing the work of this country's print makers. Now Print Council Aotearoa New Zealand has published a book featuring a dazzling array of prints by its members. PCANZ has around 250 printmakers, and many of them are seriously pushing the boundaries with their techniques. In Proof : Two decades of printmaking each artist provides a short note describing their work - some breaking new ground, but many using traditional techniques, like screen printing, lino and...

This is undeniably a new Golden Age of television drama - both in quantity and quality. So much drama, so much variety of drama and - most important - so many outlets to play your drama. But how much has really changed? One person who would know is one of our finest screenwriters Fiona Samuel. And not just on the screen - we've just played her radio trilogy Hat Trick in our Classic Drama slot - and Fiona's recently conducted workshops on the secrets of creating brilliant TV. Mind you, Fiona's...

A "dysfunctional family epic" is how Ben Wilson's award-winning script Homemade Takeaways is described. The comedy-drama won the 2020 Playmarket Playwrights B4 25 competition and it's finally heading onto the stage. It's set in small-town New Zealand during Christmas with the 'chosen family' of four. These include a primary school teacher wants to write violent children's fiction, and a recently dumped self-help expert who is self-destructing. Ben Wilson talks with Lynn Freeman about Homemade...

17 artworks spanning 25 years of paintings make up artist Glen Wolfgramm's first survey show of his intricate abstract works, all strongly reflecting his Tongan heritage. A'eva tokotaha he Pasifiki: Solo across the Pacific is also the Tamakai Makaurau-based artist's first solo exhibition in a public gallery. The "Solo" in the show's title also refers to how solitary the experience of painting is - though less so these days with children and a studio in the family home! Glen, who's a...

Christchurch writer Paul Cleave has released his latest thriller, The Pain Tourist just as filming is about to start on a TV show based on his first crime novel. Paul worked on the script for the Lionsgate-backed show, called Dark City -The Cleaner, that's set in his home town. Just as Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse did with Oxford, and Ian Rankin's Rebus did with Edinburgh, Paul's made Otautahi/Christchurch a literary crime hub! Unlike many crime novelists, Paul Cleave isn't wedded to the...

For 75 years the Matamata Dramatic Society has entertained its community while also training generations of performers and crew. Memories will flow at the upcoming celebration event and fundraiser for the Waikato-based society's significant anniversary. Two of the members heavily involved in the big night are Greg Dunn and his daughter Helen Drysdale-Dunn, who grew up on the stage and went on to win Waikato Younger Singer of Year Award 2020. Lynn Freeman talks with Greg and Helen, and first...

Sound artist and composer Jesse Austin-Stewart has created an album of music vibration compositions, designed to be felt rather than heard. By holding a PlayStation Dualsense controller, the music can be experienced through the way changing patterns feel against your palms. Jesse is one of the 2022 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Springboard award winners, and has produced music with more than 1 million streams. For Music for PlayStation he's worked with the hearing-impaired community to create...

Learning to speak Farsi as well as collaborating with around 50 musicians on several original tracks has taken up much of the last three years for Christine White. She's called it The Raven Project - six songs in digital and vinyl format, accompanied by three music videos. The first was called "Raven" and the second, "Taken" and the final one, "Starless Skies", will be released later this week. Christine's main collaborator in the music has been legendary composer John Psathas. And along with...

Art fairs have become a popular way to get artists' work in front of potential buyers who may not frequent dealer galleries. After a disrupted couple of years, the country's biggest contemporary art event, the Aotearoa Art Fair in Tamaki Makaurau is about to showcase the work of more than 180 artists. Some - like our next guest - have made a name for themselves internationally. Painter Judy Millar has twice represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale. She has many awards, fellowships and...

Writer Roderick Finlayson was right in the thick of it during a formative time in New Zealand's literary history. He was a friend and contemporary of other significant writers, including James K Baxter, Frank Sargeson and D'Arcy Cresswell. Roderick's not as well known now, despite being in some ways, ahead of his time. He wrote about race relations and environmental issues in his essays, articles, stories and letters, as early as the late 1930s. His first short story collection, Brown Man's...

The Manawatu Sinfonia epitomises the value of a community orchestra - helping to launch professional music careers, promoting the work of local composers and of course, entertaining people living in Palmerston North and the wider region. Its members are currently rehearsing for a concert featuring the work only of New Zealand composers - three of them from Palmerston North - and including two world premiere works. Just this year the Sinfonia and associated Manawatu Youth Orchestra between...

A nostalgic series of stylised paintings of state houses is about to go on show, the work of Pirongia-based artist Carmel Van Der Hoeven. Though, what with the thousands that have been sold off, knocked down and gentrified, those "little boxes" are getting harder to find! The "State House Series" makes up part of Carmel's Mortal Dreams show, that will also include the large, brightly-coloured, floral paintings she's best known for. Carmel's painted 60 works so far in the "State House Series",...

Writer Kevin Ireland has already written two memoirs - Under the bridge and over the moon, followed by Backwards to forwards. Now in his 90th year, Kevin tried an unpredictable experiment for his third memoir. He rummaged through half-forgotten moments in his life each day for 30 days and wrote them down. He found himself thinking about his first date - aged 8 - fishing in Southland, moments from his years living in London and the first time he saw a five pound note. He called it A month at...

Renée's small fictional rural town of Porohiwi is once again the scene of a murder. But why would anyone kill grumpy old mask collector Matthew Durrell in his home? Blood Matters is award-winning playwright and novellist Renée's second crime novel. In it, Puti has taken over both guardianship of her 10-year-old niece Bella Rose and ownership of the local bookshop, "Mainly Crime", after the death of her sister. Otaki-based Renée says she doesn't dwell on the forensics in her books. She's far...

Maori and Pasifika contemporary artists, whose work has enriched Aotearoa and captured the world's attention over the last half a century, share their stories in a new TV series, Waharoa: Art of the Pacific. Waharoa are gateways or portals. Telling the story of how traditional Maori and Pacific artforms have been referenced, adapted and transformed over the decades, is a daunting brief. Hosting the three-part series is art historian Emeritus Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. She's travelled the...

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is the alluring title of the latest exhibition by sculptor Louise McRae. She's been described as an alchemist of materials for the way she manipulates everything from concrete to metals. In he Auckland show, brass, copper, alloy and enamel are combined and pleated with fabrics, then combined with material felts that she's painted. Louise tells Lynn Freeman that she took her exhibition's title from a book by conservation biologist Thor Hanson . Hurricane...

Risking a vaccination campaign in India against government orders puts a New Zealand doctor at great risk in the 1990s. That's the thumbnail description of a novel written by New Zealand GP David Whittet. The Road to Madhapur may be fiction, but David tells Lynn Freeman it includes many aspects of his own time working in India, and also in rural practice here at home. In the novel, Theo gets in trouble when he tries to take unapproved, vital medicines from New Zealand into a developing...

Ahead of starting an artist residency at the Auckland Botanical Gardens, painter Neal Palmer is about to unveil his largest paintings yet - of kauri, flax and magnolias. It's part of his 27th solo exhibition called Under the Surface. Since moving to New Zealand from London more than 20 years ago, Neal has been drawing, painting and photographing native plants and trees. At first glance, his paintings may look like simply faithful representations of our flora. But he's asking us to dig deeper,...

Australian installation artist and sculptor Emily Floyd is about to reveal to Dunedinites an exhibition about the history of childcare that she's created since coming to the city on a research visit earlier this year. Emily, the daughter of toymakers, investigates play in the show Keeping it Complex, Keeping it Connected, and includes lots of opportunities for children and their parents to interact with many of the sculptures. But she says there are a few fragile pieces in this show that may...

Former shepherd turned activist Bill Bradford reflects on his many years, first looking after flocks of sheep and later disadvantaged workers in his first poetry collection, No Rising of the Sheep. Bill lives in Wellsford these days. While his later years were spent as a trade union organiser and activist, he's recently found himself writing a lot about his time on the land. Lynn Freeman talks with Bill Bradford about the rural memories that infuse so much of his poetry. No Rising of the...