Chch playwright awarded
Christchurch theatre maker and playwright Dan Bain has won a prestigious award for his play The Odyssey.
He was joint winner of the Adam NZ Play Award with fellow playwright Sam Brooks. The award recognises and celebrates the best in unproduced writing for the theatre.
Playmarket tumuaki (leader) Murray Lynch announced the winners at Wellington’s Circa Theatre on Saturday.
Bain’s play The Odyssey was a new take on Homer’s original poem. It was repositioned as a comedic scramble-style show for “three high-skill, high-charisma performers”, Bain said. One of the judges called it “a gift to the audience” and “utterly delightful”. Another called it a “goddamn raucous camped up retelling” that leapt off the page.
His work as writer includes children’s shows, two Young and Hungry commissions; comedy Stag Weekend with Brendon Bennetts, and A Christmas Carol.
Bain was associate director of the Court Theatre from 2017 to 2020 and is currently the artistic and programming director of Little Andromeda in Christchurch.
His production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express for the Court Theatre recently celebrated an extended season.
He shares the awards with Brooks and his play This Is My Story of Us. A judge said Brooks’ play was inventive in its use of structure and underpinned by “beautiful, tender prose”. “The story hurt my heart. It sucked me in and spat me out. I was left needing to sit with my thoughts and feelings for some time,” they said.
Bain also won the McNaughton South Island Play Award for The Odyssey. The award acknowledges a new play written by a South Island resident, in memory of Howard McNaughton, a leading theatre academic and pioneer of Cultural Studies teaching at Canterbury University.
The Adam NZ Play Award is in its 17th year and is the only award of its kind in Aotearoa for new playwriting.
Playmarket’s only entrance requirements are that the playwright be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident and that the play has not had a professional production.