Peninsula

Peninsula PIC CREDIT Stephen A’Court & Melanie Lisch

THEATRE: NEW ZEALAND

“Destined to become a classic…” National Business Review

Playwright Gary Henderson takes a touching, bittersweet look at life in the 1960s in the beautifully crafted Peninsula. Michael Hope is 10 years old and sleeps on a volcano. This is his playground, his paradise. But rumblings in the adult world encroach on Michael’s life, then erupt, throwing his world into a chaos that will change him forever.

A Circa Theatre production, Peninsula is directed by Jane Waddell. Set within the moody landscape of its title, the play weaves a story in and around the everyday lives of a small-town community on Banks Peninsula.

Gary Henderson’s plays have been professionally produced in New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Great Britain, Canada and the United States. Skin Tight won a coveted Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1998. It was also produced in New York in 2006, the UK in 2007 and Canada in 2008.

He received a Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Outstanding New NZ Play of the Year in 2007 for Home Land and Best New Short Play in 1996 for Mo & Jess Kill Susie. More recent commissions include Stealing Games for Capital E National Theatre for Children.

Peninsula was written in Dunedin while Henderson was resident at the Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage. Although the story of Peninsula is fictional, the places and some of the incidental anecdotes are real, the playwright says. It is an acknowledgement, a nod to a time and a place that was a step on the way to here and now.

Peninsula is at Circa Theatre from 25 February to 18 March for the 2012 New Zealand International Arts Festival, Wellington, 24 February – 18 March. Tickets $50 available from Ticketek. Circa Friends will receive Friends of the Festival discount for Peninsula by booking at any Ticketek agency or box office using their Circa Friends card.

ENDS

With support from Creative New Zealand

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