Forster, Michelanne
IN BRIEF
Michelanne is primarily a playwright whose work has been produced throughout New Zealand and overseas. She also writes fiction and non-fiction, and has extensive experience writing for children's television and theatre. In 2011 she was the Michael King/ University of Auckland Writing Fellow.
ProfilePlace of residence: Auckland, New Zealand |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Forster, Michelanne (1953 –) is a playwright, scriptwriter, fiction writer and editor who moved to New Zealand in 1972 from her native California. She is a graduate of Auckland University and the Auckland Secondary Teachers College.
After some rather mixed experiences as an actor — including a stint as a singing rabbit — Forster decided her talents were better used as a writer and script editor. 'Far safer to stand behind the camera’, she notes in her biographical essay, ‘Thank you and Goodnight’. (Available from author)
All but two of her historical plays have premiered at Christchurch's Court Theatre and all have been produced throughout New Zealand, as well as professional stagings in the USA and Australia. They are: A Dream Romance (1986); Daughters of Heaven (1991); Songs My Mother Taught Me (1993); Lanarch - Castle of Lies (1993); and This Other Eden (1996). Both Larnach - Castle of Lies and Daughters of Heaven have been adapted successfully for radio: Daughters of Heaven was a finalist in the (1993) Mobil Radio Awards, and Lanarch - Castle of Lies won the Best Radio NZ Drama award in 1993.
Forster was the 1995 Canterbury University Writer in Residence. The residency is designed to foster New Zealand writing by providing a full-time opportunity for a writer to work in an academic environment, and is open to writers in the fields of creative writing: fiction, drama, and poetry.
Another play for radio, The Rosenberg Sisters (1997) won the award for Radio New Zealand Best Dramatic Production. Forster was awarded a QEII Playwright's Bursary in 1993, and won the Buckland Award for Literature in 1994 for Daughters of Heaven. In 2005, Forster’s play My Heart is Bathed in Blood, premiered at Unitec in Auckland, and went on to play at the Fortune Theatre for the Otago Arts Festival in 2006. There it won the Listener’s Critic’s Choice for best play in Dunedin. In 2007, The Great Storm of 1868 opened in the historic district of Omaru and is the longest-running professional production in New Zealand, with a four month season, over two years.
In 2008, she received a Creative New Zealand grant towards the writing of a new play, Don’t Mention Casablanca.
Since being appointed to her first job in television — as a script editor for that children's television institution Play School — Forster has worked on numerous television programmes. These include Bumble, The Big Chair, What Now, After School, and the Maori language inserts added to the American children's series Sesame Street. She has also written a feature film script, The Third Wife of Lanarch, and script-edited the TV3 production of Making Italy Home.
Forster has written six plays for children: The Bungling Burglars; Mean Jean The Pirate Queen; Arabella and the Amazing Wardrobe; Musical Beasts; and The Secret of Tung Ting Lake. Her books for children are Rodney Rat and the Sunken Treasure (1983); Rodney Rat and the Sneaky Weasel Gang (1985); The Four-legged Prince (1985); Rodney Rat and the Space Creatures and The Butcher and the Bear.
Her non-fiction writing has appeared in A Passion for Travel (1998) and When It's Over: New Zealanders Talk about Their Experiences of Separation and Divorce (1998). Her work also appears in Play Lunch (1996), an anthology of New Zealand writing.
As a fiction writer, her stories have appeared in journals including Metro, Sport, Landfall, and Takahe. In 1996 she won the Takahe short story competition.
Michelanne Forster was Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury in 1995. She taught at the New Zealand School of Broadcasting in Christchurch for over a decade, and moved to Auckland in 2008. She was organiser of the Auckland Writers’ Studio programme for Playmarket.
Michelanne Forster was the Michael King/University of Auckland Writing Fellow in 2011. During her residency she lectured at the University of Auckland in the English Department, and she wrote a new play, Snow Fire. Her children's play The Butcher and the Bear was also produced by Time Out Theatre in October 2011. Forster's play, Don't Mention Casablanca has been selected to be read at the Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm Sweden in 2012.
writers in schools information
Forster is able to visit schools outside her region and is best suited for high school drama classes. She is happy to do short film or theatre workshops, by prior arrangements.
Media links and clips
- My Heart is Bathed in Blood theatre review
- Michelanne's interview on Christchurch Libraries' site
- Michelanne's page on NZ Short Film site
- Michelanne's lecture on writing plays based on historical events
