Forster, Michelanne

IN BRIEF

Michelanne Forster is a playwright, scriptwriter, fiction writer, and editor. She has written plays for the stage; several have been adapted for broadcast on radio, winning national radio drama awards. Forster was awarded a QEII Playwright's Bursary in 1993, and won the Buckland Award for Literature in 1994 for her play, Daughters of Heaven. She has worked as a television scriptwriter, and written plays for children. Her non-fiction and fiction has appeared in anthologies, journals and magazines.

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.

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 five 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); and Rodney Rat and the Space Creatures.

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 is currently running the Auckland Writers’ Studio programme for Playmarket.

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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.

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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

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