New Zealand Writers
RODGER, Victor
… the play … moves beyond the familiar Samoan stereotypes and greatly extends the range of Pacific Island writing. Paul Simei-Barton, New Zealand Herald, 24/09/07 (Review for My Name is Gary Cooper)
RODGER, Victor (1969 - ) is a playwright and scriptwriter of Samoan heritage. Born in Christchurch, Rodger was a journalist for several years before studying at Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School in Wellington. Rodger has been a writer and storyliner for the long-running television soap opera Shortland Street since 2000.
Rodger’s theatre work deals with race, racism and identity. His first play, Sons, premiered at the The Court in 1995. In 1997, Cunning Stunts was produced by Young and Hungry Theatre Company. Rodger rewrote Sons in 1998, and performed at Downstage Theatre in Wellington, winning four Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards including Most Outstanding New Writer and Most Outstanding New New Zealand play. Sons will be published by Huia in 2008.
In 2001, Rodger won the Sunday Star-Times Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. His third play, Ranterstantrum (2002), was lauded by the Evening Post as ‘a triumph over stereotype’.
Rodger studied writing for film at the Maurits Binger Foundation in Amsterdam in 2004-2005. The following year he was awarded the 2006 Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writers’ Residency, based at the Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Hawai’i.
In 2007, his fourth play, My Name is Gary Cooper, was produced by Auckland Theatre Company. This play was reviewed as ‘a darkly witty demolition of palagi fantasies about Polynesia’ by Metro magazine.
Victor Rodger lives in Christchurch.
(SH)
- Victor Rodger's biography with Playmarket.
