Robert Lord (playwright)

Robert Lord (18 July 1945 – 7 January 1992) was the first New Zealand professional playwright, and the first New Zealand playwright to have plays produced abroad since Merton Hodge in the 1930s.

Robert Lord
Born
Robert Lord

(1945-07-18)18 July 1945
Rotorua, New Zealand
Died7 January 1992(1992-01-07) (aged 46)
Dunedin, New Zealand
OccupationPlaywright

Biography

Born in Rotorua in 1945, to parents Richard and Bebe Lord. He has an older brother. His fathers job took the family around the country and they lived in various cities in New Zealand while he was growing up including Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Invercargill.[1] Lord attended schools in Auckland, Hamilton and Southland Boys' High School in Invercargill.

Lord was educated at three tertiary institutions. First the University of Otago, then Victoria University of Wellington (1965–68) and after that he gained his teaching qualification at Wellington Teachers College.[1] In 1969, he won the Katherine Mansfield Young Writers Award.[2] At this time in New Zealand professional theatre in New Zealand was just beginning, and in Wellington where Lord was, Downstage Theatre had opened in 1964 and Unity Theatre was active.[1]

Victoria University started a Drama Department in 1970 which Lord attended at age 25, the professor recounts meeting Lord for the first time:

"an imposingly tall man - well over six feet, with light brown hair, a slight stoop and a manner that could switch from being serious and earnest to riotously funny in the course of a single sentence." Philip Mann[1]

For a period of time Lord worked backstage at Downstage Theatre, was teaching school, studying drama and writing plays at night.[1] Lord's first full-length play was It Isn’t Cricket (1971) and it was selected for the inaugural Australian National Playwrights' Conference in 1973 which he attended.[1] Following up from that event alongside Nonnita Rees, Judy Russell and Ian Fraser he formed Playmarket to increase the number of plays by New Zealand writers available for New Zealand theatres.[3]

In 1974 Lord travelled to New York City on an Arts Council travel bursary, and he stayed for several years. He signed with the New York agent Gilbert Parker from the William Morris Agency.[1] Plays from the 1980s include Country Cops, this is revision of Well Hung (1985) and was presented at Trinity Square Repertory in New York.[4] Unfamiliar Steps (1983) was later called Bert and Maisie and was adapted for television in 1988. His play The Travelling Squirrel is based in New York and was written in 1987 although not performed in New Zealand until 2015.[5]

In 1987 he returned to New Zealand to take up the Robert Burns Fellowship in Dunedin. He was involved with several New Zealand theatres: Mercury Theatre, Auckland (writer-in-residence, 1974); Circa Theatre and Downstage Theatre, Wellington; and Fortune Theatre, Dunedin (writer-in-residence, 1990).

The play Joyful and Triumphant was commissioned by Circa Theatre and premiered there as part of the New Zealand Festival programme in 1992, following which it toured Australia. Lord died just before it opened so never got to see it on stage.[6][1] In 1992 Joyful and Triumphant received the following Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards: Production of the Year, Director of the Year, and New Zealand Playwright of the Year. The play tells a story about a small-town New Zealand family over 40 years in a series of Christmas Day scenes. Circa Theatre chose Joyful and Triumpant as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations.[7]

He also wrote one-act plays, radio plays and screenplays. His plays have been produced or published in New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

Lord died in 1992, aged 46, from cancer and HIV/AIDS complications.[6][4][8]

Plays
  • 1971: It Isn’t Cricket
  • 1972: Meeting Place
  • 1974: Well Hung
  • 1974: Heroes and Butterflies
  • 1975: Glitter and Spit
  • 1978: High as a Kite
  • 1978: Balance of Payments
  • 1983: Unfamiliar Steps (was later called Bert and Maisie, and was adapted for television in 1988)
  • 1985: Country Cops (a revision of Well Hung, 1985)
  • 1987: The Affair
  • 1992: Joyful and Triumphant

Film and television
  • 1971: Survey - The Day We Landed on The Most Perfect Planet In the Universe - Writer of Narration - Television[9]
  • 1981: Pictures - Writer - Film[9]
  • 1987: Peppermint Twist - Writer - Television[9]
  • 1988: Bert and Maisy - Writer, Creator - Television[9]
  • 1993: Joyful and Triumphant - Original Writer, Writer - Television[9]

Awards and honours

Legacy

Lord's home in Titan Street, Dunedin, was left in trust as a rent-free writer’s residence.[10][8] Administered by the Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust, it hosted its first writers in residence in 2003.[11][12]

References
  1. Mann, Phillip (2013). "Introduction". In Mann, Phillip (ed.). Three Plays Robert Lord. Wellington: Playmarket. ISBN 978-0-908607-46-4. OCLC 868075476.
  2. Lord, Robert (1988). Country cops. NY, NY (357 W. 20th St., New York 10011): Broadway Play Pub. ISBN 0-88145-064-2. OCLC 19069403.CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. Atkinson, Laurie; O'Donnell, David, eds. (2013). Playmarket 40 : 40 years of playwriting in New Zealand. [Wellington] New Zealand. ISBN 978-0-908607-45-7. OCLC 864712401.
  4. "Robert Lord". Playmarket. 27 October 2015.
  5. Cardy, Tom (31 August 2015). "Robert Lord's The Travelling Squirrel comes to rest at Wellington's Circa". Stuff. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  6. "New Zealand playwright dies of cancer". Otago Daily Times. 1 August 1992.
  7. "Joyful and Triumphant". Circa Theatre. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  8. Vanessa, Manhire (11 May 2017). "Playwright Robert Lord to be honoured with Dunedin Writers Walk Plaque". www.cityofliterature.co.nz. Archived from the original on 26 January 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  9. "Robert Lord". NZ On Screen. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  10. "Other opportunities, Otago Fellows, University of Otago, New Zealand". www.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  11. "Robert Lord Writers In Residence Announced". www.scoop.co.nz. 25 February 2003. Archived from the original on 24 July 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  12. "Dunedin cottage writers' haven". Otago Daily Times Online News. 22 April 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2020.

Further reading
  • Southern People: A dictionary of Otago Southland biography. Longacre Press Dunedin & Dunedin City Council. 1998. p. 285,286. ISBN 1 877135 119.
  • Robinson & Wattie (1998). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 311,312. ISBN 0-19-558348-5.
  • Sturm, Terry (1998) [1991]. The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (2 ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. pp. 357–359. ISBN 0-19-558385-X.
  • "Obituary: Robert Lord". Dominion Sunday Times. 26 January 1992.
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