THEATRE

Theatre is my creative home

I’ve been directing theatre since the late 1980s, working across Shakespeare, new New Zealand writing, contemporary drama and musical theatre.

I’m drawn to stories with strong characters, complexity, humour and the capacity to surprise an audience. I’m particularly interested in the grey areas: irony, contradiction and moral ambiguity. I tend to distrust simple binaries — good and bad, right and wrong, hero and villain — and look instead for the complexity that makes characters and situations interesting and reflects the world as an audience experiences it.

Two men are in conversation in a dimly lit room. One man on the left is wearing a brown hat and a suit with a patterned tie, holding a drink. The other man on the right is in a beige uniform, possibly a military or scout uniform, with a friendly expression.

Mick Rose and Cameron Rhodes in A Way of Life

I embrace the ideas of ensemble and complicity: the sense that everyone in the room is part of the same act of imagination, and that audiences are collaborators in the experience rather than passive observers.

Theatre is also where my ideas about creative leadership began. I’m interested in creating the conditions in which actors, designers, writers and other artists can take risks, challenge one another and make something together that none of us could have made alone.

A white multi-story building with gold decorative pillars on the front, large windows, and storefronts at the ground level. Signage includes "Max Wall Ltd" and "DAYS." Overhead, there are power lines against a blue sky.

BATS Theatre building 1988

BATS

Building a theatre from the ground up

In 1989, aged 24, I took over the lease of the run-down BATS Theatre in Wellington with Simon Elson. Together, we established it as Wellington’s fourth professional theatre, creating a fresh identity centred on new work, emerging practitioners and new audiences.

We wanted theatre to be ambitious, immediate, accessible and entertaining. We wanted ticket prices to be affordable and the experience of going to the theatre to feel more like going to a rock gig than attending an elitist cultural institution.

BATS became a home for new writing, experimental work and emerging artists — and continues to be a training ground for generations of New Zealand theatre-makers.

It was also where I began to understand that creative leadership is about creating the conditions in which other people can excel.

The BATS story →

Jism — by Ken Duncum & Rebecca Rodden

Directed at BATS in 1989, Jism marked the beginning of my professional directing career.

Two women standing close together on a stage, engaged in conversation, with stage scaffolding and equipment in the background. One woman is wearing a patterned dress, and the other a light-colored dress with a dark belt, holding some papers.

Kerry Fox and Emma Robinson

SELECTED WORK

SHAKESPEARE

A stage scene with four young people, three girls and one boy in a wheelchair, during a theatrical or street performance. The girl on the left wears a plaid vest and a chain, the girl on the right wears a checkered shirt, and the boy is seated in a wheelchair with a woman or girl standing by a large piece of paper or fabric they are holding. The background includes stage scaffolding and lights.

King Lear

Victoria University Summer Shakespeare 1988

An early Shakespeare production and an important part of my development as a director.

Black and white photo of a happy couple in wedding attire sharing an intimate moment on the street, leaning against a brick wall.

The Taming of the Shrew

Nomis Productions, Watershed Theatre 1991

A contemporary, energetic approach to Shakespeare's comedy.

A scene from the movie 'Dazed and Confused' showing three men with open mouths, one holding a beer bottle, celebrating or singing.

Twelfth Night

Depot and BATS Theatres 1989

A production grounded in the play's madcap comic energy and emotional complexity.

Four performers on stage, engaged in a theatrical scene from Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

New Zealand Actors’ Company 2000/2001

A large-scale touring production created with the New Zealand Actors’ Company.

NEW ZEALAND WRITING

Blue Sky Boys — Ken Duncum

One of the most significant productions of my early career.

I directed Blue Sky Boys three times over six years — at BATS in 1990, the Maidment  in 1994, and on a national tour in 1996.

Ken Duncum's writing has been an important part of my theatrical life. I’m drawn to his ability to combine comedy and tragedy, irony and emotional depth, and to create characters driven to life-changing epiphanies.

Two men dressed in tuxedos singing and playing guitar on stage, with a vintage microphone in front of them, against a dark background.

Michael Galvin and Tim Balme

Two women with dark hair and glasses look at a photo or document together in a room with yellow walls and a doorway in the background.

Stephenie Creed and Emily Perkins

Flipside — Ken Duncum

Circa Theatre 2001

A play based on the extraordinary true story of the survivors of the Rose Noelle.

Two men stand in front of a bed with two individuals lying on it, one male and one female. The scene appears somber or tense, with the men looking serious.

Eddie Campbell, Gareth Reeves, Timothy Bartlett and Tim Spite

Horseplay — Ken Duncum

Auckland Theatre Company 2010

My return to theatre directing after several years working in television.

Two men engaged in a conversation in a kitchen set, one seated and the other leaning forward, with a large dinosaur foot prop in the background.

John Leigh and Tim Balme

Trees Beneath the Lake — Arthur Meek

Auckland Theatre Company 2012

A new play exploring memory, history, greed and the stories we construct around the past.

A woman with blonde hair hugging a man sitting at a table. The man is wearing a checkered shirt and holding a teal mug, smiling with eyes closed. The scene appears to be indoors with a dark background and green plants.

Michael Hurst and Catherine Wilkin

MUSICAL THEATRE

Stephen Sondheim has been a major influence on the way I think about theatre — particularly his belief that content dictates form, and that precision and economy can create extraordinary theatrical effects.

Into the Woods — Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

Watershed Theatre 1994

Two photos of women wearing elaborate, colorful costumes with large, feathered headpieces and wide skirts, performing on a stage.

Sylvia Rands, Harriet Crampton and Miranda Harcourt

Assassins — Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman

Watershed Theatre 1996

Three people standing on stage in front of an American flag backdrop, singing.

Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Andrew Binns and Andrew Laing

Merrily We Roll Along — Stephen Sondheim and George Furth

Toi Whakaari/NZ Drama School 2019

Group of diverse students in caps and gowns celebrating graduation, raising their caps in the air.

THE NZ ACTORS’ COMPANY

Taking ambitious theatre beyond the main centres

Four people standing outdoors with a hilly town and the ocean in the background.

In 2000, together with Tim Balme, Robyn Malcolm and Katie Wolfe, I established the New Zealand Actors’ Company.

Touring was at the heart of our ambition. We wanted to take large-scale, ambitious theatre to the provinces as well as the main centres, making work of the highest quality available to audiences beyond the traditional metropolitan theatres.

Our manifesto was simple: theatre should be accessible, unpretentious, compelling and of the highest quality.

We deliberately worked with actors who had high profiles through their television work, helping to attract audiences who might not ordinarily attend theatre.

Our productions included A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Roger Hall’s A Way of Life. Both productions were highly successful with audiences. The experience reinforced something I had first learned at BATS: great theatre doesn't need to be elitist, and accessibility doesn't have to mean compromising quality.

Scene from a theatrical production with actors on stage, some lying on the ground, and shadowy figures in the background projected onto a textured wall.

Leah

Leah became one of the more difficult experiences of my theatre career. The production ultimately failed, and the experience taught me some important lessons about creative judgement, leadership and the responsibility that comes with bringing a group of artists together around a project.

It is part of the story too.

THE WORK THAT INTERESTS ME

I’m drawn to work that doesn't give up its possibilities too easily.

I want to find the things beneath the obvious interpretation: the contradiction in a character, the unexpected rhythm in a scene, the joke hidden inside the tragedy, the darkness inside the comedy.

I’m particularly interested in stories that resist easy answers — where characters can be sympathetic and difficult, funny and painful, generous and selfish. The grey areas are usually where the most interesting drama lives.

And I want the text to engage with the particular people in the room.

A Shakespeare play should not be a reconstruction of someone else's Hamlet, Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night's Dream. It should be our encounter with the play, made now, for this audience, by these artists.

That is where I think freshness comes from.

Not from trying to be different for its own sake, but from encountering the work anew.

THEATRE NOW

After many years working primarily in television and screen production, I'm returning to theatre with new work and new collaborations.

Auckland Theatre Company

Directing Misery by William Goldman, based on the novel by Stephen King

Circa Theatre

A new play by Ken Duncum.

Centrepoint Theatre

A new play co-written with Guy Langford.

Current work →

Back

TWO PRODUCTIONS IN DETAIL

A Midsummer Night's Dream →
The Father →