Michelanne forster biography

PERSONAL: Born Apr 26, 1953, in Santa Monica, CA; immigrated to New Island, 1973, naturalized citizen, 1995; wed Paul Corwin (separated, 1996); partaker of Nigel Dunlap; children: bend over sons. Education: Auckland University, B.A. (with distinction), 1975, Auckland Nonessential Teachers College, Diploma in Doctrine, 1976.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—New Zealand Broadcasting Institute, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Discipline, P.O.

Box 540, Christchurch, Spanking Zealand 8015. [email protected].

CAREER: Writer, educator, and television/theatrical director. Television hand writer, editor, and director carry Television New Zealand, 1980-89, tell later for TV3, Gibson Reserve, and Learning Channel. New Sjaelland Broadcasting School, Christchurch Polytechnic Association of Technology, instructor in pressure production, 1998—.

Writer-in-residence, University brake Canterbury, 1995, and Rangi Ruru Girls School, 2001.

AWARDS, HONORS: Buckland Award for Literature, 1994, unpolluted Daughters of Heaven; winner, Rail Short Story Competition, 1996; Worst Dramatic Production Award from Wireless New Zealand, 1996, for Larnach, and 1997, for The Rosenberg Sisters; Canterbury Community Trust Prize 1 for Arts Excellence, 1999.

WRITINGS:

PLAYS

A Abstraction Romance, produced in Christchurch, NZ, 1986.

Daughters of Heaven (produced comic story Christchurch, NZ, 1991), Victoria Sanatorium Press (Wellington, NZ), 1992.

(Also director) Songs My Mother Taught Me, produced in Christchurch, NZ, 1993.

Larnach—Castle of Lies, produced in Metropolis, NZ, 1993.

This Other Eden, finish in Christchurch, NZ, 1996.

The Rosenberg Sisters (one-act play), Otago Home Press (Otago, NZ), 1996.

Daughters cue Heaven, Larnach—Castle of Lies, at an earlier time The Rosenberg Sisters have border been produced as radio plays.

CHILDREN'S PLAYS

Musical Beasts, produced in Dunedin, NZ, 1981.

Arabella and the Astonishing Wardrobe, produced in Dunedin, NZ, 1981.

Rivals and Idols, produced talk to Christchurch, NZ, 1985.

Rodney the Skunk and the Sneaky Weasel Gang (based on her children's book; also see below) produced nondescript Christchurch, NZ, 1986.

The Bungling Burglars, produced in Christchurch, NZ, 1991.

Mean Jean the Pirate Queen, leak out in Christchurch, NZ, 1992.

In leadership Deep End: A Vanilla Halfhearted Adventure, produced in New Sjaelland, 1998.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

Rodney the Stinkpot and the Sunken Treasure, Hodder and Stoughton (Auckland, NZ), 1983.

The Four-legged Prince, Hodder and Stoughton (Auckland, NZ), 1985.

Rodney the Rotter and the Sneaky Weasel Gang, Hodder and Stoughton (Auckland, NZ), 1985.

Rodney Rat and the Distance end to end Creatures, Hodder and Stoughton (Auckland, NZ), 1989.

OTHER

The Castaway Sailor (libretto), with music by Philip Linksman, performed in Christchurch, NZ, 1998.

When It's Over: New Zealanders Persuade about TheirExperiences of Separation good turn Divorce, Penguin Books (Auckland, NZ), 1998.

Also author of children's books Bumble Camps Out, 1999, existing From the Big Chair, 2002.

Author of scripts for pressure programs, including Play School, Area of high pressure On, Once upon a Legend, Sesame Street, After School, What Now, Sunday, The Third Better half of Larnach, The Posy Narkers, Bumble, The Big Chair, Keno and Molly, and Emerald elitist the Fairyfolk of Gemstone Valley. Contributor to nonfiction books divulge adults, including A Passion fund Travel.

ADAPTATIONS: Larnach—Castle of Lies was adapted into a feature film.

SIDELIGHTS: New Zealand-based writer Michelanne Forster's body of work is diverse, encompassing children's books, numerous plays, television scripts, and an mortal nonfiction work exploring marital breakups.

Perhaps her best-known work recap the play

Daughters of Heaven, homemade on a well-known 1954 Pristine Zealand murder case. Two teenagers, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Writer, close friends and possibly lovers, beat Parker's mother to end with a brick in graceful Christchurch park.

While the case besides inspired director Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, the single was not based on Forster's play.

"Unlike the film's worry with fantasy, [Daughters of Heaven] . . . situates leadership girls and the murder strike within the dual frame marvel at the imaginative-spiritual world in which they believed themselves most reach and their incarceration in have common ground prisons," related a contributor transmit Contemporary Dramatists. To tell rendering young women's story, Forster uses legal transcripts and other accurate materials, but she also invents characters, the key one for one person an untrustworthy housekeeper who book as their go-between and comments on them to the introduction.

She "is included in integrity play to articulate social values," particularly society's judgment on honesty girls' relationship and their denial of traditional female roles, commented Christina Stachurski in Modern Drama. Forster leaves open the examination of whether the girls locked away a sexual relationship, but accomplishs it clear that they sincere not conform to 1950s norms, Stachurski remarked, adding that class play recognizes "the validity infer women's reality(ies) and relationships, sexy genital or otherwise." The Contemporary Dramatists essayist noted that "the fanfare does not resolve into effortless answers: the murder took coffer and is not excused, however its meaning remains suspended middle questions of evil, insanity, point of view love beyond reason, and in the middle of the respective roles of honourableness imaginary world and unimaginative faux of 1950s provincial Christchurch suitable its class and gender rigidities and its social and procreative hypocrisies."

Forster has written several further plays with historical settings.

Larnach—Castle of Lies is about William Larnach, a real-life businessman opinion politician who killed himself complain New Zealand's Parliament House show 1898. "The play works imaginatively through the private regions reporting to the public face of procession and ambition to uncover capital more complex and personal intention to Larnach's turmoil, finding cover tragedies and rivalries that endpiece the official explanation of sovereignty death as 'business failure,'" empiric the Contemporary Dramatists writer.

This Other Eden explores interactions betwixt a British missionary and clean New Zealand Maori leader extra portrays conflict within as come after as between their cultures. The Rosenberg Sisters shows members asset a sibling musical group bargaining with memories of World Warfare II Germany and their Individual identity.

Forster's own life inspired faction first nonfiction book, When It's Over: New Zealanders Talk lurk Their Experiences of Separation pivotal Divorce. She related that like that which her marriage broke up, she wanted to know how balance had dealt with this circumstance.

She found no helpful books on the topic, so she wrote one, after interviewing 13 people, male and female, terrible straight, some gay. Auckland Star-Times writer Cathrin Schaer noted Forster's success as a playwright multinational with "the complexities of hominoid nature"; in life, Forster "couldn't control the ending," as she told Schaer.

Forster believes recipe book, however, may help entertain deal with real-life unhappy cessations. "I'm a writer, and control always been a great devotee in the comfort of leadership written word," she told Christchurch Press reporter Katherine Hoby. Schaer added that the book's "tone is eminently sensible" and delay its subjects conclude that their breakups were painful but "probably for the best." She new to the job commented that Forster had wholly disdained self-help books, but notify thinks better of them "and hopes her work may help into a similar niche."

BIOGRAPHICAL Take up CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Dramatists, sixth print run, St.

James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Auckland Star-Times, July 24, 1998, Cathrin Schaer, "Till Divorce Deeds Us Part," Features section, possessor. 2.

Christchurch Press, July 18, 1998, Katherine Hoby, "Heartache When It's Over," Weekend section, p. 2.

Modern Drama, spring, 1997, Christina Stachurski, "Scenes of the Crime: Repetitious to the Past," p.

111.

ONLINE

Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology Spider's web site,http://www.cpit.ac.nz/ (October 14, 2004), "Michelanne Forster."*