Robert Lord (playwright)

Robert Lord
Robert Lord
Born	Robert Lord; 18 July 1945; Rotorua, New Zealand
Died	7 January 1992 (aged 46); Dunedin, New Zealand
Occupation	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.

Life

Born in Rotorua, Lord attended Southland Boys' High School and then the University of Otago and Victoria University of Wellington. In 1969, he won the Katherine Mansfield Young Writers Award, and in 1974 travelled to New York City on an Arts Council travel bursary, where he lived until returning in 1987 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).

Lord's first full-length play was It Isn’t Cricket (1971), then Meeting Place (1972) Well Hung (1974), Heroes and Butterflies (1974), Glitter and Spit (1975) High as a Kite and Balance of Payments (1978), Country Cops (a revision of Well Hung, 1985) and The Affair (1987). Unfamiliar Steps (1983) was later called Bert and Maisie, and was adapted for television in 1988. His Joyful and Triumphant toured in Australia in 1992 after his death from cancer;[1] it tells the Bishop family story over 40 years in a series of Christmas Day scenes. 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 HIV/AIDS complications.[2][3]

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

Awards and honours

1969: Katherine Mansfield Young Writers Award
1987: Robert Burns Fellowship

Legacy

Lord's home in Titan Street, Dunedin, was left in trust as a rent-free writer’s residence.[4][3] Administered by the Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust, it hosted its first writers in residence in 2003.[5]

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References

"New Zealand playwright dies of cancer". Otago Daily Times. 1 August 1992.
"Robert Lord". Playmarket. 27 October 2015.
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.
"Other opportunities, Otago Fellows, University of Otago, New Zealand". www.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
"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.