Kate JasonSmith

Kate (Kathleen) JasonSmith (born 1950) is a New Zealand actor, producer, playwright, filmmaker, photographer, and businesswoman. Based in Wellington, she has studied and worked elsewhere, including Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. as a theatre and film practitioner, she has been most recognised throughout her career for her role in establishing and producing Hens' Teeth, a platform for dozens of Kiwi female actors, musicians, and comedians that became a staple of the New Zealand theatre and comedy scene between 1988 and 2003. From 2018 on, the one-woman show I'll Tell You This for Nothing: My Mother the War Hero has received national and international praise for both the play, which she wrote, and her performance. Her mother, Phyllis Helena Jean Garvin, Légion d’honneur, was a QA nurse on the European front during World War II; her father, Jason Lewis Francis Smith, MC, was an engineering officer in the British Army during the war, and an architect by profession after the war. Both Irish, her parents emigrated to New Zealand in part because her mother was Protestant and her father was Catholic. In 2002 she received a Society for Research on Women (administered by the New Horizons for Women Trust) award to do research on the number and type of female roles on New Zealand stages and screens for the 2002 year; the results were part of work she did toward a BA (Hons).

Feminism

"My first job at 18 was as an actress. Following fast upon the heels of the heady glory was the disgust that all the good parts were written for men. When I asked why, I was told 'Because women don't do anything interesting.' The real horror of that statement was that for years I believed it, in spite of the wealth of evidence around me to the contrary. Finally I asked the right question, why women weren't writing plays and was told 'You're a woman, why don't you write plays.' It was good advice—the reason I've created anything of importance in my life is because I've given up waiting for someone else to do it.'" Hens' Teeth likewise included many sketches that involved the "deconstruction of gender on stage," as theatre historian Hannah Banks said with regard to regular acts involving irony resulting from cross-dressing characters.

Kate JasonSmith gave the first of two introductory presentations at this meeting, in which she "welcomed everyone and spoke of the times she has experienced injustice and discrimination against women in the New Zealand theatre industry." Nonetheless, as the hui closed "Kate JasonSmith introduced the concept of 50/50 by 20/20, meaning a goal of 50% participation and recognition of women in theatre by 2020." and was "a finalist for the 2016 Adam Play Award."

Hens' Teeth Women's Comedy Company The name Hens' Teeth "pointed to the scarcity of female comedians"; Under the larger heading of "Social issues on stage," Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand devotes its paragraph on feminist cabaret to JasonSmith: "Second-wave feminism also picked up on the power of cabaret, initially with JasonSmith's The carefree show (1976) at Unity Theatre, Wellington" and then with Hens' Teeth, a women's comedy show." The show, what participant Madeline McNamara has called "feminist devised comedy," debuted in Wellington's Circa Theatre in December 1988 and "broke box office records." According to Hannah Banks, "A typical Hens' Teeth show would always start with the Mother Chook, Lee Hatherly," who would warm up the audience with direct—sometimes physically direct—interaction with the audience; "then what followed really was like a variety show. So it had its roots in music hall." Comedians, actors, and musicians, and dozens of other major figures in New Zealand theatre, film, and television who were involved in the group included Dame Kate Harcourt and Dame Gaylene Preston.

Another reviewer, writing shortly after the Christchurch massacre in 2019, noted "the underbelly of racism and religious intolerance in our communities. Against this backdrop, the story of Phyllis JasonSmith's experiences as a nurse in the last days of World War II is all the more poignant, all the more valid. ... Probably the most poignant aspect of Phyllis' story is that ... as an Irish Protestant, Phyllis knows her mother will never accept her Irish Catholic beau, but there is no denying the love and friendship that springs up between them amidst the violent explosions of wartime Europe. ... She has seen first-hand the impact of religious hatred and bigotry, and she will never allow these feelings to take root within her."

Cut to just under 60 minutes to fit the Edinburgh Fringe Festival format, I'll Tell You This for Nothing had a month-long run there in 2019. Promotional material for this iteration of the play described it as follows: "Irish-born Phyllis was one of only two New Zealand women ever to have been honoured with France's highest decoration, the Légion d'Honneur, for extreme bravery in WWII. She spoke of bombs screaming overhead, crawling around the hospital tents on their knees, the constant stream of wounded and dying soldiers. Not all her stories were tragic, most had a lighter side, a twist, a punchline. Award-winning director and actor JasonSmith brings to life the dramatic and often humorous tale of her mother's life in this acclaimed show about war, courage and romance."

Film and television As an actor, JasonSmith has appeared in Peter Jackson's splatstick film Braindead (1992), as well as The Hobbit (2012). She also had a role in Gaylene Preston's Bread and Roses (1993), as well as other New Zealand films and television productions. Reflections (1981), for example, is a 2-minute film, shown at the Sydney 8mm film festival that involves images interpreting a poem read in voice-over; "I was trying to do to poetry what people were just starting at that time to do to music with video clips." The Quick Window (1988) is set in a Sydney café, features an elderly male protagonist, and uses the café's glass window in part to reflect the man's memories as well as show the present. It was edited by Annie Collins and features Australian as well as New Zealand actors such as Jennifer Ludlam and Cathy Downes, along with JasonSmith's own mother, Phyllis.

Xmas for Lou "In the early 90s, having been offered a number of projects that were too long to be short films, [producer Robin] Laing came up with the idea of an anthology series for television." Working through her own Meridian Films production company, and increasingly "concerned about the lack of New Zealand drama, and more importantly the lack of women's perspective on television, [Laing] gathered together an impressive line-up of female film-makers and produced a four-part Anthology Drama series." a 50-minute version of it aired on New Zealand television as part of the Work of Art series in 1993. It also had a screening at Wellington's City Gallery on 28 November 1993 as part of a series of film screenings to celebrate the Centenary of Suffrage in New Zealand.

Writing about "women's film in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1973–1993," Deborah Shepard includes JasonSmith's Xmas for Lou along with films by Jane Campion and Anna Campion in a discussion of themes appearing towards the end of that period. They all present "the family as a melting pot of chaotic and perverse emotions" along with "the vulnerability of the young girl [protagonist] caught up in perplexing adult emotions." Xmas for Lou shares Kiwi Christmas traditions combined with a beach setting with contemporaneous examples of Kiwi film and theatre, e.g., Dorthe Scheffmann's short film The Beach (1995) and Robert Lord's last play, Joyful and Triumphant, which was first performed on stage in 1992 and then adapted for television and broadcast around Christmastime in 1993.

Xmas for Lou also "broke new ground" in its portrayal of "the fierce ambivalence between sisters,"

Additional professional activities In 1993, at the request of Jenny Stevenson, Kate JaspnSmith designed the curriculum for the Wellington Performing Arts Centre Acting Course, and taught screen acting at the full-time school. Both she and Lorae Parry were tutors for acting on screen at the Performing Arts Centre, Wellington for over a decade. In 2002/03 JasonSmith researched the funding available for women working in New Zealand theatre, film, and television as well as statistics on roles for women both on stage/in front of the camera and behind the scenes/below the line.

With her partner, Francesca Brice, Kate JasonSmith set up Pacific Perfumes Ltd in 2002, through which they manufacture and sell solid perfumes and other products in Aotearoa New Zealand as well as overseas. In 2011 the company participated in an international competition, the HBA International Package Design Awards, and won top honours in the green category, beating such competitors as "the Estee Lauder subsidiary Aveda." The award led to access to the US market as well as "inquiries from South Africa, Australia and the UK"; half their product already went "mainly to the tourist markets in Fiji and Hawaii but also to various stores in Canada and Australia, and to online retailers."

Director 1975, Meanwhile (documentary; co-film maker with Annie Collins, Donna Cross, Jerry Smith, and others) 1982, Reflections (2 min; director; Australia) 1982, Shifting (drama – director) 1987, The Quick Window (15 min; experimental; writer, director, producer; New Zealand/Australia) 1992, Xmas for Lou (TV drama; director) 1993, The Edge (TV arts series; episode director) 1995, Mel's Amazing Movies (children's TV drama; director) 1996, Lesbians and the Law (14 min drama; director)

Actor 1992, Braindead Mother at Park (US title: Dead Alive – Peter Jackson, director) 1993, Bread and Roses (Gaylene Preston, director) 1997, Mirror Mirror Doctor (NZ television drama) 1999, Ouch Isabel (Short film: Brian Challis, director; Ainsley Gardiner, producer) 2003–2005, Freaky Mrs Bond (NZ television series) 2009, Separation City Female Guest No. 1 (as Kate Jason Smith) 2012, The Hobbit Featured Extra (Peter Jackson, director)