Robert Lord

Robert Lord (18 July 1945 – 7 January 1992) was the first New Zealand professional playwright. He was one of the first New Zealand playwrights to have plays produced abroad since Merton Hodge in the 1930s (following Bruce Mason and James K. Baxter).

Biography Lord was born in Rotorua in 1945, to parents Richard and Bebe Lord, and had an older brother. His father's 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. At this time in New Zealand, professional theatre was just beginning, and in Wellington where Lord was, Downstage Theatre had opened in 1964 and Unity Theatre was active.

In 1974 Lord travelled to New York City on an Arts Council travel bursary, and stayed there for several years. He signed with the New York agent Gilbert Parker from the William Morris Agency. Glorious Ruins was presented at Circa Theatre in Wellington in April 1991 and at the Fortune Theatre, Dunedin, in June of that year. His play The Travelling Squirrel is based in New York and was written in 1987 although not performed in a New Zealand mainstage theatre until 2015. China Wars was presented in a co-operative production staged at the Globe Theatre in Dunedin in 1988 and at Bats Theatre in Wellington in 2002. Broken Circle, a one-act play, received its world premiere at Studio 77 in Wellington in 2004.

In 1987 he returned to New Zealand to take up the Robert Burns Fellowship in Dunedin. He was involved with several New Zealand theatres during his career: 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. 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.

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. He is the only New Zealand dramatist to have had works programmed by major off-Broadway and regional American repertory companies. He is also the only New Zealand dramatist to have had a production of their work in a major Toronto theatre.

Lord died in 1992, aged 46, from cancer and HIV/AIDS complications.

Plays 1971: It Isn’t Cricket 1972: Balance of Payments 1972: Meeting Place 1974: Well Hung 1974: Heroes and Butterflies 1975: Glitter and Spit 1978: High as a Kite 1983: Unfamiliar Steps (was later called Bert and Maisy, 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 1981: Pictures - Writer - Film Lord has a plaque on the Dunedin Writers' Walk, featuring a quote from a letter to his mother.