Lisa Warrington
Lisa Warrington, photographed circa 1994
Born
Lisa Jadwiga Valentina Warrington

1952 (age 71–72)
England
OccupationTheatre studies lecturer
AwardsLifetime Achievement Award, Dunedin Theatre Awards 2014
New Zealand Listener Best Director award 2004, 2005, 2007
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Tasmania
ThesisAllan Wilkie in Australia: The work of a Shakespearean actor-manager (1981)
Academic work
Notable worksTheatre Aotearoa database

Lisa Jadwiga Valentina Warrington (born 1952) is a New Zealand theatre studies academic, director, actor and author. She has directed more than 130 productions, and established the Theatre Aotearoa database. In 2014 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Dunedin Theatre Awards, and was three times winner of a New Zealand Listener Best Director award, including one for Tom Scott's The Daylight Atheist.

Early life and education

Warrington was born in 1952, and spent much of her early life in England, Nigeria, and Australia. She is of English and Polish descent, her parents Jozef and Patricia (née McLean) having changed their surname to Warrington from Wawrzynczak. Her sister is Australian actress, songwriter and author Carmen Warrington (b. 1957); her brother Jan was a Multicultural Arts Officer and lighting designer based in Canberra (d. 2008).[1][2]

Warrington obtained a BA (Hons) from the University of Tasmania in 1973, with a thesis titled Dunbar, the concise artist: a study of aspects of language, structure and imagery in his poetry.[3] In 1981 she followed this with an MA, also at the University of Tasmania, titled Allan Wilkie in Australia: the work of a Shakespearean actor-manager.[4]

Career

Warrington taught at the University of Tasmania[5] before being appointed as the William Evans Lecturer at the University of Otago in 1981. She initially had 30 students and was the University's only drama lecturer, with only three others in the entire country.[5] In 1990, she led the introduction of a directing programme to the University of Otago's Theatre Studies programme.[6][7] From 2011 she was appointed as Associate Professor there.[8]

Warrington is also responsible for the front door of the Allen Hall Theatre being painted red.[5]

The red doors of the Allen Hall Theatre.

Many of Warrington's academic publications deal with indigenous theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly Māori as well as Pasifika practitioners and productions. With David O'Donnell, Warrington wrote Floating Islanders: Pasifika Theatre in Aotearoa, a book based on interviews with practitioners over the course of seven years that, among other things, catalogues Pasifika theatre from 1984 to 2014. The book's title comes from an interview with Samoan playwright and filmmaker Makerita Urale.[9]

Warrington, a co-founder of Wow! Productions,[5] directed more than 35 productions at Dunedin's Fortune Theatre,[5] and was Acting Artistic Director of the Fortune for the latter part of 1985.[10] She was then Associate Director of the Fortune from 1985 to 1991.[7] She has directed more than 130 productions in total, including many for Wow! Productions.[11]

Warrington retired from the University of Otago on 30 June 2018, after 37 years of teaching, although she continues to work freelance and to maintain the Theatre Aotearoa database.[5][12] Warrington began the database in 2004, and as of July 2021 it contained details on 17,156 New Zealand theatre productions in New Zealand and overseas.[11][13] Her goal for the database is for it to cover all theatre productions in New Zealand from 1840 onwards.[12]

Selected productions

  • As You Like It, directed by Lisa Warrington, by Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School third year students, at Basement Theatre, Te Whaea, Wellington, June 2014[22]
  • Farley's Arcade (2015), a site specific historical promenade theatre event, at the Athenaeum, co-created with Richard Huber, Rua McCallum, Gareth McMillan, Martyn Roberts, and co-directed, Wow! Productions.[23]
  • The End of the Golden Weather by Bruce Mason, featuring Matt Wilson, at Macandrew Bay Hall, Port Chalmers Library, Pioneer Women’s Hall, Oamaru Grainstore Gallery, and other locations in Mosgiel, Waitati and Dunedin, 2020.[24] Reviewer Terry MacTavish said "One of the country’s leading directors, Lisa Warrington, shows her customary finesse... ...[a] luminous, compassionate production."[25]

Selected publications

Awards

Warrington was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Dunedin Theatre Awards in 2014.[27] The same year she was awarded a New Zealand Theatre Services honour medal.[28] Warrington has been created a Life Member of the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies.[29]

She received a New Zealand Listener Best Director award three times:

  • 2007 for The Road To Mecca
  • 2005 for Auntie and Me
  • 2004 for The Daylight Atheist and Cherish[11]
  • 2018 Rob Jordan Book Prize, awarded by the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies, for Floating Islanders (joint award with David O'Donnell).[30]

See also

  • Hilary Halba – New Zealand actor, theatre director and academic

References

  1. ↑ "Her story Archived 19 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine," Carmen Warrington: Calm and creative. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  2. ↑ "Carmen Warrington Books". www.hachette.com.au. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  3. ↑ Warrington, Lisa J (1973). Dunbar: the concise artist : a study of aspects of language, structure and imagery in his poetry (Thesis). OCLC 857719669. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  4. ↑ Warrington, Lisa Jadwiga Valentina (1981). Allan Wilkie in Australia: The work of a Shakespearean actor-manager (Thesis). Hobart. OCLC 1178545822. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McPhee, Elena (13 July 2018). "Stage of life for taking pride in dramatic direction". Otago Daily Times Online News. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Alison Clarke (2018). Otago : 150 years of New Zealand's first university. Dunedin: Otago University Press. ISBN 978-1-98-853133-5. OL 29404941M. Wikidata Q107426622.
  7. 1 2 Lisa Warrington; Alison Finigan (2014). Allen Hall 100 Years, 100+ Voices. Dunedin: Otago University Press. ISBN 978-0-473-29737-4. Wikidata Q107271268.
  8. ↑ University of Otago (3 December 2010). "Otago academics made full professor". www.scoop.co.nz. Archived from the original on 23 July 2021. Retrieved 23 July 2021.
  9. ↑ Fox, Rebecca (1 February 2018). "Pasifika passion". Otago Daily Times Online News. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  10. ↑ Fortune Theatre Trust (2004). A Celebration of 30 Years Live Professional Theatre: the Fortune Theatre Dunedin New Zealand 1974–2004. Dunedin, NZ: Fortune Theatre Trust Board. p. 7.
  11. 1 2 3 4 School of Performing Arts. "Lisa Warrington". www.otago.ac.nz. Archived from the original on 7 July 2021. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  12. 1 2 "Her life in art: Lisa Warrington". The Big Idea. 30 July 2018. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  13. 1 2 "Theatre Aotearoa". tadb.otago.ac.nz. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  14. ↑ "ATL: Unpublished Collections". tiaki.natlib.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  15. ↑ "ATL: Unpublished Collections". tiaki.natlib.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  16. ↑ Beresford, Rosemary (11 January 1986). "A room with no future". NZ Listener. p. 38.
  17. ↑ "Past Shows | Wow Productions". Wow Productions | Premiere Dunedin Theatre. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  18. ↑ "ATL: Unpublished Collections". tiaki.natlib.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  19. ↑ Frame, Barbara (6 October 2006). "Railway setting transports audience". Otago Daily Times. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  20. ↑ "Playing with Fire. Staging Lines of Fire: A Site-specific Project". scholar.google.co.nz. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  21. ↑ Frame, Barbara (16 November 2009). "Discordant quartet in Italy". Otago Daily Times. Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  22. ↑ "Muddled approach to the golden world". Stuff. 19 June 2014. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  23. ↑ "FARLEY'S ARCADE: The Wildest Place in Town – Visceral, entertaining, indescribable". www.theatreview.org.nz. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  24. ↑ "PRODUCTION INFORMATION: THE END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER". www.theatreview.org.nz. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  25. ↑ MacTavish, Terry (9 November 2020). "THE END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER – A luminous, compassionate production". www.theatreview.org.nz. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  26. ↑ Otago University Press. "Playlunch: Five Short New Zealand Plays". University of Otago. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  27. ↑ "AWARD WINNERS FOR 2014 DUNEDIN THEATRE AWARDS". www.theatreview.org.nz. 16 December 2014. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  28. ↑ McAvinue, Shawn (17 December 2014). "Theatre puts on its own awards". Otago Daily Times Online News. Archived from the original on 15 June 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  29. ↑ "ADSAHistory". www.adsa.edu.au. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  30. ↑ "2018 Joint Winners Rob Jordan Prize". Retrieved 10 November 2021.
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