Auckland writer Rochelle Bright has been awarded the prestigious University of Auckland Residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre next year to write the libretto for an indie opera about Neil Roberts, the punk anarchist who blew himself up outside the country’s first police computer in 1982.

Bright writes crossover drama – theatre, cabaret, indie opera, circus or physical theatre that combines words or text and popular music. She is the only New Zealander to be a resident librettist at the American Lyric Theatre in New York. She has been General Manager of Auckland’s Massive Company since 2011, after six-years studying and developing theatre in New York. Rochelle has a Masters in Fine Arts from New York University (Tisch) and a Masters in Creative and Performing Arts (Drama) from Auckland University. She is a screenwriter/composer/librettist with readings and cabaret performances staged in the United States, Sweden and in New Zealand theatres.

Her recent work includes the theatre/cabaret performance Daffodils at Q Theatre, which told her own parents’ tale of falling in love in Hamilton in the 1960s, set against music by leading local bands such as Crowded House, the Mint Chicks and the Mutton Birds. Metro reviewer Frances Morton described it as “both beautifully nostalgic and heart-scrapingly raw”.

Recently she wrote the film script for Petrol Head, a family story set in Hamilton during the 1981 Springbok tour and this year her short pop opera Glam Guignol was performed in Albany, New York. Her next work, a narrative cabaret The Deliberate Disappearance of My Friend, Jack Harnett, will premier at the Q Theatre Loft in 2015, produced by theatre company Bullet Heart Club. She has held residencies in Dunedin, New York and Connecticut and has received several awards and grants.

Bright has been awarded the six-month University of Auckland Residency to write the libretto for an indie rock opera about New Zealand’s first suicide bomber Neil Roberts. The music is being written by multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, music director and producer Abraham Kunin from The Means. 

Roberts was killed in an attack against the facility that housed the main computer system of the New Zealand Police and other law enforcement agencies in Wanganui. The controversial system, the first large-scale national law enforcement database in the country, was undamaged. Bright says Roberts was depicted as the “Mad Bomber” by a dismissive news media.

“The truth was he was a peaceful and idealistic young man. What drove him to his final act? Was it an accident? Was it suicide? Was it in reaction to a seemingly imminent police state? The fear of Big Brother?  Signs of Orwell’s 1984?.....Sound familiar? In his own words ‘We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity’.”

The current University of Auckland resident, poet and novelist Anne Kennedy, says the residency is very special. “I still have to pinch myself to believe that for six months this year I am a writer on a hill in a very special sphere.”  The residency is a partnership between the Michael King Writers’ Centre and The University of Auckland and is available thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Kennedy is the thirtieth New Zealand writer to be resident at the centre.  Three other writers have been selected for eight week residencies at the centre in 2015: playwright Philip Braithwaite, arts writer Roger Horrocks and historian Mere Whaanga.

Media Release: Michael King Writers’ Centre and The University of Auckland Faculty of Arts
11/11/2014