Angie Farrow is Professor Emerita in theatre and creative processes at Massey University. Her career as a playwright was launched when she won the Sunday Times Student Playwriting Award for her play, The Blue One in the UK. Several playwriting awards and plays followed, including a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival for her play, Privitus.
Many of her plays are featured in six anthologies, Plays for Physical Theatre (Cengage, 2005); Plays for Physical Theatre II (Cengage, 2010); Falling and Other Short Plays (Steele Roberts, 2014); Despatch (Steele Roberts 2015); Before the Birds and The River: Two Plays for Community Theatre (Steele Roberts 2016) and Disobedience and Other Climate Change Plays (Steele Roberts, 2025).
Angie has written three large-scale community plays: Despatch (2007) Before the Birds (2009) and The River (2012). Despatch won the prestigious ‘The Pen is a Mighty Sword International Playwriting Competition’ and Before the Birds won her Bruce Wrenn Award for Outstanding Contribution to NZ Playwriting’, a Globe Theatre Award for ‘Best New New Zealand Play’, as well as 'Best Play by a Female Playwright' 2018 Adam NZ Play Award. The Politician’s Wife was produced in 2015 and won second prize in the International New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest (USA 2016).
Farrow is well known for her short plays, which have achieved international acclaim. They have won several awards and prizes, including Best Drama Script at the Auckland Short and Sweet Festival; The Inspirato Playwriting Award for Best Play (Canada); Best Wild Card at the Sydney Short and Sweet Festival; People’s Choice Winner at the Inspirato Festival (Canada); People’s Choice Award in Melbourne Short and Sweet Festival; First Prize in The Three Leeches Playwriting Contest (USA); Best Script at the Singapore Short and Sweet Festival.
She believes in the power of theatre to change hearts and minds and has a particular interest in writing plays which encourage new ways of thinking about our political and social cultures. Her plays The River and Before the Birds, for example, which deal with local ecological and social concerns, were written for large casts drawn from the local community. The Politician’s Wife dealt with the global refugee crisis.
In recognition of her outstanding contributions to the arts, Angie was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the 2021 New Year Honours. Her legacy is further cemented by her receipt of the Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award at the Manawatū Regional Theatre Awards (2019).