Born in Wellington, Jennifer Compton attended drama school in Auckland for two years before going to Australia in the early seventies and attending NIDA Playwrights Studio. She began writing for ABCs soap Certain Women, moving on to radio plays that were produced in both Australia and New Zealand. The Goose's Bridle won an AWGIE award in 1976.
In 1974, Jennifer's play No Man's Land (re-titled Crossfire) was joint winner of the Newcastle Playwriting Competition (with John Romeril's The Floating World). Premiering in Sydney, it had a season at Downstage (directed by Elric Hooper) and was part of the Heartache and Sorrow Company's prize-winning season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1979.
Other stage plays include Julia's Song, Barefoot and The Big Picture which premiered at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney in 1997, was published by Currency Press, and was produced by Circa in 1998 and by the Perth Theatre Company in 2009.
Jennifer is also known as a short story writer and poet. In 1975 she won the Katherine Mansfield Award and the BNZ Award for her short story The Man Who Died Twice. She was writer-in-residence at the University of Canterbury in 1980.
Her poetry has been published in journals in Australasia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Croatia and North America. In 1995 she was awarded the NSW Writers' Fellowship by the NSW Ministry for the Arts. This was the first time that the fellowship had been awarded for poetry.
In 2006 she spent six months in residence at the Whiting Library Studio in Rome. She was writer in residence at the Randell Cottage in Wellington in 2008 and Visiting Literary Artist at Massey University in Palmerston North in 2010. A new book of poetry called Barefoot was published by Picaro Press in 2010.
Jennifer Compton
Adolf: Fantasies Between Bars.
A documentary drama based on the writings and speeches of Adolf Hitler by Jennifer Compton.
Eva: the Best Dream of All, by Matthew O'Sullivan. The other side of the coin. A play about Eva Braun, using her diaries.
Cast: 6
Jennifer Compton
Barbara has retired from lecturing at the university (and the world) to a rundown country cottage. Her very own personal Year Zero. Her little sister, her ex-fiancee and her favourite uncle arrive seeking sanctuary. By the time they return to the world the place feels strangely different.
Cast: 4
Jennifer Compton
A wry anarchic farce about women with a passion for passion. Angelica and Josefina's widowed Mama tries to talk sense into her highly-strung daughters. And another man comes knocking at the front door.
Cast: 4
Jennifer Compton
This play uses simultaneous double time sequences to look at the lives of women in 1910 and 1975 and makes some telling points about how things have and have not changed. Joint winner of the 1975 Newcastle Playwriting Competition. On the HSC syllabus in Australia. Winner Fringe First Edinburgh 1979, Heartache & Sorrow company
Cast: 6
Jennifer Compton
Julia Hardy wasn't born to die - but she does. And her work, her poetry, casts a very long shadow. Her daughter, Jaydee, struggles towards the light, and travels back into the past. Back to the night when Julia chose to live, and Jaydee saved her life. It is better to fade away than to burn out. Her ex-husband, David, annotates. All he has is an "eye", and he knows "it" when he sees it.
Cast: 1
Jennifer Compton
A seriously funny play about life and love on the black economy. Joy and her two mates, Mandy and Fran are winning the hand-to-hand struggle of solo mothers on welfare. Until Guy, Joy's no hoper brother rides into town.
Cast: 4
Jennifer Compton
The Third Age is a bitter-sweet comedy set during French classes at the Glenwood University of the Third Age. The protogonists are people in the third age of life. But age has not withered them, it seems. They are the same people they always were, with their hopes and dreams, it is just they are a little older. And wiser? Perhaps.
This play is set in a Senior Citizens' Hall in the leafy outer suburb of Glenwood where the local chapter of the University Of The Third Age holds their classes.
Cast: 4
Jennifer Compton
Four couples dance around the traps and snares of love.
Cast: 8