Roger Hall was born in England in 1939 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1958. He worked first for State Fire Insurance, later working as a teacher and editor with the Education Department before winning the Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1977. Hall was based in Dunedin as teaching fellow in the English Department where he taught the playwriting course, until he moved to Auckland in 1995.
Hall's early scripts were for television, but in 1976 he wrote his first stage play Glide Time. Many successful play productions followed, together with musicals, pantomimes, radio dramas, books and plays for children and comedy series' for television. His plays have been performed in 9 other countries, and he has had one TV sitcom produced in the UK, Conjugal Rites. Hall is New Zealand's best known dramatist with more than 40 plays to his credit.
In recent years, he has written the box office hits Spreading Out (2004), Taking Off (2004), Who Wants to be 100? (2007) and Four Flat Whites in Italy (2008) . In recent years he has produced an annual pantomime for Circa Theatre, Wellington (with songs by Paul Jenden and Michael Nicholas Williams) including Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk and (his most recent) Robin Hood. In 2007 co-wrote the commissioned work Who Needs Sleep Anyway? celebrating Plunket's Centenary with his daughter Pip Hall.
Roger Hall
Hall's premise for bringing a disparate group of mostly senior people together is international folk dancing classes, run in a bland church hall by Natasha, a Russian immigrant who also cleans houses but is desperate for conversation in order to improve her English so she can pass the language exam that will allow her to teach music, which is her greatest love.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
An epic play tracing the lives, loves, successes and failures of several generations of a New Zealand farming family.
Published in the PLAYMARKET PLAY SERIES 2010
Cast: 12
Roger Hall
Their funds heavily depleted following the Share market crash, the Keynes Avenue Social Club decides that real estate offers the quickest solution to restoring their fortunes - by buying and restoring an old house.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Aladdin is traditional pantomime, but designed for a small cast, including some doubling of parts (which doesn't mean other actors can't be added if amateur groups would prefer this).
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
The backstage story
In this witty, warm book, often as funny as the best of his plays, Hall tells the appealing story of his life and his work. It is a revealing behind-the-scenes picture of both a remarkable writer at the height of his powers and of the fascinating process by which plays are created and performed.
Cast:
Roger Hall
Four very different women give accounts of their experiences of doing university degrees as 'mature students' between 1987 and 1991. Their stories reflect New Zealand life during these times.
Cast: 4
Roger Hall
Join Dickie Hart on a supporter's tour with the All Blacks in South Africa during the Rugby World Cup.
Cast: 1
Roger Hall
Paul Jenden
Filled with local humour, music, outrageous wigs, fantastic makeup and costumes, watch Cinderella as she tackles evil, and tries to keep order as she chases her love interest across the pantomime stage.
With lots of opportunities for a really good shout of " it's behind you", audiences will be hoarse and happy! Don't miss the magic and mayhem, the glitz and glamour of Cinderella.
Cast: 9
Roger Hall
Genevieve and Barry have been married for twenty-one years, their children are leaving home, and they've each taken a lover. So it's time to take stock.
Cast: 2
Roger Hall
The traditional story of Dick Whittington and his cat.
Cast: 8 - 14
Roger Hall
A couple move into a new neighbourhood where they get the gardening bug.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Based on Chekhov's Three Sisters, but set in 1950's Wellington. Surrounded by realistic true-blue Kiwis, the three New Zealand sisters are constantly drawn back to 'home' - to England.
Cast: 10
Roger Hall
A full blooded English melodrama set in Victorian days with resolute heroine, evil villain and brave hero.
Cast: 11
Roger Hall
George, 54, cannot understand why his wife left him. She offered no real explanation and, in his terms, he had always treated her decently. The play looks at the problems of redundancy and unemployment, and by the end we may more fully understand the wife's decision.
Cast: 5
Roger Hall
Australian version of Glide Time.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
The comic strip style is retained within the story involving the claims of town versus country as Cheeky tries to lure Wal away from the farm. The familiar characters of Wal, Dog, Cheeky, Aunt Dolly, Horse, Cooch, Prince Charles, Dolores and others provide between them two hours of music and laughter.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Venice! Rome! Tuscany! With a copy of Lonely Planet in one hand and an Italian phrase book in the other, recently retired librarians Adrian and Alison feel prepared to face the excitement of Italy in their longed-for trip.
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
A ground breaking comedy, with serious undertones. Life in the stores board of a department of the NZ Public Service. The action covers one working day, though the day is spread over several weeks. The play examines the lives of those forced to work with each other every day in a job none of them likes.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
A zany comedy about a town's reaction to the arrival of Rudolf and his second hand harp for the Citizens' Orchestra.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
To a Taupo bach during the Christmas holidays come the holiday visitors - welcome and unwelcome: relatives, neighbours, a Rotary student from the US and Granny from the UK.
Clive's hunting ambitions, combined with the offstage deer poachers, add mayhem to confusion - and this is no place for a honeymoon couple.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Jack and his mother are in debt again! Their wicked landlady, Mrs Stilton and her side-kick Claud Back, are about to throw them out, and creditors are closing in. So, with nothing else left, Betsy, their beloved cow, must be sold.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Two unsuccessful authors turn secretly to romance writing. Their characters loom up to act out one plot after another, giving good advice along the way. The play ends very satisfyingly for the romance writers.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
The rise and rise of Jane Wineberry, Southland's gift to country music, from Rotary to the Miss New Zealand Show and then all the way to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry. The road to stardom is not always smooth, but finally Jane makes it to Gore.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Staff can anticipate changes. Some downsizing is inevitable. John, Beryl, Hugh and Jim from Glide Time battle on in the Supply and Information Department of their State Owned Enterprise. An immensely popular reflection on the modern bureaucratic madness.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
Three couples attend a dinner none of them wants to be at. Colin is in his 40s and just been appointed as a principal. The play shows Colin's doubts and anxieties about his job and role as teacher. A comic tragedy about the lives and marriages of middle-class, middle-aged New Zealanders..
A UK version is also available.
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
This dramatic life of Denis Glover was devised and compiled by Roger Hall from Glover's writings, letters and poems.
Cast: 1
Roger Hall
Margie Hughes, solo parent, considers that her son Paul is neither happy at school nor learning very much. She decides to take him out of school to teach him at home. Then the battles begin - with her ex-husband, her neighbours, and most of all with the school authorities.
Cast: 9
Roger Hall
Three dramatised tales from the Margaret Mahy story book - The Great Piratical Rumbusification, The Librarian and The Robbers and The Princess and the Clown
Cast are pirates and robbers who play all parts (6-8) in each play.
Cast: 20
Roger Hall
Subtitled 'New Zealand, 1958-1968, or Ten Years Hard', the play follows a group of English immigrants from their arrival in NZ till ten years later. Some enjoy the country and settle almost immediately; others hate it, and want to leave; and some have to return to England before they can be sure. There are two versions available, one with the addition of music.
Cast: 12
Roger Hall
What a big smile you'll have...
The team that brought you the pantos Cinderella, Aladdin and Jack & the Beanstalk returns with one of the great traditional stories about an innocent Red Riding Hood, her widowed mother, poor, sick, short-sighted Grandmother, the handsome wood cutter and that villain of all villains - the smooth-talking Wolf!
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Based on the popular story.
Cast: 18 - 30
Roger Hall
A group of women teachers are forced to spend 3 days and nights together in a tramping hut.
An Australian version is also available.
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
A look at a kiwi family 30 years on as we revisit the characters from Roger Hall's popular comedy Middle Age Spread. Colin and Elizabeth, now approaching 70, have retired to the Wairarapa and are living on a lifestyle block growing grapes.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
A successful writer takes a weekend writing-for-the-stage school in a small town. A dentist, a creative dancer, a frustrated Housewife Mansfield, the local repertory whizz in a wheelchair and a cigarette ash, chalk-stained, had-it-with-the-little-sods teacher who came to make up the numbers, join the course.
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
"None of them ever thought it would come to this; that they would pay money to go to dinner solely for the chance to meet someone".
Midlife in the lives of six newly solo New Zealanders.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
The story of four women who set out, a little later in life than most, on their OE. It's now or never for these women.
Cast: 4
Roger Hall
An adaptation of a Margaret Mahy story.
Cast: 16
Roger Hall
Deborah, a self-confessed bookbuyeraholic, joins a book club and in doing so changes her life only to have it become exactly what it was.
Cast: 1
Roger Hall
A quirky history of NZ as seen through the Parliamentary debates from the inception of the House of Representatives. Debates on giving women the vote, the abolition of barmaids, the Tohunga Suppression Act - debates hilarious and horrific plus witty songs written by John Drummond and Nigel Eastgate.
Cast: 11
Roger Hall
A student gets temporary work at a tobacco factory, where his work mates insist he takes part in a quiz. The play is a study of the price paid for not conforming within a society that values only those who obey the rules. The price is horrific.
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
The leader has acquired enormous power without people realising the dangers of this. A man decides to assassinate the leader. A chilling political statement.
Cast: 7
Roger Hall
A comedy looking at the lives, loves and games of eight starry eyed people who have formed a neighbourhood share-club with the intention of making easy money.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
New Zealand's most successful playwright's tips for good scripts. An excellent guide to the pitfalls of playwriting. Highly recommended!
Cast:
Roger Hall
A tribute to the music of Philip Norman - devised by Roger Hall. Songs from Footrot Flats, Making it Big, A Christmas Carol, Love off the Shelf, Fresh Revolving Pleasures and Jobless.
Cast: 4
Pip Hall
Roger Hall
Commissioned for the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society's centenary, father and daughter Roger and Pip Hall teamed up for the first time to write Who Needs Sleep Anyway? a witty and sometimes moving (depending on your experience of parenthood!) take on raising children.
Cast: 8
Roger Hall
Welcome to the Regina Rest Home where the old boy's network is alive and kicking with a retired Q.C., an ex-All Black, a former university professor and a famous potter amongst the residents.
Restless, irrepressible and determined to enjoy their twilight years they declare war on illness, old age, guilty wives, greedy off-spring and the quality of the catering!
Cast: 6
Roger Hall
Dickie Hart leaves country for the city ... and hates it!
Cast: 1
Roger Hall
An account of the Volunteer Service Abroad experience.
Cast: 4