Playwright Susan Battye has previously been the Programme Manager for the Bachelor of Maori Performing Arts, at Te Wananga O Aotearoa and head of Drama at Epsom Girls Grammar School. She studied in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978 for a Diploma in Drama and Education with Dorothy Heathcote and gained M.A. in Education Studies from Loughborough University of Technology in 1993. Most of her plays have been written for use in schools and Susan's publishing history is a credit to both their calibre and her knowledge of what teachers want. In 2001 she co-wrote Ponsonby Road with Tim Bray for an adult audience.
Susan began writing plays for students she taught at Greymouth High School because she could find nothing to direct that came close to fitting their needs, and nothing in the curriculum that reflected the local community's social history. Together with Thelma Eakin in 1977 she wrote and directed The Shadow of the Valley, a play about New Zealand’s biggest industrial accident, the Brunner Mine disaster of 1896. The play was subsequently published by Oxford University Press and has since received many performances throughout New Zealand. The playwrights’ co-written historical novel, The Mine’s Afire, based on the play was short listed for the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards in 2010.
Susan is a writer who is in this way inspired to write with particular people and communities in mind. For example, her play In the Closet is set in India and New Zealand and it has dialogue in English, Hindi and Maori, reflecting the ethnic mix of the class it was originally written for.
"Once students feel the power of theatre to transform their view of the world, to create metaphors for their lives, they never look back", says Battye.
Susan Battye
Teenager Zaria, sent by her Montenegran parents to live with relatives in New Zealand, struggles to perform well in her all-girls school where institutional and peer group understandings challenge her ability to her new hosts culture. A play dealing with teenagers coming of age and cultural difficulties.
Cast: 23
Susan Battye
This anthology features 13 extracts from contemporary Commonwealth plays, in English.
Cast:
Susan Battye
Drama Cuts Teachers Resource Book provides background resource for Drama Cuts - information on the play texts with a detailed synopsis of the entire play; writing and performing activities on individual plays and groups of plays and notes on the playwrights.
Cast:
Susan Battye
The mostly female workers at the Perky Pie restaurant unite to assert their rights over the profit-making demands of their bosses.
Written for young people.
Cast: 12
Susan Battye
It's the beginning of the school year and there's a funny smell coming from the Seventh Form Common Room, as the students get ready to welcome the new arrivals and meet a new international student Sunila, from Mumbai, India. While the students have a powhiri to deal with, the school has fundraising issues, and as the students get ready for a new year they learn how stories of our ancestors are important to all of us. The play can be done with an all female cast and two of the roles may be doubled.
Cast: 18
Susan Battye
Jigsaw is a drama text suitable for classroom study by secondary school students, centring itself around our search for identity. Author and educator Susan Battye uses key topics such as body image, adoption, animal rights and the 1981 Springbok rugby tour to tell an endearing story of four young women, and their developing relationships with parents and each other. With Rangitoto Island rumbling ominously in the background, Jigsaw uses comedy, satire and the language of contemporary New Zealand to reflect on various dilemmas that will engage young adults.
Cast: 13
Susan Battye
Drama with clear development and strongly delineated characters about women's solidarity in face of a factory closure. Marlene gears up battle lines in the cutting rooms as the expected confrontation approaches. There is a witty counter-turn at the end. With one male voice. Written for young people.
Cast: 16
Susan Battye
A play celebrating the history of girls' education in New Zealand.
Cast: 20
Susan Battye
The arrival of the Chilean naval vessel Esmeralda in Auckland in 1983 leads to demonstrations by Amnesty. The Esmeralda has a black history and events surrounding the 1973 Chilean coup are brought to light. Written for young people.
Cast: 17
Susan Battye
Tim Bray
Gay life in Ponsonby Road. The script features a bookshop dealer, real estate agent, the leader of a women's outdoor experience group, a closet lesbian and a male and female chorus. We witness the everyday happenings of gay friends including mix-ups, relationship issues and a successful pregnancy for a gay couple. A happy ending.
Cast: 13
Susan Battye
Set against a background of surfing, concerns issues of love, trust and friendship among a group of teenagers. Has potential for larger chorus. Written for young people.
Cast: 12
Susan Battye
On March 26, 1896, sixty five men lost their lives following an explosion in the coal mine at Brunnerton, a small West Coast coal-mining town. This documentary play deals with the impact of the disaster on the Grey Valley community and traces attempts to gain compensation from the coal company. Songs and orchestral score.
Cast: 39
Susan Battye
This play is based on the short story of the same title by Katherine Mansfield, and devised with a fifth form drama class from Epsom Girls' Grammar School. It is set in a classroom in 1990 and be played with up to 17 women. Written for young people.
Cast: 17
Susan Battye
Caught graffiti-ing a West Coast coal miners' hall, Keisha and Sunny are trapped inside with its ancient guardian. When Shorty orders the pair to clean up the mess, they quickly proclaim their 'right to strike'. Fired up, he describes the role the hall had to play in ensuring the right to strike and the fight for the eight hour day that is cemented in our social history.
Cast: 24