help inspire first play in planned Gulf trilogy

also kept him busy.

“I was just a jobbing actor,” he says modestly. He worked for a range of theatre companies as an actor and turned his hand to directing, including on short films he scripted. He also completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Victoria University of Wellington.

“But I wanted to pay off the mortgage,” says the father of two now adult children. So, having enjoyed leading a few drama classes, he decided on a year at teachers college. This led to his becoming head of drama at Massey High School, which he loved.

Knowing his background, a friend one day referred him to a masters thesis, “Holiday Communities on Rangitoto Island”, written by Susan E Yoffe.

Some of those who used to holiday on Rangitoto would row over from Narrow Neck and Kohimarama. Others came from Freemans Bay, Ponsonby and Devonport. “When I read that I thought there is my play.”

The thesis, published around 2000, drew on oral histories, including the story of a woman who arrived for the summer with seven chickens. They got seasick on the way over – with colour said to have drained from their combs – only to end their holiday as dinner.

The play has been a long time coming. To finish it, Clendon relinquished his role at Massey in 2019. “Then Covid came along.”

That meant his plans to stage it were twice delayed. The latest cast of “eight wonderful actors aged 18 to 71” includes one who has returned especially from the UK.

Another, Isla Sangl, is a former Kristin School student who came recommended by Geoff Allen at the Rose Centre after doing acting classes with him in her gap year.

Clendon says staging the play is costing around $70,000, with money going on billboards, professional lighting and sound, venue hire and not as much as he would like to pay his cast. He is grateful they love the play and for the help of an experienced costumier and Arts Laureate John Parker designing sets gratis.

A ‘Boosted’ campaign is helping fund the project.

An old friend from Milford Primary, Debbie Dunsford, has offered Clendon plenty of encouragement and became a trustee of the company he formed to stage the play and those that follow. The second of the trilogy is set around changing mores on Waiheke Island and the final play will be based on Great Barrier Island in the late 19th century.

Staging his first play at the PumpHouse was a natural choice.

The venue by Lake Pupuke is evocative. Before it became a community theatre, Westlake rowers stored their gear there. “I remember lifting up those heavy skiffs, walking across the gravel in bare feet,” Clendon says.

• Rangitoto runs from 23 February to 5 March at the PumpHouse Theatre, Takapuna, with tickets priced at $42 for adults, and available at pumphouse.co.nz