It never gets any easier. Not the actual walking out on stage but the waiting beforehand. Walking out on stage is a relief, almost a pleasure, because that’s what I’m there for and now I square my shoulders, walk out and get on with it.
What I like is exchanging catchup with people afterwards. I’ve been writing plays, novel, non-fiction, poetry, for thirty-eight years now and lucky for me have made a lot of friends on the way. And I always remember that it was those revues, scathing, funny, in your face, that made me realise that I could write lines people wanted to hear and that they enjoyed. There were a lot of memories talked about in the foyer of the Michael Fowler and at Circa. Some about the revues, some about about the plays including Wednesday To Come (WTC). I know that if it hadn’t been for the revues and the plays I wrote and toured before 1984, I would never have been able to write WTC.
I’m thinking about all of this because I just did a couple of sessions in Readers and Writers Week and then on the way home, stopped off at Hongoeka Marae for their Summer Festival and joined other writers to read. Pat Grace was the compere, as well as a reader, and the wharenui was full.
These sessions have brought home to me how much I owe my audiences and readers. There’s no way I could get you all in a hall and say it face to face so this busk will have to do.
So – thanks for all the smiles, the words, the encouragement, the confidences, the laughs. .Especially the laughs. I owe you.
Nga mihi mahana ki a koutou
Renée
