Bright, who studied at drama school before completing a master's degree at Auckland University, won a full scholarship to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
As well as studying, she worked with Broadway producers and "got to meet all my heroes", including playwright Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), David Byrne (Talking Heads) and Nancy Sinatra, while Pat Irwin, the bass player for the B-52s, was one of her teachers.
"New York is one of the most giving - and taking - cities in the world," Bright says. "It's a crazy, amazing place where you work incredibly hard but the lifestyle is not as nice as New Zealand."
She wrote a script for Daffodils, set in Hamilton, while at the Robert Lord Writers Cottage in Dunedin - and then her mother gave her the letters her father had written home while on his OE and before they were married.
"I couldn't believe how close I'd got on some things," Bright says, but adds for anyone believing this to be an entirely true story, "memory and reality are tricky things and I make a point of not revealing the seam between truth and fiction".
The show is "cabaret style" with live music by Lips - award-winning expat Kiwi Stephanie Brown and her partner, renowned American indie musician Fen Ikner - who have made new arrangements of Kiwi songs.
the fine print
What: Daffodils
Where: Pacific Crystal Palace (Masonic Park)
When: October 22-23, 8.30pm
Tickets: Tickets from Baycourt or ticketek.co.nz. Discount until October 7
