Cafe a homecoming of sorts

Tauranga born Rachel Callinan is co-author of Cafe, a play being performed at the arts festival later this year. Photo/supplied

The world is coming to Tauranga for the city's biennial arts festival later this year, but for tne artist the performances are something of a homecoming.

Tauranga-born Rachel Callinan is the co-writer of Cafe, the final instalment in the Site-specific Theatre series of Salon and Hotel.

Called in to the Cafe team by co-writer and director Paul McLaughlin, Rachel spent about a month on the show, writing, work shopping and rehearsing.

"I enjoy the collaborative process and my main love is writing comedy with a dark twist, so this was perfect," she says.

"With site-specific work there's the added step of seeing what works once you're in the site and having the flexibility to change on the fly. It pushes one more wall out for the audience and we get one more texture to play with."

Rachel, a former Tauranga Girls' College student with a master's degree in television writing, lives on the Kapiti Coast and has been specialising in theatre for children, although began her career doing stand-up comedy.

"I break out in a cold sweat when I think back -I don't know whether I was brave or stupid. I thought I wanted to be an actor, but quickly discovered that while I could write characters I couldn't perform them."

Brought up on bedtime stories invented by her father (Chris Callinan, a former Bay of Plenty Times photographer), Rachel credits her dad with teaching her comic timing.

She's also influenced by the culture of Barbados, where her mother Barrie hails from, for its 'kooky' outlook on life, as well as her college drama teacher Deb Meldrum being a "massive influence".

But Rachel, who has worked as a stage manager and written for the television series Go Girls, won't be coming to see Cafe as she and partner James Kearney, a lighting technician and designer, are working on a production of their own - their first child is due to be born just before the festival.

THE DETAILS
Cafe is performed at The Dry Dock in Wharf St at 5pm and 7pm
from October 27 to 30.
Tickets are available from Baycourt or ticketek.co.nz.
Go to www.taurangafestival.co.nz for details.