However, Geary’s life has taken him in a different direction. He was speaking via Zoom from Banff, Alberta, where he is completing a two-week playwright’s residence - teaching, presenting and helping others write their plays - at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
He spent his early years in Rangiwahia, before boarding at Palmerston North Boys’ High School.
Describing himself as a “late developer”, he initially went to university to study law, shifted to study English, then went to the New Zealand Drama School (Toi Whakaari), before realising something: “I think I’m a writer.”
During his last year studying acting he went on placement to Centrepoint, afterwards getting a job there as an actor.
It was while acting in Ladies Night at Centrepoint he wrote Pack of Girls, his first big play, with two successful seasons.
Geary (Taranaki iwi) has gone on to write about 30 plays and collaborate on a further 10, with Centrepoint producing many including The Farm, Lovelock’s Dream Run, and Shaggy Dog Story.
He won the Bruce Mason Award for Most Promising Playwright in 1991 and three years later won the Adam Foundation Playwrights Award.
He also wrote for television before leaving New Zealand with credits on Jackson’s Wharf, Shortland Street and Mercy Peak.
“I’m turning 60 this year, so I feel like I should have a reasonable resume,” Geary says. “It is a momentous time to have a play on and go ‘oh yeh, I am still in the game’.
“It’s not an easy game. You have to be very adaptable.”
A shift to Canada with his wife in 2002 proved no exception.
“It was a real challenge for me because I was kind of known in New Zealand as a playwright and a TV writer, but in Canada I was no one.”
After spending the first three years as a stay-at-home dad, he decided to network hard and “hustle”.
Now mostly based in Vancouver, his day job is teaching screenwriting to indigenous students at Capilano University.
“I teach playwriting. I teach documentary, and I teach a course called reconciliation and action, which is like a social justice kind of course.”
Geary says he gets his knowledge of storytelling and understanding of humanity from his love of history and politics, plus his keen interest in people.
“I just am really curious about people... I’ll talk to anyone. If I’m on a bus, I will start a conversation. If I’m in a restaurant or a bar or cafe, I’ll talk to the person next to me. I’m constantly wanting to learn more about the people who are around me.”
Geary says the things people want to see in stories are those “very primal things about power, money, and love”.
“A good story from any other culture or time, if it becomes a classic, there’s a reason and it’ll be because of something very basic... it is really about a mother and a child. Or this is about someone trying to hold a family together.”
QEIII: Black Betty stars Kathleen Burns, Simon Leary (pictured) and Andrew Paterson, who between them play 15 characters.
QEIII: Black Betty features Queen Elizabeth.
“We don’t really have experience of being Queen in the royal family, but we do have experience of family members letting us down, which the Queen had a lot of.”
Geary describes the play as a fantasy alternative history, and it also features Shakespeare.
“So if I was going to challenge myself, I was going to try and take Shakespeare’s plays, the royal family, put them together, see what happens. And that’s what we’ve got.”
The spy caper comedy is a story with some big twists, with the other key character Queen Elizabeth III’s security guard, with Geary playing on the idea of James Bond.
“It’s really a relationship story about them. And if I tell you anything else, it’ll be a massive spoiler.”
