Rep Talk: Joan - author and playwright

Joan Rosier-Jones, author of Flat Out. Photo / Paul Brooks

I spotted Joan Rosier-Jones in the auditorium at Repertory Theatre watching a rehearsal of her latest play Flat Out and she agreed to spend a few minutes chatting with me.

I was curious about her history and how she came to writing.

"I went to Teachers' College in Christchurch but did my PA year in Wellington," Joan says.

From there Joan taught in various schools in the North Island and finished teaching when she was in Auckland.

"I'd always been writing since I was a kid. When I won a couple of short story writing competitions I became more confident. My first play When the Stars Go Down was shortlisted in a one-act playwriting competition and was produced in New York by the alumni of the American Academy of Music and Dramatic Art."

What drew her to write plays as well as stories?

"Well, I always put so much dialogue in my stories so I thought I should write plays as I liked writing dialogue ... to use that dialogue. I love the suspension of disbelief in theatre too. The mind just accepts it, even the most bizarre things."

I reminded Joan that she'd once said that Flat Out was her way of poking gentle fun at the Flat Earth Society.

"I did some research about four years ago and they had a convention in Auckland attended by about a thousand people."

Joan says she wrote the play before Covid struck.

"I watched a Netflix documentary of a Flat Earther trying to convince his mother to believe."

She says there was also a convention in America with thousands there, and that sparked the idea for Flat Earth.

"The absurdity of it! I'm just having a bit of a laugh. I'm really enjoying watching the rehearsal, watching it all come to life," she says.

Yes, it's all coming to life nicely under Kerry Girdwood's able direction. It's promising to be very entertaining theatre so come along and enjoy the fun playing at Repertory Theatre on Thursday, April 21 at 7.30pm, Friday, April 22, Saturday, April 23 at 7.30, and Sunday, April 24, a matinee at 2pm.

There will be further performances from Wednesday, April 27 through to, and including Saturday, April 30 at 7.30pm.