She has done it all: writing, producing directing, marketing and management. Rebecca Ryan talks to her about life before and after Shortland Street and Musical Theatre Oamaru's staging of her play Ladies for Hire.
Playwriting has been an ''addiction'' for Alison Quigan for 20 years and she has no plans of quitting soon, with two new plays and a film in the works.
The New Zealand writer, actor, producer, director and manager says art is in her DNA.
In 1993, she was Palmerston North's Centrepoint Theatre artistic director. Theatre management decided to programme a ''completely New Zealand-written year of theatre''.
''But by the time we got to the end of the year we realised there just weren't enough comedies and comedy is where the money is made,'' she said.
So, in 1994, Quigan and Ross Gumbley programmed a Christmas Surprise and came up with the title Five go Barmy in Palmy.
After that, she was hooked and went on to write six plays with Gumbley, another two with Lucy Schmidt and four of her own.
One of her most successful plays is Mum's Choir, which has been performed around the country.
The idea for Ladies for Hire, which is being staged by Musical Theatre Oamaru at the Oamaru Opera House this week, came after the death of her mother.
Ladies for Hire follows the stories and misadventures of five ordinary women in a church choir.
With a cup of tea and a slice never far from hand, the ladies provide the congregation with life, joy and music.
That is, until a new parish priest finds their humour a bit close to the bone and fires them.
Hilarity ensues when the women decide to go it alone and advertise themselves as Ladies for Hire, forgetting to mention they are a choir.
''When my mother died, I got a call from an old friend of hers who asked if she and her friends could sing at the funeral,'' she said.
''At a time when the [choir ladies] all were in their 40s, with many children each, they would get together on a Wednesday night and prepare hymns and songs for the following weekend's services in the church.''
Quigan witnessed the friendships they formed and their wonderful sense of humour.
All of the women had been married for many years and had a ''healthy scepticism'' of fairytale weddings, but when they sang for her mother's funeral, it was ''truly heartfelt''.
''Ten white-haired elderly ladies with thick glasses and a truly wonderful sound,'' she said.
As part of her research for Ladies for Hire, she visited a women's choir in Palmerston North and as she waited for them all to arrive, she was struck by their busy lives.
One had just had radiation treatment on her throat, others fussed over supper and another was a ''truly glamorous'' female plasterer.
But when the pianist played a chord and they sang it was perfect.
''I cried, it was so unexpected,'' Quigan remembered.
''These ordinary women whose lives individually you wouldn't notice, created total magic when they sang together: that's really what the play is about.
''Working together is when the magic happens.''
She said she ''collected people'' for characters and once that starts it becomes addictive.
''I like finding out what makes people tick,'' she said.
She described Ladies for Hire as ''where the ordinary becomes extraordinary''.
Quigan said it was always a ''privilege'' when anyone took her plays seriously enough to do them, and Musical Theatre Oamaru's production was made all the more ''exciting'' because it was being performed in the Oamaru Opera House.
She has never performed in the Opera House, but said she loved her last visit to the North Otago town.
''Oamaru is a very beautiful place and has a vibrant art community,'' she said.
Directed by Oamaru's Megan Peacock-Coyle, Ladies for Hire is being staged as a theatre restaurant, with both performers and diners on the stage of the Oamaru Opera House.
The Oamaru cast is made up of Molly Callanan, Sonya Creedy, Kirsten Mills, Catherine Taylor, Rebecca Ryan, Peter Sadler and Ryan Algar.
''The pleasure in directing a play like this is in knowing that if you find the right actors that are brave enough to embrace the characters and become one with them, then the story just falls into place. I am very lucky to have found such a cast,'' Peacock-Coyle said.
Quigan is now based in Auckland as the Mangere Arts Centre performing arts manager.
After Shortland Street, and before she took up the position at the Mangere Arts Centre, she was freelance acting, directing, writing and producing in Christchurch, Auckland, Dunedin and Palmerston North.
