Robert Lord (playwright)

He was one of the first New Zealand playwrights to have plays produced abroad since Merton Hodge in the 1930s (following Bruce Mason and James K. Baxter).

His father's job took the family around the country and they lived in various cities in New Zealand while he was growing up, including Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Invercargill.

Victoria University started a Drama Department in 1970 which Lord attended at age 25, and his lecturer recounts meeting Lord for the first time: "an imposingly tall man - well over six feet, with light brown hair, a slight stoop and a manner that could switch from being serious and earnest to riotously funny in the course of a single sentence."

Philip Mann[1] For a period of time Lord worked backstage at Downstage Theatre, while teaching school and also studying drama and writing plays at night.

[1] Lord's first full-length play was It Isn’t Cricket (1971) and it was selected for the inaugural Australian National Playwrights Conference in 1973 which he attended.

The play Joyful and Triumphant was commissioned by Circa Theatre and premiered there as part of the New Zealand Festival programme in 1992, following which it toured Australia.

The play tells a story about a small-town New Zealand family over 40 years in a series of Christmas Day scenes.