Opportunity for research?

Press, 14 May 1982, Page 5

Opportunity for research?

PA Auckland An Auckland writer, Dean Parker, is the first winner of a $5OOO award for playwrights. but his tenure may be interrupted by a jail sentence.

In March. Mr Parker and three others were convicted in a District-Court jury trial of causing $lO,OOO worth of damage to a New Zealand Post Office microwave guide. The charge arose from an incident on the day of the third Springbok-All Blacks rugby test on September 12 last year, when a television transmission cable at Warkworth, north of Auckland, was cut.

All four were given ninemonth jail terms. Two are appealing against their convictions and Mr Parker and another are appealing against sentence. The pending appeal meant that Mr Parker was able to accept the award in person from the Minister for the Arts (Mr Highet) at a ceremony in Wellington last evening. The award, announced last December, is jointly funded by the Queen Elizabeth II

Arts Council and the New Zealand Literary Fund. It is designed to enable a writer to spend a minimum of six months attached to a professional theatre company or the New Zealand Drama School. Mr Parker will work with Auckland's Mercury Theatre.

Mr Parker is philosophical about the outcome of his appeal against the jail sentence. "I am thinking of writing a play about the penal system. If my appeal fails, the award will go into recess while I do further research." he said.