The Quiet Spectacular

About the author

For almost 20 years, Laurence Fearnley has been making a name for herself as one of New Zealand’s most admired authors. She’s written nine novels, among them Edwin and Matilda and The Hut Builder; the latter won the fiction prize at the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. She’s also held a handful of residencies including Otago University’s Robert Burns Fellowship.

KATHERINE McRAE

Katherine has been performing and directing since graduating from the New Zealand Drama School / Toi Whakaari in 1985. She was awarded a Best Actress award for her role in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.  Another highlight in her early career was playing one of the team in the television series The Marching Girls.

After playing Brenda Holloway on Shortland Street she became a director of the show and went on to direct Nothing Trivial, Go Girls and Filthy Rich.  Her short film Abandon Ship screened at various international film festivals including Toronto’s TIFF Kids Film Festival 2016 and the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival.

Recently she has been acting again – appearing as Helen Milner in Thomas Robin’s telefeature Catching the Black Widow and in the 2019 feature film Vai.

She has directed award-winning theatre productions such Cherish, An Enemy of the People and Emily Perkins' A Doll's House. In August 2019 she is looking forward to directing Sam Brooks’ Burn Her at Circa Theatre.