IN YOUR DREAMS

In this new Salon by Pirate & Queen with The Spinoff we ask five extraordinary people to write a letter and read it to us in front of a live audience for the first time. Every month from June - October we delve into deep, dark, shiny, funny, outrageous, invigorating ideas as spoken by some of Aotearoa's most fascinating minds. With live music and a guaranteed rollercoaster ride through the gamut of human emotions. Join us in our dreams, both big, small, weird and inspiring.

Our theme for June is:
In Your Dreams: Letter to our Biggest Failure

And our guests are:
STUART MCKENZIE (writer, director filmmaker)
EMALANI CASE (Kanaka Maoli writer, teacher, and aloha 'āina)
ANNA RAWHITI-CONNELL (writer, editor of The Bulletin at The Spinoff)
ALICE SOPER (rugby player and advocate for women’s rugby)
MADELEINE CHAPMAN (writer, editor of The Spinoff)

ABOUT OUR GUESTS:
Anna Rawhiti-Connell is the editor of The Spinoff’s morning news digest, The Bulletin. She won Best General Columnist at the 2021 Voyager Media Awards, writing columns and opinion pieces for Newsroom, RNZ and The Spinoff for five years. She contributes to North and South and wrote “The Permanent Age of Anxiety” cover story for the November 2021 issue. Anna has worked in the corporate, advertising and cultural sectors and did not start writing professionally until she was 38. She is on the board of Auckland Writers Festival and lives in Auckland with her husband and two beloved, undisciplined dogs.

Stuart McKenzie is a filmmaker and a leading practitioner in verbatim and biographical theatre in NZ. With his wife Miranda Harcourt he has devised and written verbatim plays including PORTRAITS (1997), FLOWERS FROM MY MOTHER’S GARDEN (1998) and BIOGRAPHY OF MY SKIN (2009). His latest play TRANSMISSION (2021) about the Government lock-down of NZ in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 was a critical and popular hit. Stuart's feature film THE CHANGEOVER (2017) — based on the book by Margaret Mahy and co-directed with Miranda Harcourt — had its international premiere at the 2017 Rome Film Festival in competition in the Alice Nella Citta selection.

Emalani Case is a Kanaka Maoli writer, teacher, and aloha 'āina deeply engaged in issues of Indigenous rights and representation, colonialism and decolonisation, and environmental and social justice. She is the author of Everything Ancient Was Once New: Indigenous Persistence from Hawai'i to Kahiki (2021). She comes to Aotearoa from Waimea, Hawai'i.

Alice Soper is known for running it straight and speaking the same. She has been playing rugby in Wellington women’s teams since she was 13 years old and is a staunch advocate for getting women’s sport over the advantage line. Alice has had an eclectic career, working in event management and community organising before featuring as a host in both serious and silly programming. She has found her home as a sports columnist and in her mahi with the independent collective, Women in Rugby Aotearoa.

Madeleine Chapman is the editor of The Spinoff and the author of Steven Adams: My Life, My Fight, and Jacinda Ardern: A New Kind of Leader. She speaks in a monotone.