Angie Farrow was a Professor at Massey University specialising in theatre and creative processes (now retired). Her career as a playwright was launched when she won the Sunday Times Student Playwriting Award for her play, The Blue One in the UK. Several playwriting awards and plays followed including a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1978 for her play, Privitus.
Angie has a special interest in community theatre and theatre for young adults. Many of her plays are featured in five anthologies, Plays for Physical Theatre (Thompson Learning/Dunmore Press, 2005); Plays for Physical Theatre 11 (Dunmore Press, 2010); Falling and Other Short Plays (Steele Roberts, 2014); Despatch (Steele Roberts 2015)and Before the Birds and The River: Two Plays for Community Theatre(Steele Roberts 2017). She has written three large-scale community plays: Despatch (2007) Before the Birds (2009) and The River (2012). Despatch won the prestigious ‘The Pen is a Mighty Sword International Playwriting Competition’ and Before the Birds won her Bruce Wrenn Award for Outstanding Contribution to NZ Playwriting’, a Globe Theatre Award for ‘Best New New Zealand Play’, as well as 'Best Play by a Female Playwright' 2018 Adam NZ Play Award. The Politician’s Wife was produced in 2015 and won second prize inthe International New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest (USA 2016).
Her short plays have featured in festivals in India, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, the UK, the USA, France and Singapore. The plays have won several awards and prizes including Best Drama Script at the Auckland Short and Sweet Festival for Leo Rising); The Inspirato Playwriting Award (Canada); Best Wild Card at the Sydney Short and Sweet Festival; People’s Choice Winner at the Inspirato Festival; People’s Choice Award in Melbourne Short and Sweet Festival; First Prize in The Three Leeches Playwriting Contest; Best Script at the Singapore Short and Sweet Festival.
She believes in the power of theatre to change hearts and minds and has a particular interest in writing plays which encourage new ways of thinking about our political and social cultures. Her plays The Riverand Before the Birds, for example.dealt with local ecological and social concerns and were written for large casts drawn from the local community. The Politician’s Wife dealt with the global refugee crisis.
Angie also writes for radio.
She received the ONZM for services to the arts in 2021.