ROSS JOLLY

Director Ross Jolly is one of our great veteran actors in both comedy & drama. His output since the seventies has been prolific. Some will remember him from Gliding On, one of the pioneer NZ TV series & benchmark for comedy. Some other TV highlights are, Zena & Shark in the Park. He acted in kiwi classic, Sleeping Dogs & went on to do over six more films. & radio wanted him too working from 1977 – 1991 as the Radio Drama Director at Radio NZ (nee National Radio) & was a winner nine times for ‘general excellence in radio’ in the Mobil Awards, & internationally he has won five awards, two at the New York Festival & was five times finalist in the New York International Awards for radio.

Then there is his stage career. Jolly has been in all genre of play, mainly at CIRCA & Downstage theatres. Working with the scripted words of great writers; Graham Greene, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, to name a few. He has won over a handful of Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in various categories including Director of the Year in 1999 for Waiting for Godot. In addition, he has won the Critic’s Choice Awards for another half a dozen.

This is a man at the top of his game. As one of the founding members of CIRCA Theatre (1976) in Wellington he has directed between the years 1975 – 2008 over 59 main stage productions. Ross Jolly has enjoyed a long term stint as Artistic Director for CIRCA. CIRCA is recognised as one of NZ’s leading production houses, presenting around 10 main bill & 5 studio plays a year. His contribution to the birth & growth of theatre in NZ has been invaluable.

Most recently Ross Jolly has directed the successful seasons of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, Yazmina Reza’s, God of Carnage & Neil La Bute’s, Some Girls. His expertise & talent have been enjoyed also by the Court Theatre for The Shape of Things by Neil La Bute, Happy Coupling by Ross Gumbley & the Fortune had Ross Jolly to direct Don Juan in Soho by Marber.