Elisabeth Easther (born 1970) is a New Zealand actor, broadcaster, journalist and playwright. She played
Carla Crozier
Carla Summerfield (née Crozier, also known as Leach) is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Street'', who was portrayed by Elisabeth Easther from early 1995 to mid 1996. The character debuted as the sister of establish ...
on New Zealand soap opera ''
Shortland Street
''Shortland Street'' is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera centring on the fictitious Shortland Street Hospital, first broadcast on TVNZ 2 on 25 May 1992. It is New Zealand's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously ...
'' from May 1995 to July 1996, and has since had a varied career in television, radio, journalism and playwriting. Her play ''Seed'' won the Adam NZ Play Award for Best Play in 2014.
Early life and education
Easther is the daughter of
Shirley Maddock
Shirley Frances Whitley Maddock (7 December 1928 – 10 October 2001) was a New Zealand producer, television presenter, author and actress. After early work in theatre and radio, she became a pioneering figure in early New Zealand televisio ...
, New Zealand's first female television producer and pioneering broadcaster, and her husband Michael Easther, general practitioner. She attended Waikato Diocesan School for Girls.
Easther initially planned to study law at university, but ended up graduating from
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand.
The university is well kno ...
with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
in theatre and film. She subsequently attended drama school Toi Whakaari and graduated in 1992 with a Diploma in Performance.
Television and radio career
Easther's first notable acting role was in 1994 as the costume actor of a dinosaur called Victoria on the Australian children's television show ''
Johnson and Friends
''Johnson and Friends'' is an Australian live action/puppet children’s television program that originally aired on ABC from 3 September 1990 to 10 July 1997. It was produced by Film Australia and was created by Ron Saunders, John Patterson ...
''.
Easther played the villainous character
Carla Crozier
Carla Summerfield (née Crozier, also known as Leach) is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera ''Shortland Street'', who was portrayed by Elisabeth Easther from early 1995 to mid 1996. The character debuted as the sister of establish ...
on New Zealand soap opera ''
Shortland Street
''Shortland Street'' is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera centring on the fictitious Shortland Street Hospital, first broadcast on TVNZ 2 on 25 May 1992. It is New Zealand's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously ...
'', from May 1995 to July 1996. The character was notable for being the show's first murderer, and featured on one of the show's highest-rated episodes of all time, which aired on 31 May 1995 and was watched by nearly a quarter of the New Zealand population. In February 2021, Easther returned to Shortland Street to play Crozier (now Dr Carla Summerfield) on a short-term contract.
She has continued to act on television and in commercials, including playing the supporting role of Fran on the show ''Outrageous Fortune'' in series 3 and 4, and appearing on sketch comedy ''Funny Girls'' in 2016. Since March 2008 she has been a regular host on weekly radio show ''The Week That Was'' with fellow radio personality
Te Radar
Te Radar (born Andrew J. Lumsden) is a New Zealand comedian and television personality.
Lumsden studied law at the University of Otago, but abandoned his original course of study and went through Theatre Studies at Allen Hall.''New Zealand on Scr ...
for Radio New Zealand. Easther has also done voice-over work for the
Power Rangers Jungle Fury
''Power Rangers Jungle Fury'' is the sixteenth season of the American television series '' Power Rangers'', and is an adaptation of '' Juken Sentai Gekiranger'', the thirty-first Japanese ''Super Sentai'' series.
The season premiered on Februar ...
television series and commercials for Whittaker's chocolate and Sky TV. She was the voice-over artist for the character The Maven in an update to the video game
Path of Exile
''Path of Exile'' is a free-to-play action role-playing video game developed and published by Grinding Gear Games. Following an open beta phase, the game was released for Microsoft Windows in October 2013. A version for Xbox One was released i ...
released in January 2021.
In 2018, Easther was the host of a remake of ''Islands in the Gulf'', New Zealand's first documentary series, that had been produced and hosted by her mother in 1964. Easther visited islands in the
Hauraki Gulf
The Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana is a coastal feature of the North Island of New Zealand. It has an area of 4000 km2, Reviewer Greg Bruce, writing in the ''
NZ Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...
'', described it as a "a loving homage to the original", and "classic Kiwi heartland television set in an increasingly expensive bit of Auckland's waterscape".
Writing career
Easther has written a number of plays, including ''Raw'' and ''Salt''. Her play ''Famous Flora'', about dress designer and brothel-owner Flora MacKenzie, was staged at Auckland adult entertainment venue the White House in November 2014. The ''NZ Herald'' review praised Easther's creation of "two incarnations of Flora", both as an older "fiercely independent woman with a shrewdly realistic understanding of the human condition", and her younger self "as a youthful entrepreneur who has embraced the liberation of gender roles and is swept up in the live-for-the-moment spirit of the war years".
Easther's play ''Seed'', about four women's experiences of pregnancy, won the Adam NZ Play Award for Best Play in 2014, as well as Best Play by a Woman Playwright. It was described by the judges as "highly entertaining, funny and sophisticated". It premiered at
the Basement Theatre
The Basement Theatre is an Auckland theatre founded by Charlie McDermott in 2008. The theatre focuses on providing a venue for young people in the performing arts to enter the industry. Their priorities are making theatre accessible for both ...
in Auckland in June 2014, and was subsequently performed at the Circa Theatre in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
from 17 January to 14 February 2015. The NZ Herald review described ''Seed'' as a "sophisticated, witty and very contemporary meditation on the timeless processes of procreation". In July 2018, a production toured New Zealand as part of an Arts On Tour NZ event, including performances in Auckland, at the
BATS Theatre
BATS Theatre is a theatre venue in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially founded as the Bats Theatre Company in 1976, then established in its current form in 1989. BATS Theatre has seen the development of many performing arts talents of New Zeala ...
in Wellington, at the
Isaac Theatre Royal
The Isaac Theatre Royal (formerly known as the Theatre Royal) is a heritage building in Christchurch, New Zealand, designed by brothers Sidney and Alfred Luttrell. Built in 1908, it is the only operational Edwardian style Theatre remaining in ...
in Christchurch and at a number of regional theatres.
Easther has written extensively as a journalist for the ''NZ Herald'' since 2012, as well as a book critic on radio and in print since 1993. She edited an anthology of fiction, non-fiction and poetry about New Zealand birds called ''Bird Words'', published in 2017. The anthology features NZ authors such as
Denis Glover
Denis James Matthews Glover (9 December 19129 August 1980) was a New Zealand poet and publisher. Born in Dunedin, he attended the University of Canterbury where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts, and subsequently lectured. He worked as a reporte ...
,
Hone Tuwhare Honing is a kind of metalworking.
Hone may also refer to:
* Hone (name) (incl. Hōne), a list of people with the surname, given name or nickname
* Hõne language
Hõne is a Jukunoid language spoken in Gombe State and Taraba State, Nigeria
...
,
Janet Frame
Janet Paterson Frame (28 August 1924 – 29 January 2004) was a New Zealand author. She was internationally renowned for her work, which included novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, and received numerous awar ...
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...