BillSheat
- Executive
Bill Sheat applied his legal and organisational skills across the arts in Aotearoa, to influential effect. He was pivotal in establishing the NZ Film Commission, and was its first chair from 1978 to 1985. Sheat also spent time as chair of the Queen Elizabeth ll Arts Council, helped fund John O’Shea's 1960s musical Don't Let it Get You, and played a role in ushering Geoff Murphy’s Goodbye Pork Pie to the screen.
Screenography
Biography
Born in Hawera in 1930, Bill Sheat grew up on a Taranaki farm. Watching movie serial Buck Rogers was a formative experience. He was a boarder at New Plymouth Boys' High School, where moviegoing was not encouraged.
At Victoria University Sheat did a combined arts/law degree, and began a long involvement in the uni's capping reviews, which often filled Wellington's Opera House. After graduating he continued to act and direct in Wellington's university, theatre and opera scene into the 1960s.
Awards
2011 Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZOM)
For services to the arts
2009 Chapman Tripp Awards (New Zealand)
Mayor's Award for significant contribution to the theatre
“There can be few branches of the arts that have not benefited from Bill's energy, experience and knowledge over the past 60 or more years. ”
Related images
