Philippa Campbell began her career in the theatre as an actor and director in the 1980s. In 1981 she was involved in establishing Taki Rua / The Depot in Wellington, the first professional theatre dedicated to New Zealand theatre and a key venue for indigenous and bicultural performances and theatrical development in the 1980s and 1990s. She was a member of Downstage Theatre Company. Campbell directed and helped to establish the Frontline theatre company. Campbell has a long association with the New Zealand International Arts Festival, having worked on many productions commissioned by the festival, and has worked with well-known New Zealand playwrights including Hone Kouka, Briar Grace Smith, Victor Rodger, and Theatre at Large. Campbell has been the dramaturge for two chamber operas and the aerial pageant show Maui. Since November 2008, Campbell has been the Auckland Theatre Company's Literary Manager. Campbell has a history of working with Wellington-based percussion group Strike, including directing their 2013 show Between Zero and One,composed by John Psathas.
Film and Television
For several years in the 1980s, Campbell ran Television New Zealand's in-house Drama Department Script Unit, editing over 100 hours of television drama. Some of Campbell's script editing credits include New Zealand television shows and feature films such as Marlin Bay,Mirror, Mirror, Bread and Roses, Erua , Maurice Gee's The Fire Raiser, and the award-winning Erebus: the Aftermath, written by Greg McGee. In 1988 she departed TVNZ to forge an independent career in television and film as a writer, script consultant, and development executive. Campbell made a break into screen producing with the Banff Television Festival nominee for best drama, Swimming Lessons in 1995, written by Simon Wilson and directed by Steve LaHood. Campbell's first feature film as producer was Via Satellite in 1998, written and directed by Anthony McCarten, and produced by Campbell's new company, Escapade Pictures. She followed up Via Satellite by producing Christine Jeffs' acclaimed Rain, which premiered in Director’s Fortnight in Cannes in 2002 and was nominated for Best Film at the 2001 New Zealand Film Awards. In 2006 Campbell co-produced No. 2, written and directed by Toa Fraser. Starring Academy Award nominee Ruby Dee, the film won the Audience Award in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic section, the Audience Award at the Brisbane International Film Festival, four awards at the New Zealand Film Awards, and featured in gala screenings at the London Film Festival. In 2007, Campbell produced Jonathan King's comic-horror film Black Sheep, an audience favourite at the Toronto International Film Festival. Black Sheep is the second-highest grossing New Zealand film in the UK, and the highest grossing New Zealand horror film in New Zealand. Following Black Sheep, Campbell was included in Variety magazine’s “10 Producers to Watch” list for 2007. In 2008, Campbell produced Florian Habicht’s documentary Rubbings From a Live Man, performed by Warwick Broadhead, which was nominated for Best Picture at the 2008 Qantas Film and Television Awards. After Rubbings from a Live Man, Campbell produced a short film directed by Dan Salmon, Licked. Campbell produced season 1 and 2 of Jane Campion's 2013/2017 television miniseries Top of the Lake, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Top of the Lake won an Emmy Award, two Golden Globes, and a New Zealand Film Award. Campbell has consulted to screen production development workshops in New Zealand, Australia, India, and Italy. Campbell continues to pursue a number of creative projects including Shiver, written and directed by Christina Andreef and set in Antarctica, and a NZ/UK co-production, The Beach of Falesa, adapted by Alan Sharp from the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, to be directed by Toa Fraser. She is the Executive Producer for Paolo Rotundo's film Orphans and Kingdoms. In 2015, Campbell formed a new Auckland-based production company, Field Theory, with producers Fiona Copeland and Tim Sanders, chief executive Lyoyd Meiklejohn, and consultant Michael Eldred. Field Theory is focused on high-end film and television for the international market.
