MERV: A powerful theatre project exploring love, loss, grief and the impact of MND

MERV is a powerful new work by playwright and director Jackson Rosie (Ngāi Tahu), presented by JCR Productions (Ōtepoti). Referencing a character who lived with MND, the production is shaped by Jackson’s own connection to the disease. We spoke with him about the creative journey behind MERV and the personal experiences that inform its storytelling.

With the script now complete, a crowdfunding campaign is open until 14 September 2026 to help bring this moving production to the stage in Ōtepoti.

Q. What is your latest theatre project MERV about?

In a distant future where humanity has all but disappeared, a teenage boy known only as ‘2’ crawls alone down an empty road in search of a world he’s never known, his legs failing him. At an old roadside bench, he encounters Merv, a weathered and anti-social robot. Every night Merv returns to the same spot, waiting for someone who never seems to arrive. Reluctantly drawn into each other's company, the pair spend a single night together. As the time passes, stories of loss, love, war and grief emerge.

While ‘2’ learns how to move forward, Merv is forced to confront the past he has spent decades waiting for. Tender, funny and deeply moving, MERV is a play about companionship, mortality, and the people who change us. Set beneath a flickering streetlight at the end of the world, it asks what it means to be human, and whether letting go can be the greatest act of love.

Q. What is your personal connection to MND and how is this reflected in MERV?

In loving memory of Glenys Walker (pictured above), who fought a long and courageous three-year battle against motor neurone disease (MND). Finally at peace. 1944 – 2026

My connection to MND is deeply personal. My great grandmother Glenys lived with this disease for three years before she passed away. I had the experience of watching someone I loved navigate a disease that progressively changed what her body was able to do. Glen was diagnosed two months after losing her sister Dawn Graham to the same disease, and despite watching her sister fight MND, she fought with courage and bravery.

I was lucky to have young parents and have my great-grandparents involved in my life. Nana was always at my shows, and there for everything I ever did. She was one of my biggest fans.

One of the things that has stayed with me most is the disconnect between the person you know and love and what their body is increasingly unable to do. MND can take away so much physical independence, but it doesn't take away the person themselves. Their humour, memories, relationships, opinions and their sense of who they are can all remain, even as their physical capabilities change.

Even right up until the last time I saw her, her beautiful smile never left, and you could make jokes with her, and she’d still have a giggle. When her voice left, and she eventually was unable to communicate through writing, all that was left was her thumb, which she would either put into a large thumbs up position, or a thumbs down position if she was unhappy.

My beautiful and amazing Nanny (my grandmother, Glen’s daughter) Suzanne Walker was with Nana right through her journey, and what makes this disease so heartbreaking is how it affects wider whānau. This show isn’t just about people living with the disease, but the whānau who help, and watch, and are left behind to move on afterwards.

If there is any blessing about this horrendous disease, it’s the fact that even when someone’s body is shutting down, they never lose their personality, and who they had always been. When you see someone becoming increasingly limited by an illness, it's very easy to focus on what they can no longer do. But the person is still there. They're still themselves. They're still someone who has lived a whole life, loved people, made memories and has their own hopes and fears.

Before MND became something I experienced personally, death and dying were quite abstract concepts to me. Watching someone close to me go through it made those questions much more immediate:

• What makes us who we are?
• What happens to our sense of identity when our bodies begin to fail us?
• How do we care for someone we love when we can't fix what is happening to them?
• And how do we continue living with that loss afterwards?

Those questions became an important part of the foundation for MERV. Merv's story is ultimately about a person who has experienced love, loss and grief. MND is one part of that story, not the entirety of who he is. Writing MERV has therefore been quite a personal process. There are ideas and emotions in the play that come from things I've witnessed and experienced, but it’s not a recreation of my grandmother's story.

Instead, I've taken some of the questions that her experience left me with and placed them into this strange futuristic world of robots, artificial intelligence and a dying human civilisation. By putting these questions into a world where technology can potentially preserve someone's consciousness, the play can ask whether keeping someone's mind alive is the same thing as keeping a person alive.

And if technology could prevent us from losing the people we love, would that make grief disappear, or would it simply change what grief means?

Q. Who is involved in this project?

MERV is being produced by JCR Productions, an Ōtepoti-based company focused on creating original theatre and giving emerging artists opportunities to make work. The play is written and directed by award-winning playwright, actor and director Jackson Rosie, and produced by his company (JCR) alongside the fantastic and talented Chris Cook.

We’re bringing together an exciting group of young artists who share a passion of making important and worthwhile art. One of the things I'm particularly excited about is the collaborative nature of the production. Because Merv is a life-sized puppet, the actor, puppeteers, director and wider creative team will work closely together to discover how this character moves, communicates and exists onstage. There will be character conferences, workshops and a lot of experimentation throughout the rehearsal process.

Q. What stage is the project at now?

We're currently in the development and pre-production stage. The script has gone through multiple drafts and dramaturgical processes, and we're now working towards getting the creative team together and preparing the production itself. A major part of the next stage will be developing Merv as a physical character. He’s a life-sized Bunraku-style puppet, so there's a lot of work in figuring out exactly how he moves and behaves onstage.

We're also working through the practical side of the production, fundraising, venue arrangements, set and puppet construction, casting and accessibility planning. It's an exciting stage because the project is moving from being something that exists primarily on paper into something that will exist physically in a theatre.

We’re fundraising for this production through a crowdfunding service, Boosted. Without this crowdfunding, the show can’t progress. If we don’t meet our goal in the short timeframe available, then all donations are refunded and we receive nothing. It’s a critical stage, and without support, we can’t proceed until we go through funding rounds through agencies that may take more time.

Q. Why are you crowdfunding for this project and how can people contribute?

We're crowdfunding because we want to make MERV properly. Even a relatively small theatre production has a lot of costs, and this show has some unusual ones, especially the construction of the puppets, set and the accessibility work we want to undertake.

Our Boosted campaign has a target of $5,500, which will help us with venue costs, set and puppet construction, accessibility initiatives and acknowledging the contribution of our cast and crew.

But crowdfunding is about more than just raising money. It's about asking people to become part of the process and to say, “Yes, I want this story to exist.” People can support the project through our Boosted campaign. Every contribution, regardless of size, helps us get closer to putting this work onstage.

You can support this project through its ‘Boosted’ crowdfunding campaign here.

What do you hope to achieve with MERV?

Firstly, I want it to be a genuinely good piece of theatre. I want audiences to laugh, to feel something, and hopefully to leave the theatre thinking about the people and relationships in their own lives.

Secondly, I want to use the production to raise awareness of MND in Aotearoa. There are people and families living with this disease who don't necessarily get the same level of public awareness as other illnesses, and I think theatre can be a powerful way of starting conversations.

And finally, I want MERV to demonstrate what emerging artists in Ōtepoti can create. There is so much talent here, and part of JCR Productions' purpose is to create opportunities for those artists to make ambitious original work. I want us to make art that matters, not necessarily because it has all the answers, but because it gives people something to think and talk about.

The plan is to donate 10% of profits from the show to MND NZ and use the production to spread awareness through the process with information and hopefully organising a Q&A here in Ōtepoti.

When does the crowdfunding close and assuming you reach your target, when do rehearsals begin?

Crowdfunding to bring MERV to the stage ends on 14 September, and if we reach the target and receive the money, rehearsals will begin soon after for a November 2026 premiere.

You can help bring this this powerful story to life through its ‘Boosted’ crowdfunding campaign here.