Tales of the night from Crisps Lane

Swapping large US cities for small town New Zealand has meant sacrifices for New Yorker Maryam Zadeh, but she’s lived to tell the tales and will be sharing them next week on stage.

Zadeh has a Kiwi father but was raised in the States and came out to New Zealand during Covid to take care of him.

While she initially attempted to settle with her dad in his retirement village, that proved a “disaster”, and she moved into an old building on Crisps Lane in Nelson, also home to a brothel.

“It’s been nothing but drama. I don’t need HBO, I don’t need Netflix. I just lean over my balcony,” she told the Nelson Mail.

“I was just always telling people ‘You’re not going to believe this. I had to get the machete … and then she threw the sequinned G string at me because she got mad about it’.”

Her experiences in Crisps Lane, including with working girls labouring in the vicinity, have been turned into a colourful show that started its life as a Fresh FM podcast.

“I said, I’m just going to write it as a play,” Zadeh recalled, “because no one’s going to believe me any other way.”

When it comes to her relationship with the ladies of the night, Zadeh said her issue was more to do with the clients, “keeping them to stay in their lane and to not bother us”.

Having lived in New York and Los Angeles all of her life, the smallness of Nelson has taken some adjustment. Her father has been married six times, and “half of his ex-wives are here”, Zadeh said, before wondering aloud if they would be turning up in the audience.

Her play, called Crisps Lane, is also the story of Zadeh’s recently ended relationship with a considerably younger man, all told with dry humour.

Previously a writer, producer, actor and director in the film, theatre and television industry, Zadeh had pieces in the Edinburgh and New York fringe festivals before taking a different direction in 2001, later moving into fitness and opening three gyms in New York.

Having served as a Nelson Fringe Festival judge for several years, Zadeh said she was pleased to be dusting off her writing chops for this year’s edition. Crisps Lane will run on March 13 and 14 at the Refinery ArtSpace.

Festival director Giles Burton said ticket sales were looking good, and at $18 a pop, arts lovers could easily see two or even three hour-long shows a night. Those attending could choose to pay up to $28 per ticket as a direct donation to the artists performing.

This year’s festival involves nearly 60 shows over 10 days, in seven venues.

Getting the festival to “make sense” for both artists and audiences involves careful programming, making sure that two comics aren’t competing for the same time slot, for instance, said Burton, who has directed the festival for six years.

Alongside high-quality local shows, there are nine international offerings too.

A noir thriller from India, Gigolo, has been touring the world for a year and has “absolutely stormed” audiences, while Once An Actress, from Zimbabwe, is the first African show at the festival.

Burton said he was personally looking forward to Swiss performer Elsa Couvreur’s new work, Embarrassed Naked Female, while those who missed The Sensemaker three years ago would have a chance to catch the multi award winning solo show this time around.

While there are nearly 20 locally produced acts, Burton said one of the problems with getting new shows to the stage was having a space to do so. Theatre in particular had struggled since Covid because of the lack of venues, he said.

“Obviously you can do comedy quite easily in pretty much any venue, but theatre is much harder to do unless you’ve got a kind of theatre type space.”

That’s an obstacle that along with the hassles around ticketing, festival organisers hope to help performers overcome. This year’s festival has a “strong” selection of theatre, Burton said.

Nelson Fringe Festival 2026 runs from March 5 to 14. Tickets can be bought at nelsonfringe.co.nz.