First performed in 1959, The End of the Golden Weather has become a part of New Zealand history, a touchstone of New Zealand experience. Unable to earn a living as a playwright in a country without a professional theatre, Bruce Mason presented, in fear and trembling, this story of a young boy's extraordinary summer on a beach. Between 1959 and 1978, when illness forced his retirement from the stage, he performed it nearly 1000 times, in theatres, school halls, church halls and community halls throughout New Zealand.