Beatle Mania '64 featured on Sunday and Monday during the Arrowtown Autumn Festival and Mr Cantwell said the two shows were a near sell-out.
His next play will be set during the "telethon era" of the '80s, where telethons were often a weekend event involving whole communities.
He chose telethons because "it was very much a nationwide phenomenon".
This will be Mr Cantwell's second play and already he is hooked on a nostalgia theme.
"Nostalgia works: people remember the '60s - that kind of evocative music. But my next play I'm working on will be set in the mid-'80s, not necessarily the same family or the same characters - some will remain the same but some will be new," he said.
To help with the play, Mr Cantwell would like anyone who has stories or memories of the era to contact him.
"I'm interested now to find out from people their personal experiences on a telethon, how they raised money and the exploits they got up to."
Since he is hoping to have the play performed in Arrowtown, he is "particularly interested in how they behaved and how they raised money in Arrowtown".
In the play he plans to link Arrowtown's stories to tales from around New Zealand so people watching the play could see how Arrowtown contributed to a nationwide event.
Mr Cantwell only recently started writing plays after becoming seriously involved with the theatre "10 or 12 years ago" after retiring to Queenstown.
However, he admitted his parents were keen theatre-goers, so there was plenty of theatre in his childhood.
He says a cabaret performance was a defining moment for him.
"The first theatre since leaving school was in a cabaret show and that was such a great experience that I've continued on from there."
Anyone with telethon memories can contact Mr Cantwell via email: davidcantwell@xtra.co.nz
