God of Carnage, which opens on April 29, is the first of her productions for the theatre. The theatre's previous play, The Wonder of Sex, and its tour was the only production in the pipeline, she said.
Having organised this year's programme, which was launched in early February, she's now working on next year's and an indicative programme for the following two years, as well as directing plays and overseeing the quality of the in-house and visiting productions.
The theatre hasn't had an artistic director since Martin Howells left in 2002.
"They were trying a producer and artistic direction committee model from the board. They tried it and it didn't work, and now there's this one. And, hopefully, the good things that come with this one are the staff are not just going from play to play; they know what's coming up for the whole year, they know what the technical difficulties are going to be and the scheduling structure," she said.
"We can avoid a certain amount of crisis management and offer professional development for staff.
"I look forward to seeing if the public notice a shift or change or a cohesion. My role is to ensure the quality is high."
God of Carnage is certainly not an entry-level comedy.
"It's a well-honed piece with layers of meaning and open to interpretation," she said.
She acted in a popular production of it last year at the Court Theatre in Christchurch and wanted to stage the Tony Award-winning play at the Fortune before the film version came out.
Written by French playwright Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton, it breaks down the social confines of how we function with strangers and the political correctness that surrounds certain issues, she said.
The Vallons have invited the Reilles to discuss an incident in which the Reille's son hit their son with a stick.
However, what starts as a civilised evening slowly descends into carnage and the couples end up behaving much as their children do in the playground.
Everyone can relate to being told by an outsider the best way to parent their child, which leads to painful comedy, she said.
Veronique Vallon has just written a book based in Africa. She and Alain Reilles, an international criminal lawyer who is heading to The Hague the following morning, have opposing political viewpoints on that part of the world and how it should function and how brutality in war should be looked at, she said.
"There's a certain farcical element to it, but it's all driven by an absolute truth. They can't be played purely as farce for farce's sake because there are so many other layers to the play, but if we get too serious with all that, then we'll miss the irony of it."
Macgregor (42) grew up in Palmerston North and became hooked on drama when she was about 10.
Although she applied to go to drama school after high school, she didn't get in.
"I was at that teenage stage and thought, 'Well, screw you, I'll go and do it myself'."
So she went to New York and studied with Uta Hagen (1919-2004), one of the most influential acting teachers in the United States, then worked as an actor there for 10 years.
Before returning to New Zealand, she studied directing at Nida (National Institute of Dramatic Art) in Sydney. Back in New Zealand, she directed at Circa Theatre in Wellington.
"While I was there, Creative New Zealand opened up to artistic director internships that year, one at Auckland Theatre Company and one at the Court theatre, because they were fast becoming aware that there weren't people able to take over the artistic running of a recurrently funded theatre organisation such as this one, and I was lucky enough to be accepted to one at the Court.
"That was a 25-week internship, and about halfway into that, Philip Aldridge [CEO] and Ross Gumbley [artistic director] asked me to come on board as associate artistic director, so I was running the smaller theatre, the Forge, for two years, and then I applied for this job.
"It seems like a natural progression, somehow."
See it
God of Carnage, by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton and directed by Lara Macgregor, opens at the Fortune Theatre on April 29 and runs until May 21. It features Claire Dougan, John Glass, Barbara Power and Phil Vaughan.
