Oscar Vai To'elau Kightley is a Samoan-New Zealander actor,television presenter,writer,journalist,director,and comedian. He acted in and co-wrote the successful 2006 film Sione's Wedding.
Hone Vivian Kouka is a New Zealand playwright. He has written 13 plays,which have been staged in New Zealand and worldwide including Canada,South Africa,New Caledonia and Britain. Kouka's plays have won multiple awards at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards,the 'Oscars' of New Zealand theatre. Kouka has also worked as a theatre director and producer. In 2009,Kouka was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit,for services to contemporary Māori theatre.
Victor John Rodger is a New Zealand journalist,actor and award-winning playwright of Samoan and Pākehāheritage. Rodger's play Sons won acclaim at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards (1998) and received the Best New Writer and Most Outstanding New New Zealand Play awards. In 2001,he won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Other plays include Ranterstantrum (2002) and My Name is Gary Cooper (2007),produced and staged by Auckland Theatre Company and starred a Samoan cast including Robbie Magasiva,Anapela Polataivao,Goretti Chadwick and Kiwi actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand.
Briar Grace-Smith is a screenwriter,director,actor,and short story writer from New Zealand. She has worked as an actor and writer with the Maori theatre cooperative Te Ohu Whakaari and Maori theatre company He Ara Hou. Early plays Don't Call Me Bro and Flat Out Brown,were first performed at the Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington in 1996. Waitapu,a play written by Grace-Smith,was devised by He Ara Hou and performed by the group on the Native Earth Performing Arts tour in Canada in 1996.
Riwia Brown is a New Zealand playwright. She is the screenwriter of the popular and award-winning New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors (1994). The Once Were Warriors screenplay,adapted from the book of the same name by Alan Duff,gained Brown the Best Screenplay award at the 1994 New Zealand Film and TV Awards. Brown has written for theatre,television and films.
Fiona Samuel is a New Zealand writer,actor and director who was born in Scotland. Samuel's award-winning career spans theatre,film,radio and television. She graduated from Toi Whakaari:New Zealand Drama School in 1980 with a Diploma in Acting.
Joanna Ruth Randerson is a New Zealand writer,director and performer. She is the founder and artistic director of Barbarian Productions,a Wellington-based theatre production company.
Sarah Delahunty is a New Zealand writer and director who was born in Wellington. An award-winning playwright,Delahunty has written over 30 plays,often focussing on works for youth.
Stuart Hoar is a New Zealand playwright,teacher,novelist,radio dramatist and librettist.
Jean Betts is a New Zealand playwright,actor and director.
Ralph McCubbin Howell is a Wellington-based New Zealand playwright and actor. He was the recipient of the 2014 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. His work The Devil's Half Acre was commissioned and produced by the 2016 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts.
Nina Nawalowalo is a New Zealand theatre director and co-founder of the contemporary Pacific theatre company The Conch. She is known for directing the stage plays Vula and The White Guitar. The first film she directed A Boy Called Piano - The Story of Fa'amoana John Luafutu (2021) won 2022 Montreal Independent Film Festival Best Feature Documentary.
Whiti Hereaka is a New Zealand playwright,novelist and screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor. She has held a number of writing residencies and appeared at literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas,and several of her books and plays have been shortlisted for or won awards. In 2022 her book Kurangaituku won the prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Bugs won an Honour Award in the 2014 New Zealand Post Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Wellington,New Zealand.
Emily Tess Duncan is a New Zealand playwright. She is co-founder of Prospect Park Productions,an organisation aiming “to create and produce original New Zealand theatre and collaborative projects that reach into other art forms." Duncan held the 2019 Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in Dunedin,New Zealand. She lives in Dunedin.
Taki Rua is a theatre organisation based in Wellington,Aotearoa / New Zealand that has produced many contemporary Māori theatre productions. Taki Rua has been going since 1983 and has had several name changes over that time including The New Depot,Depot Theatre and Taki Rua / The Depot. The full current name is Taki Rua Productions. Since inception the mission of Taki Rua has been to showcase work from Aotearoa. Because of this and the longevity of Taki Rua many significant New Zealand actors,directors,writers,designers and producers have part of the history including Riwia Brown,Nathaniel Lees,Rachel House and Taika Waititi.
The Bruce Mason Playwriting Award is an annual award that recognises the work of an outstanding emerging New Zealand playwright. The winner is decided by the votes of a panel of leading New Zealand artistic directors and script advisors.
The Adam NZ Play Award is an annual award in New Zealand given to new plays. There are a range of categories and submitted plays are read blind by a panel of industry professionals.
Catherine Patricia Downes is a New Zealand theatre director,actor,dramaturg and playwright. Of Māori descent,she affiliates to Ngāi Tahu. Downes wrote a one-woman play The Case of Katherine Mansfield,which she has performed more than 1000 times in six countries over twenty years. She has been the artistic director of the Court Theatre in Christchurch and the director of Downstage Theatre in Wellington. She lives on Waiheke Island and works as a freelance actor,director and playwright.
Suli Moa is a New Zealand playwright,actor,screenwriter and teacher of Tongan descent. He wrote and performed the first Tongan Play in New Zealand,Kingdom of Lote. As a playwright Moa has been awarded the Adam New Zealand Play Award for Best Pacific Play,12th Round (2016),and Tales of a Princess (2018). Moa's acting credits include A love yarn (2021) andSweet Tooth (2021). His writing credits include The Panthers (2021) and Shortland Street (2021-2022). Moa has also appeared in multiple short films as an actor and served as a cultural advisor.
The Playwrights Association of New Zealand (PANZ) is an incorporated society in New Zealand. The association was founded in 1958. It awards an annual Outstanding Achievement Award,which from 1988 to 2016 was known as The Doug Wrenn Award. Doug Wrenn was a former president of PANZ. The award,instituted in 1988,is presented to "a member who had significant success in playwriting during the year".
