Briar Grace-Smith ONZM is a writer of scripts, screenplays and short stories 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. [1] 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.
Her first major play Nga Pou Wahine earned her the 1995 Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Grace-Smith won Best New Zealand Play at the 1997 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for Purapurawhetu, called "a new classic of New Zealand theatre" by New Zealand Listener. [2] The play also toured to Canada and Greece. [3] Grace-Smith's plays Purapurawhetu and When Sun and Moon Collide were televised as two feature-length episodes in the six-part series Atamira. They aired on Māori TV on 6 May and 13 May 2012 respectively. Purapurawhetu starred Rawiri Paratene, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rob Mokaraka, Scott Cotter, and Roimata Fox. When Sun and Moon Collide starred Calvin Tuteao, Xavier Horan, Kip Chapman, Maria Walker, Sophie Roberts, Ben Van Lier, and Anders Falstie-Jensen. [4]
In 2000, she received the Arts Foundation Laureate Award. In 1993 she was Writer-in-Residence at Massey University, and in 2003, she was Writers' Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington. [5] Her 2014 play Paniora was inspired by the story of Spanish influence in the East Coast, via Manuel José. [6] [7]
Screenplays include Fresh Meat (2012), Nine of Hearts and the New Zealand feature film The Strength of Water (2009). [8] Her plays have toured in New Zealand and internationally. The Strength of Water was selected for the 2006 Sundance Screenwriters' Lab in Utah, and premiered at the Berlin and Rotterdam Film Festivals in 2009. She was a finalist at the 2009 Qantas Film and TV Awards for Best Screenplay for a Feature Film for The Strength of Water. [9]
Grace-Smith's work for television includes drama Fishskin Suit, which won best drama at the NZ Television Awards [10] and was nominated for Best Script – One off Drama. [9] and Charlie The Dreaded, one of six Maori language stories produced for the Aroha series. Grace-Smith has also worked as a writer and storyliner on various television drama series. These have included Being Eve, and Kaitangata Twitch, a series adapted from the Margaret Mahy novel. She co-wrote Billy, a tele-feature about the life of comedian Billy T James, with Dave Armstrong (2011).
Grace-Smith is also a writer of short stories. Her short story Te Manawa appeared in The Six Pack, a sampler of New Zealand writing from New Zealand's inaugural Book Month publication (2006). Grace-Smith's short stories have been broadcast on Radio New Zealand National and appeared in anthologies including Penguin New Writers (1998), Tangata, Tangata (1999), Toi Wahine (1995), Huia Short Stories (1995) from Huia Publishers and Lost in Translation (2010). [3]
Poetry by Grace-Smith was included in UPU, a curation of Pacific Island writers’ work which was first presented at the Silo Theatre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2020. [11] UPU was remounted as part of the Kia Mau Festival in Wellington in June 2021. [12]
Grace-Smith is of Nga Puhi and Ngāti Wai descent. She is the former daughter-in-law of Patricia Grace [13] and lives on the Kapiti Coast of Wellington with her husband and children.
List from Playmarket's Twenty New Zealand Playwrights [14]
Patricia Frances Grace is a New Zealand Māori writer of novels, short stories, and children's books. She is a key figure in New Zealand literature and in Māori literature in English, and one of New Zealand's most celebrated authors. Her first published work, Waiariki (1975), was the first collection of short stories by a Māori woman writer. As of 2021, she has published seven novels, seven short story collections, several children's books and an autobiography. Her work is popular in New Zealand and internationally, and has been critically acclaimed.
Peter David Broughton, generally known as Rawiri Paratene, is a New Zealand stage and screen actor, director and writer. He is known for his acting roles in Whale Rider (2002) and The Insatiable Moon (2010).
David Geary is a playwright from New Zealand. He also writes for television.
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.
Nancy Brunning was a New Zealand actress, director, and writer who won awards in film and television and made a major contribution to the growth of Māori in the arts. Brunning was of Māori descent from the tribes of Ngati Raukawa and Ngai Tuhoe. She won the best actress award at the New Zealand Film Awards for her lead role in the film What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1999), the sequel to cult classic Once Were Warriors. In 2000, she won the Best Actress in Drama award at the New Zealand Television Awards for her lead role in the television series Nga Tohu. She was the acting coach for the Oscar-nominated short film Two Cars, One Night directed by Taika Waititi. According to friend and frequent collaborator Temuera Morrison, she "paved the way" for Māori actors in New Zealand.
Renée Gertrude Taylor, known mononymously as Renée, is a New Zealand feminist writer and playwright. Renée is of Māori, Irish, English, and Scottish ancestry, and has described herself as a "lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals". She wrote her first play, Setting the Table, in 1981. Many of her plays have been published, with extracts included in Intimate Acts, a collection of lesbian plays published by Brito and Lair, New York.
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.
Rachel Jessica Te Ao Maarama House is a New Zealand actress, acting coach, and director.
Kohai Grace is a New Zealand weaver. Her iwi are Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Porou, Te Āti Awa and Ngāti Raukawa.
Mīria George is a New Zealand writer, producer and director of Māori and Cook Island descent. Best known for being the author of award-winning stage plays, George has also written radio, television and poetry, and was one of the film directors of the portmanteau film Vai. In November 2005, she won the Emerging Pacific Artist's Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards. Mīria George was the first Cook Islands artist to receive the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer's Residency at the University of Hawaii.
Philippa Hall is a New Zealand stage, screen and radio script writer and actor.
Lynda Chanwai-Earle is a New Zealand writer and radio producer. Her written work includes plays, poems and film scripts. The play Ka Shue – Letters Home in 1996 is semi-autobiographical and is significant in New Zealand literature as the first authentically New Zealand–Chinese play for mainstream audiences.
Hohi Ngapera Te Moana Keri Kaa was a New Zealand writer, educator, and advocate for the Māori language. She was of Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Kahungunu descent.
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. Her book Bugs won an Honour Award in the 2014 New Zealand Post Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Te Ohu Whakaari was a Māori theatre cooperative formed by Rangimoana Taylor in the early 1980s that created and performed plays across New Zealand Aotearoa.
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.
Kura Leigh Forrester is a New Zealand comedian, actor and writer. In 2019, she won the Billy T Award for best emerging comedian, for her show Kura Woulda Shoulda. She currently appears as core cast member Desdemona Schmidt on prime-time soap opera Shortland Street.
Diane Prince is a painter, weaver, installation art practitioner and set designer and affiliates to the Maori iwi Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Whātua from the north of New Zealand.
The Kia Mau Festival, previously called Ahi Kaa Festival, is a biennial performing arts festival in Wellington, New Zealand. In te reo Māori, kia mau is "a call to stay - an invitation to join us".
Rob Mokaraka is a New Zealand playwright and actor. He affiliates to Nga Puhi and Ngai Tuhoe.
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