BATS Theatre is a theatre venue in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially founded as the Bats Theatre Company in 1976, then established in its current form in 1989. BATS Theatre has seen the development of many performing arts talents of New Zealand.
Jed Brophy is an actor from New Zealand. He has appeared in several of Peter Jackson's films, including Braindead, Heavenly Creatures, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and King Kong. Brophy also appears as the dwarf Nori in The Hobbit films.
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 Pākehā heritage. 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.
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.
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 Hawai'i.
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.
Sam Brooks is a New Zealand playwright and dramatist. Brooks' works have appeared on stage in Auckland and throughout New Zealand, often produced through his company, Smoke Labours Productions. Brooks' work has twice earned him the Playmarket B4 25 New Zealand Young Playwright award. He has also been nominated for the Chapman Tripp award for Outstanding New Playwright and was highly commended for the Adam New Zealand New Play of the year award. In 2014, Metro Magazine named Brooks "Auckland's Most Exciting Playwright". He won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2016. He is a contributing writer to The Spinoff, an online commentary and opinion magazine where he was previously culture editor. He has also written for Pantograph Punch, Metro magazine, and The New Zealand Herald.
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.
Eli Kent is a New Zealand playwright and actor. Kent holds a master's in scriptwriting from Victoria University of Wellington's International Institute of Modern Letters.
Indian Ink Theatre Company is a New Zealand theatre company founded by actor Jacob Rajan and director/writer Justin Lewis. Founded in 1996, Indian Ink's first theatrical production was Krishnan's Dairy, which went on to win the Chapman Tripp Award for Production of the Year (1997). The following year Krishnan's Dairy presented in the bigger theatre Downstage Theatre and was so popular the season was extended by five shows. Over the years Indian Ink's productions have been toured through New Zealand and overseas with presentations including Krishnan's Dairy, The Candlestick Maker, and The Pickle King. Its most recent production is Dirty Work: An Ode to Joy (2023).
Albert Alexander Amahou Belz is a New Zealand actor, writer and lecturer.
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.
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.
William Newton Sheat was a New Zealand lawyer and arts advocate whose input was instrumental in many arts organisations including as a founding member of the New Zealand Film Commission, Creative New Zealand and Downstage Theatre.
Mitch Tawhi Thomas is a New Zealand playwright, actor and drama teacher.
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.
Eleanor Bishop is a New Zealand stage director, producer and playwright. Her play Yes Yes Yes co-written with Karin McCracken for young people about relationships and consent has been seen throughout New Zealand, in Montreal, Wales and Catalonia.
