About the Artists

Yes Yes Yes

EBKM

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken form an awardwinning duo of theatre-makers, who have been presenting work together since 2017. They make high-quality, socially minded, formally innovative contemporary theatre for a range of audiences in New Zealand; they develop their work through extensive research and in consultation with audiences, social agencies and academics. Eleanor Bishop is a director/ writer and Karin McCracken is a writer/performer. Their award-winning works include: Body Double (co-created with Julia Croft, BATS STAB commission, Auckland Arts Festival/Silo Theatre, Wellington Theatre Award Production of the Year), Jane Doe (New Zealand touring, Edinburgh Fringe, Wellington Theatre Award for Most Original Production); Yes Yes Yes (Auckland Theatre Award Excellence in Production, Wellington Theatre Award Excellence in Theatre for Social Change & Outstanding Performance); and Aliens & Anorexia (forthcoming 2024, winner Dean Parker Adaptation Award: Adam NZ Play Awards).

Witi’s Wāhine Hāpai Productions

Te Whanganui-a-Tara

Hāpai Productions’ vision is to produce manaenhancing Māori theatre productions whilst upholding Māori values. Hāpaingia te kaupapa Māori me te mana Māori, mā te auaha a ngā whakaari Māori me ngā mahi a te mātauranga Māori – Upholding Māori philosophical practices, prestige and the pursuit of Māori knowledge through the creation of Māori theatre. Nancy Brunning (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tūhoe) and Tanea Heke MNZM (Ngāpuhi nui tonu) worked together for years (way back in the late ‘90s). They decided to combine forces in 2013 and created Hāpai Productions. The wahine Māori voice is important for establishing a balanced perspective of the Māori world view. Hāpai’s key focus is in creating more opportunities for wahine representation on stage and behind the scenes.

King Lear Michael Hurst

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Michael Hurst has worked in theatre, film and television as both an actor and a director. After two years as a trainee at Christchurch’s The Court Theatre, he spent three further years with Auckland’s influential Theatre Corporate, where he received training and invaluable experience as a member of that company. Michael has been celebrated widely as one of New Zealand’s leading theatre actors with scores of roles to his credit, ranging from Hamlet to The Widow Twanky. He is also known for his innovative and compelling productions of Shakespeare, and, more recently, for his solo work in plays such as No Holds Bard, The Daylight Atheist and An Iliad. In 2010, he directed a wildly successful production of Cabaret for the Auckland Theatre Company and followed this, in 2013, with an equally outrageous production of Chicago, starring Lucy Lawless. His own adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata in 2015 played to full houses and was received rapturously by critics. Highly regarded as a television director, he has pursued this aspect of his career for more than 20 years, working on shows such as Spartacus, Westside and The Dead Lands.

In 2003, he was made a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate and, in 2005, he was appointed as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to theatre. Michael is a proud member of Equity New Zealand.

Benjamin Henson

Benjamin is one of New Zealand’s busiest theatre directors, forging a diverse career, spanning form, scale and medium, including original works, scripted premieres and opera. Prior to working in New Zealand, Benjamin worked for one of the UK’s largest youth arts organisations, leading participatory projects primarily for at-risk youth, including taking six productions a year to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for nine consecutive years. Ben later trained in theatre direction at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London, while continuing to direct for

London Fringe and the cabaret circuit. Following projects in Germany and France, Ben was director in residence at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. In New Zealand, Ben teaches in Auckland’s drama schools and is on the board of The Actors’ Program. The year of 2019 marked the inauguration of The Directors’ Program, the country’s only course of its kind, which has been developed and created by Ben and a team of industry advisors. Under theatre collective Fractious Tash, Ben has received critical acclaim for Earnest, Not Psycho and Titus, which was then remounted for a sell-out season at the Pop-Up Globe (featuring Beyoncé covers by New Zealand’s only steelpan band no less). Benjamin was one of two directors to engage in The Engine Room: a fast-track initiative between Auckland Theatre Company, New Zealand Opera and The Fortune Theatre. As a result, Ben featured in Peer Gynt [recycled] for Auckland Theatre Company and directed Twelfth Night for Fortune Theatre, winning production of the year at the Dunedin Theatre Awards. Also, he assisted Sara Brodie on the Auckland Arts Festival production of Nixon in China before taking what he had learned to direct Oreste for Auckland Opera Studio at Mercury Theatre. Ben opened Auckland Theatre Company’s 2018 season with the New Zealand premiere of Red Speedo by American playwright Lucas Hnath. The awardwinning production of Last Tapes’ Valerie is currently touring New Zealand, following dates in Australia and Edinburgh, adding to its accolade, the coveted Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Things That Matter Gary Henderson

Gary Henderson’s work is regularly staged throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. His most-travelled play is Skin Tight, whose original cast won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh. A French translation by Xavier Mailleux, Te Tenir Contre Moi, was produced in Montréal in 2016. In 2017, Ruia Taitea Creative produced E Kore A Muri E Hokia, a te reo Māori version of Gary’s incendiary 1996 play Mo & Jess Kill Susie. Other work includes Sunset Café, Tigerplay, An Unseasonable Fall of Snow, Lines of Fire, Peninsula, Home Land and Shepherd, and radio plays The Moehau and News Bomb. Gary teaches theatre writing at Unitec and Victoria University of Wellington, and often works as a script advisor alongside other writers. He has held residencies at the Robert Lord Writers Cottage in Dunedin and the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport. In 2013, Gary received the Playmarket Award acknowledging his significant artistic contribution to New Zealand theatre.

Anapela Polata’ivao

Samoan born, Anapela Polata’ivao is from the villages of Vailoa and Vaiusu in Upolu, and Fagae’e and Safune in Savai’i. After graduating from Toi Whakaari in 2000, she and her partner Vela Manusaute created the South Auckland theatre collective Kila Kokonut Krew; this garnered them a New Generation Arts Laureate after producing the landmark Pasifika musical The Factory. Anapela gained international acclaim for her performance in the short film Night Shift (2012) and won Best Actress in the 2018 Wellington Theatre Awards for her role in Tusiata Avia’s Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, which she also directed. Anapela made history in 2020 as the first Samoan woman to have directed a show off-Broadway when Wild Dogs Under My Skirt made its New York debut and was subsequently named the winner of the Fringe Encore Series at the SoHo Playhouse.

Troy Tu’ua

Troy Tu’ua is a multidisciplinary artist and was one of the first-ever graduates of the Pacific Institute of Performing Arts (2009). After graduating, Troy made his professional theatre debut in New Zealand Opera’s La Bohème and starred in Auckland Theatre Company’s Pollyhood in Mumuland in 2011, A Frigate Bird Sings in 2012, Badjelly The Witch tour in 2013 and Sons in 2014. In 2014, Troy was part of the cast of New Zealand’s first-ever Pasifika musical, The Factory for Kila Kokonut Krew, which toured Australia and Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Most recently, Troy directed Lalelei, Mirror Mirror and Wizard of Ōtāhuhu, which won prestigious Auckland Theatre Awards in 2017 and 2018. Troy is also the artistic director of Pacific theatre dance collective, Sau E Siva Creatives. The collective’s recent two sell-out seasons of Rosalina and Fa’asinomaga / Identity were headlining acts at Tempo Dance Festival in 2019.