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"Tension is rising in 1970s New Zealand. Muldoons government is cracking down on illegal immigration and the notorious dawn raids are ripping Pasifika families from their beds. At the eye of this political storm, everyday New Zealanders like Sione struggle to keep their families ...united. Fuarosa, the familys resident overstayer, fights against the chaos to keep hold of her freedom and Siones sister Teresa might be getting in too deep with black rights activists. First staged in 1997, Dawn Raids is just as confronting and relevant now as it ever has been. Oscar Kightley pulls no punches and brings the play to life with his trademark hilarity and wit"--Publisher information.
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In 1962, as a student at Wellington Teachers College, I saw Bruce Mason, our great pioneering playwright, performing a show of his sketches. One was of a speech teacher, who spoke in a German accent, giving voice exercises: "Make your lips little mice running up and down the clot...hesline."
It was funny enough but I had no idea (nor would probably any of the other students) that Mason was mimicking (and in a rather cruel way) the actress and teacher Maria Dronke. By the 1960s, she had withdrawn from public appearances.
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"Its 1965 and a Mori family prepares a hngi to celebrate a birthday with their Pkeh guests. The family have recently left their ancestral home, Waiora, on the East Coast of the North Island, to a colder climate in the South. Rongo is feeling lost. She hasnt been able to sing sinc...e the move, but her tpuna are always close by.Waiora is a New Zealand theatre classic. It was first published in 1997 and has been performed locally and overseas and studied in schools and universities. This new edition includes updates from the playwright and a new foreword and study notes. Poignant and comedic, this play explores ideas of home and belonging."--Publisher information.
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Michael Hope is ten years old and sleeps on a volcano. Rumblings in the adult world encroach into Michael's life, erupting, and throwing his universe into a chaos that will change him forever. A coming-of-age story about life on the Peninsula.
Two teenagers fall in love. Their... parents are constantly at war. Will their differennt cultures keep them apart? Romeo and Tusi puts an hilarious Pasifika spin on Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.
Sometimes to resuscitate love you have to risk drowning. In The Raft, a family tries to pick up the pieces and wrestle with things that have remained submerged for too long.
Michael James Manaia returns form the Vietnam War to find himself at odds with his culture, his history and his memories.
Four classic New Zealand plays from the South Island.
This title includes:
Peninsula by Gary Henderson
Romeo and Tusi by Oscar Kightley and Erolia Ifopo
The Raft by Carl Nixon
Michael James Manaia by John Broughton
Form:
New Zealand Play Series
Style:
Comedy
Drama
Themes:
Maori
Pacific Island
Social
War
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n The Pink Hammer, four women sign up for a carpentry workshop to find the tutor has absconded with their fees and left behind Woody, her disgruntled husband. Annabel, Louise, Helen and Siobhan invade Woody's man cave and persuade him to run the course. His neatly ordered sanctua...ry will never be the same. And neither will they. A comedy about unlikely friendships and finding empowerment with power tools.
"...a comedy which, despite all its outward affability and talent to amuse, reveals something deeper about human relationships" The Press
Flagons and Foxtrots recreates New Zealand's Saturday night dance-hall era of the 1960s. The Twist was all the rage, a bloke had to do the right thing and everyone drank sneaky pints in the car park. At Newbury Hall, the Archie Moore Trio is hoping to hit the big time, but Sid won't let them play. Jill longs to marry Jack, the lead singer, but he's knocked up her friend, Rita, in a one-night stand. Hilarity ensues as everybody scrambles to pick up the pieces during a night of music and dancing.
"A bloody good night out that only the most committed misanthrope would refuse to enjoy" The Dominion
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"Performing Dramaturgy is the first comprehensive guide to New Zealand dramaturgy. Charting the history and evolution of international practice, Fiona Graham examines the introduction of professional dramaturgy to New Zealand and the development of a practice based on tikanga Mor...i. Through interviews and local case studies, Graham investigates how dramaturges have collaborated with performance makers from playwrights to performance artists to create work that is nuanced and multi-layered. Informed by thirty-five years of performance development experience, Grahams Performing Dramaturgy is essential reading for practitioners and students of all creative disciplines who want to apply the principles of dramaturgy to their own arts practice"--Publisher information.
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"In Haruru Mai, a Maori Battalion veteran returns to his small Northland hometown after forty years. His arrival revives anxieties over land and family, and Maori participation in the war. He becomes romantically involved with Paloma and, haunted by the death of a fellow Maori so...ldier, he shelters a young man battling his own demons. Strange Resting Places is a hilarious and often poignant exploration of the collision of Maori and Italian culture during World War Two. Big band music, traditional waiata and bomber planes are woven together in this beautiful tale of unlikely friendship and impossible love"--Publisher information
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When someone special dies, their spirit joins the others in a wild tango across the night sky."
Purapurawhetu is a masterpiece of New Zealand theatre.
The town of Te Kupenga has been tainted by a tragedy that happened 30 years ago. Tyler is an outsider who wants to fit in. ...As Tyler helps weave the tukutuku panel for the new wharenui,new faces and old demons haunt Te Kupenga. Tyler must weave together the secrets of the past in order to save his town from collapsing all over again...
"Grace-Smith's poetic language and imagery, her complex characterisation and the sure hand with which she blends the epic and the mundane, humour and tragedy, make this play of suffering and redemption speak to us all in our hearts and minds" The Dominion
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Urbanesia is a collection of four outstanding scripts by contemporary Pasifika playwrights, each examining the tension between Western and Pacific Island culture and values and how that tension is being played out in Aotearoa.
A Frigate Bird Sings by Oscar Kightley, David Fane... and Nathaniel Lees is a funny and moving celebration of difference. A young faafafine is searching for answers to conflicting expectations of identity and duty in this comical and deeply touching play. a subtle, beautifully observed study of one of the most precious and intriguing gifts of Polynesian culture the third sexa classic of NZ theatre Anita McNaught
My Name is Gary Cooper by Victor Rodger balances post-colonial politics, humour and eroticism as it questions the expoloitation and stereotyping of Pacific peoples by Westerners. My Name is Gary Cooper is a rollercoaster ride through cultural appropriation and sexual deception.
Taro King by Vela Manusaute takes us to a South Auckland Supermarket where hopes, dreams and low-price taros are feverishly negotiated, and where the workers dream of something bigger and brighter that the glaring lights of aisle four.
Rushing Dolls by performance poet Courtney Sina Meredith expresses in poetry and drama the complex desires and explosive energy of successful young Polynesian women. Cleo is searching for the perfect job and life in the shiny city but the pressures of family responsibility and following her dreams almost overwhelm her.
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