THE CONCH - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Te Råkau Theatre
Job Titles:
- ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
- CO - FOUNDER
- Director
In a career spanning more than 30 years, internationally acclaimed theatre director Nina Nawalowalo has created a platform for the telling of Pacific stories across the globe.
Artistic Director and Co-founder of Wellington-based theatre company The Conch, she is a performer, mentor and teacher who has presented at over 40 international festivals, including the London International Mime Festival, British Festival of Visual Theatre, and the Moscow Arts Festival. From her ground breaking ‘Vula' which toured for 7 years including a 3 week season at The Sydney opera House and a sold out season at London's Barbican Centre, to Masi, Marama and her unforgettable direction of the work of others such as Hone Kouka's The Prophet and Edinburgh festival award winning Duck death and the Tulip, Nina is renown for her powerful visual and magical work exploring Pacific themes.
She is passionately committed to bringing our untold stories into the light and for using theatre as a vehicle to affect social change. In 2013 She established the Solomon Islands National Women's Theatre Company ‘Stages of Change' as a means to address violence against women and girls. The 15 strong company of women performed at the Melanesian Arts Festival in Papua New Guinea and at the EU Parliament in Brussels. Her most recent show, The White Guitar, is the powerful story of The Luafutu Family - Father John and sons Matthias and Malo aka renown hip hop artist scribe. Told by the Luafutu family themselves, the sold-out show was lauded by critics with praise: "If there's any show that you're going to see in the next decade, this has to be it" [RNZ National]. It was described by The Press as ‘a seminal moment in New Zealand theatre history'.
In 2017, Nina received the Senior Pacific Artist Award in acknowledgement of her significant contribution to Pacific Arts in Aotearoa.
Sasha joined the Conch at the end of 2015, after 6 years as General Manager/Side-kick to Jim Moriarty, Artistic Director of Te Råkau Theatre. Of Samoan and English descent, Sasha was born and raised in Porirua alongside her 8 siblings. With a hunger for performance and debating, Sasha's passion for theatre and its ability to provoke and challenge its audiences has been a long standing passion. Sasha's drive has taken her into working with youth-at-risk in a number of residential care and lock-up facilities, and with homelessness managing the Wellington City Mission's Drop-in centre.
Alongside her passion for Producing, Sasha is an artist in her own right. In 2012 she started her own company Jandals Inc which gave her the space to begin testing the kind of work she wanted to create alongside other like-minded practitioners. This testing included the formation of the Measina Festival, partnering with Tupe Lualua's Le Moana pacific dance company, to create an annual platform for emerging pacific artists in Wellington. In 2017, Sasha took on the role of Narrative Director on Taki Rua's Tiki Taane Mahuta which toured Nationally, and most recently assisted Conch Artistic Director Nina Nawalowalo with her work on The Magicians and in development work House of Bernarda Alba.
Since beginning with The Conch, Sasha has produced Marama, which premiered for the Auckland Arts Festival, the 9 city National Tour of The White Guitar, and many Conch Youth, Advocacy and Corporate events. Sasha is the Producer for the Conch's upcoming work The Naked Samoans Do Magic, with this job being a highlight of her career. "With a work of this size, there is automatically going to be massive learning. This scale is rarely achievable for us in New Zealand, so when you get the opportunity to be involved in a project like this, it's a blessing"
Job Titles:
- CREATIVE PRODUCER / CO - FOUNDER
- Writer
Tom Read Drama at Bristol University receiving a BA with first class honours before going on to train for two years under internationally renown Master teacher Jacques Lecoq at L'Ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq, Paris, France. Before moving to New Zealand his work was included in many national and international festivals including ‘Diskurs Festival' Geissen Germany, British Festival of Visual theatre, Edinburgh festival and National review of Live Art.
Tom is the writer of many plays including French Kiss (Independent Newspaper Top 10 Plays, Edinburgh Festival), Life on Mars, which premiered at The Riverside Studios, London, Faith (Adam Play Reading Award Winner, RNZ adaptation), MelonCauliflower ( Radio NZ) The Last 27 Days of Childhood (Award Playmarket Plays for the Young) and Significance, (award 2015 Playmarket Adam Play Awards) .
Tom has worked extensively as a Movement Teacher including The Young Vic London, Bristol Old Vic, Rose Bruford Drama school, California State University Fullerton, East.15 and The Shanghai Theatre Academy and was Senior Movement Teacher at Mountview Drama School, London. For 15 years he worked as Head of the Movement Programme at Toi Whakaari, The New Zealand Drama School.
Alongside Nina Nawalowalo he is co-founder of The Conch and has played an active and vital role in all Conch productions, including his significant involvement in the script development of The Conch production The White Guitar.