‘I, George Nepia’ Claims Four Awards
Cook Islander Miria Rei George and her partner Hone Kouka are celebrating success. Their production, ‘I, George Nepia’, has won a total of four awards at the esteemed Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards 2011. The Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards has been running for nearly 20 years and acknowledges important contributions to the New Zealand arts scene. It is widely considered to be the “Oscars” of the New Zealand theatre scene.
The awards ceremony was held on December 4 in Wellington, New Zealand. The play, produced by the pair’s company Tawata Productions and written by Kouka, had six nominations in total. Of the six nominations, ‘I, George Nepia’ was awarded four. The play’s director, Jason Te Kare, took home the prizes for ‘Most Promising Director of the Year’ as well as ‘Director of the Year’. The award for ‘Actor of the Year’ went to Jarod Rawiri, who starred in the play. Finally, Tawata Productions was awarded the prestigious ‘Chapman Tripp Award for Production of the Year’ for the play, which is a story based on the life of New Zealand rugby legend, George Nepia.
The pair was recently in Rarotonga tutoring local writers in a two-day creative writing workshop and following the awards ceremony they now begin work on the return season of their award-winning and critically-acclaimed production. More information on George, Kouka and ‘I, George Nepia’ can be found on the Tawata Productions website at tawata.wordpress.com. -Ngariki Ngatae

Herald Issue 554 09 March
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- Briefs from PM’s media conference Tuesday
- Tourism Industry ponders $5 million draft strategy
- Norman George resigns from Cook Islands Party
- Letter of Resignation from CIP
- Norman selfish says Prime Minister