Playwright and documentary director, Makerita Urale, has been awarded the 2010 Fullbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency at the University of Hawai’i. She joins Sima Urale (2004), Tusiata Avia (2005), Victor Rodger (2006), Sarona Aiono-Iosefa(2007), David Young (2008), and Toa Fraser (2009) as recipients of the award. Makerita says she will use the three-month residency to complete the first draft of her new work for theatre, The Heathen’s Way. She is the author of Frangipani Perfume (1988), the first Pacific play written by a woman for an all female cast. The play was listed as pone of New Zealand’s top ten plays of the decade by The Listener. Makerita will also use her time in Honolulu to work on two documentaries, Fa’afafine of Polynesia and The Art of Polynesian Engineering. She already has a number of films to her credit including Mob Daughters, Children of the Revolution, and Waiata Whawhai Songs of Protest. (Story and image adapted from Spasifik Magazine.)
