The Mooncake and the Kumara
Short+Sweet Festival (2012)
One of the successful works coming out of Asian Tales: Native Alienz written by Maori-Chinese first time playwright was The Mooncake and the Kumara - a Māori-Chinese love story loosely based on how the writer’s grandparents met.
The creative team behind the work, Mei-Lin Hansen (writer) and Kiel McNaughton (director) were interested to explore revising and turning the work into a full-length theatre piece. As part of that process, Oryza produced a revised version of the play in collaboration with the Mei-Lin and Kiel at Short+Sweet Festival Auckland 2012’s theatre season which went on to receive the Judges’ Choice Award, Best Actor Award and Playmarket Best New Zealand Writer Award.