ADSA Conference 2025
Manaakitanga: Performing Welcome, Care and Respect
Te Whanganui-a-Tara – Wellington, Aotearoa
1 – 5 December 2025
Registrations now open! Register here: https://pay.wgtn.ac.nz/ADSAConference
Opening of Ngā Mokopuna at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, 2024. Credit: Image Services THW.
Programme Overview
| Day | Time | Programming | Venue |
| Monday 1st December | 10am-5pm | Working Group Meetings | Kelburn Campus, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington |
| Tuesday 2nd December | 10am-11am | Pōwhiri – Formal conference welcome | Kelburn Campus, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington |
| 11am-4:45pm | Postgraduate & Early Careers Sessions | ||
| 5-7pm | Drinks, nibbles Performance premiere: The Chair and the Cello (Hannah Banks, Briony Luttrell) |
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| Wednesday 3rd December | 9:30am-5pm | Parallel Panels 1: Papers, plenaries, workshops, performances & more | Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School, Te Whaea, Newtown |
| Thursday 4th December | 9am-5:30pm | Parallel Panels 2: Papers, plenaries, workshops, performances & more | Kelburn Campus, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington |
| 5:30-8:30pm | Art Party & Conference Dinner | ||
| Friday 5th December | 9am-4pm | Parallel Panels 3: Papers, plenaries, workshops, performances & more | Kelburn Campus, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington |
Late applications can be submitted here: https://forms.office.com/r/7Uwf6hdna2
Conference Delegates and Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington Alumni are invited to attend the plenary session by Emeritus Professor David O'Donnell.
Keynote Address: Rituals of Power/Rituals of Respect: Uplifting the mana in the theatre rehearsal room
Emeritus Professor David O’Donnell
Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington
Friday, 5 December, 1-2:30pm, Te Toki a Rata Lecture Theatre 1
To Māori, tikanga (customs) values such as manaaki (looking after one another), whānau (family) and respect are all essential in the footsteps of any journey.
Cian Elyse White, Actor and Artistic Director of Waitī Productions (Gray 5)
Are principles of manaakitanga, which Hirini Moko Mead describes as “nurturing relationships, looking after people and being very careful about how others are treated” (Mead 29), relevant to planning and conducting theatre rehearsals? Rehearsal spaces are high pressure environments with high stakes, places for “risk-taking, spontaneity, intimacy” (Cole 3). Susan Letzler Cole argues that the rehearsal process is a “hidden world, a realm usually – and with good reason – veiled to observers” (2). In this “hidden” process, directors have considerable power over actors, designers and technicians and some may exhibit autocratic behaviour which is antithetical to what Gay McAuley describes as “the complex nature of collective creativity” (28). McAuley observes that “[s]ome rehearsals function as power rituals” where autocratic directors “strictly control the input of all the contributing artists and workers, subordinating it to their own personal vision” (230). In this paper I draw upon interviews with experienced theatre practitioners to investigate changes in rehearsal room practices in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past 40 years. I suggest that rehearsal practices have been significantly altered by the official policy of biculturalism that began in the 1980s, which led to incorporating aspects of tikanga Māori into workplaces and educational institutions, and consider how manaakitanga might frame, enhance and stimulate the creative process in rehearsals.
Biography
David O’Donnell is a Pākehā theatre-maker and teacher who graduated from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in 1979. He began his theatre career as an actor, later completing a BA at Victoria University of Wellington and an MA at the University of Otago, where he also taught theatre for seven years. He has directed many productions across Aotearoa and written extensively on the theatre of Aotearoa and the Pacific, including co-editing the books Performing Aotearoa (2007) and Indigeneity on the Oceanic Stage (2025) with Marc Maufort, and Acting in Aotearoa (2025) with Hilary Halba. With Lisa Warrington, he co-wrote Floating Islanders: Pasifika Theatre in Aotearoa (2017), which won the 2018 Rob Jordan Book Prize. From 2010-2020 he was editor of the Playmarket Play Series and has been a Regional Managing Editor for the global theatre portal The Theatre Times since it began in 2016. He is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington where he taught for 25 years. He is a life member of ADSA and in 2023 won the Mayoral Award for Significant Contribution to the Theatre at the Wellington Theatre Awards.
Works Cited
Cole, Susan Letzler. Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World. New York/London: Routledge, 1992.
Goodall, Jane. Stage Presence. London/New York: Routledge, 2008.
Gray, Nathan Hoturoa. Working Together: Cultural Practice in the Theatrespace. Wellington: Playmarket, 2018.
McAuley, Gay. Not Magic but Work: An Ethnographic Account of a Rehearsal Process. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2012.
Mead, Hirini Moko. Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values. Wellington: Huia, 2003.
David O’Donnell is a Pākehā theatre-maker and teacher who graduated from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in 1979. He began his theatre career as an actor, later completing a BA at Victoria University of Wellington and an MA at the University of Otago, where he also taught theatre for seven years. He has directed many productions across Aotearoa and written extensively on the theatre of Aotearoa and the Pacific, including co-editing the books Performing Aotearoa (2007) and Indigeneity on the Oceanic Stage (2025) with Marc Maufort, and Acting in Aotearoa (2025) with Hilary Halba. With Lisa Warrington, he co-wrote Floating Islanders: Pasifika Theatre in Aotearoa (2017), which won the 2018 Rob Jordan Book Prize. From 2010-2020 he was editor of the Playmarket Play Series and has been a Regional Managing Editor for the global theatre portal The Theatre Times since it began in 2016. He is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington where he taught for 25 years. He is a life member of ADSA and in 2023 won the Mayoral Award for Significant Contribution to the Theatre at the Wellington Theatre Awards.
Works Cited
Cole, Susan Letzler. Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World. New York/London: Routledge, 1992.
Goodall, Jane. Stage Presence. London/New York: Routledge, 2008.
Gray, Nathan Hoturoa. Working Together: Cultural Practice in the Theatrespace. Wellington: Playmarket, 2018.
McAuley, Gay. Not Magic but Work: An Ethnographic Account of a Rehearsal Process. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2012.
Mead, Hirini Moko. Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values. Wellington: Huia, 2003.
