10 Minute Play Festival

Group 3: Kahua

Catch these three plays in Group 3 on
Saturday, May 25 at 3:30PM or Sunday, May 26 at 3:00PM.

“Vai & Afi”

By Misa Tupou

Vai & Afi is a love story that bounces between the past and present. As childhood classmates Vai & Afi were not on friendly terms, but with every interaction between them over the years, their bond grows and they finally commit to each other. However, they face constant challenging experiences out of their control.

About the Playwright: Misa Tupou

Misa is a graduate of Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. In theatre, he adapted the poem Ola’s Son by Lisa Kanaʻe into a devised theatre show that toured Hawaiʻi and Aotearoa New Zealand. His short play Intrusion explored the gold mining world of a Chinese gold miner. As a mask physical theatre practitioner he collaborated with Monkey Waterfall on a theatre and filmmaking piece. With filmmaking, he wrote and directed One Night, Not I and most recently My Brother. In education, he taught Creative Drama at UH Mānoa and Beginning Acting at Kapiʻolani Community College and Leeward Community College. He has guest lectured at UH on the topic, Pacific Islanders in Theatre and Film in Aotearoa New Zealand. For the Department of Education he taught a mask performance component for their Art Mobile program. He has worked with T-Shirt Theatre as an acting teacher and most recently taught company actors of TeAda Productions. Misa co-founded and directed the Oʻahu Fringe Festival and was a co-founder of the Aotearoa New Zealand Film Festival. He has acted on various theatre and film productions in New Zealand and Hawaiʻi.

“The Layover”

By Kiki Rivera

Moso’oi (Moso) is stuck in a makeshift gender neutral airport bathroom with Heilala who comforts Moso’oi during an anxiety attack.

About the Playwright: Kiki Rivera

he/they

Kiki Rivera (he/they) is an internationally produced, theatre artist, educator, and arts activist. They hold a BA in Theatre and MFA in Playwriting from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM). Original plays include Faʻalavelave: The Interruption. Published plays include “Puzzy” (featuring New Zealand Playwright Victor Rodger) in the anthology Samoan Queer Lives, To “Our Black and Brown Babies of Ocean and Islands” in the anthology We’re Not Neutral, and “Kumu Kukui” in Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays About The Climate Crises.

Kiki’s work focuses on the intersections of cultural, sexual, and gender identity within the context of post-colonial society and is one of many Pacific Islander voices in the diaspora who believes in the value of self-reflective storytelling from a contemporary indigenous perspective.

“Fighting Like Mad”

By Noelani Ahia and Māhealani Ahia

Displaced by the devastating Lahaina fires, two cousins are guided by their ancestor–whoʻs ʻone hānau is Lahaina. Their kupuna was committed to the Territorial Asylum in the 1940ʻs where she eventually passed away, but returns to guide her moʻopuna in their fight for their ancestral lands as they birth new hope.

About the Playwrights: Noelani Ahia

she/her/o’ia

Noelani Ahia is a healer/activist and a first time playwright. She spent her younger years in the theatre as a professional dancer/actor having traveled to Europe and Asia to perform. Her highlight was dancing in WestSide Story at LaScala Opera House in Milan, Italy. She spent the last decade advocating for Kānaka Maoli rights and seeing patients in her acupuncture practice. She is currently the Executive Director of the Maui Medical Healers Hui, a grassroots organization doing relief work post Lahaina fires.

About the Playwrights: Māhealani Ahia

she/her/o’ia

Māhealani Ahia is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi artist, scholar, activist, songcatcher and storykeeper with lineal ties to Lāhaina, Maui. As a PhD candidate in English with a graduate certificate in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, her dissertation entitled: "Shapeshifting Biography: The Life and Afterlives of Kihawahine” connects ancestral Hawaiian narratives with current issues of mana wahine, settler-colonialism, diaspora, repatriation, and non-human relations. With a BA in Theatre Arts from U.C. Berkeley, and a certificate in screenwriting from U.C. Irvine, Māhea has performed in over 25 productions and written for stage and screen. Her most recent project “Seeking Asylum: A Mad Decolonial Detour” curates a series of historical fiction monologues surrounding Hawaiʻi State Mental Hospital, now the campus of Windward Community College. Māhea is excited to be working with her sister Noe again, and is grateful for her memories touring with Leilani Chan and TeAda. She dedicates this production to her daughter Hinaaiinameleonalani, her ancestors Kihawahine and Emma Ahuena Taylor (ʻŌiwi political theatre maker), and the Lāhaina community. Māhea calls on each one of us to help in the restoration of wai, ʻāina, ola, ea, and lāhui.

  • Hone Kouka

    DIRECTOR & ADVISOR