Finalists for the PAYPA Awards 2025
Performing Arts & Young People Aotearoa (PAYPA) is delighted to announce the finalists for this year’s PAYPA Awards.
PAYPA was set up in 2016 to support and champion professional artists creating performing arts work for rangatahi and tamariki. The PAYPA awards were initiated in 2022 to celebrate excellence in an often overlooked sector of the arts.
There are three annual awards:
The PAYPA Emerging Artists Award - for a new company or individual who has made a splash in the performing arts industry.
The PAYPA Award for Production of the Year - for a production for, by and/or with young people, that shows overall excellence in form and content and has resonated superbly with its intended audience.
The Peter Wilson Supreme Award for Significant Contribution to Performing Arts and Young People. In memory of the late Lyndon Peter Wilson, founder of Little Dog Barking Theatre Company and Capital E National Theatre for Children, this award commemorates and honours Peter’s work in the field of theatre for young audiences in Aotearoa and is offered to someone who has made a significant contribution to the field. Past winners are Jenny Wake, ONZM (founder and director of Calico Theatre) and Samantha Scott, MNZM (founder and artistic director of Massive Theatre).
The awards will be presented Saturday 8 November at The Court Theatre in Ōtautahi Christchurch as part of the annual PAYPA Hui, a national gathering for everyone passionate about performing arts for, by and with children and young people.
Bringing together artists, producers, educators and advocates from across Aotearoa and beyond, the Hui is an opportunity to connect, reflect, and reimagine how we make and share art with our youngest audiences. Across two days of conversation, workshops and performance, participants will explore how community, collaboration and creativity can keep the Theatre for Young Audiences sector alive and connected.
The highlight of the weekend’s events will be the PAYPA Awards Evening on Saturday 8 November.
The awards evening starts at 6.00pm at The Court Theatre.
We will live stream on our Facebook Page: Performing Arts and Young People Aotearoa
The finalists for the 2025 PAYPA Awards are...
The PAYPA Emerging Artists Award
For a new company or individual who has made a splash in the Performing Arts industry
Harmony Hogarth
Harmony is an actor, composer, teaching artist and assistant director who has worked with Massive Theatre Company for over 10 years (since she was 14!). An insightful and joyful teacher of rangatahi, Harmony is also a composer and has composed four of Massive’s theatre works. Harmony has been the assistant director and swing actor on three of Massive's emerging artists productions. Always looking to develop and learn wherever possible, she is forever curious and is always one of the first to be there when Massive needs representation, help with tasks or any kind of non-paid support. Harmony is continually contributing to Aotearoa's performing arts landscape through everything she does as an emerging artist.
Hurō Productions
Waenga from mana whenua artists Hariata and Tamati Moriarty (Ngāti Toarangatira, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, Ngā Puhi Hokianga ki te Raki) was the first work from the new Māori theatre company, Hurō Productions. Waenga follows Connie, a fiery, quick-witted young wahine caught in the crossfire of chasing her dreams and an unexplainable visit to a place she doesn’t belong. Alongside her is Grayson, a junior defence lawyer navigating the complexities of the legal system while trying to uphold his identity and mana motuhake. Written by next generation artists Hariata and Tamati Moriarty, with mentorship and dramaturgy by Helen Pearse Otene (Ngā Puhi Hokianga ki te Raki), Waenga was directed by Jim Moriarty (Ngāti Toarangatira, Ngāti Koata).
Seiyan Thompson-Tonga
Seiyan is a visionary leader creating real change for Rangatahi Māori and Pasifika youth. His work focuses on regions where young people often go unheard and unseen, where access to the arts is rare, where opportunity feels far away. He knows this reality intimately. Seiyan was raised in Te Waipounamu, Invercargill. He grew up without exposure to high-quality arts training. That absence left a mark. It also planted a seed. Out of that experience, Seiyan created The Gentle Boys Ponder, a collective built on the belief that talent exists everywhere, but opportunity does not. His mission is simple but powerful: bring professional arts training to the youth who need it most.
Jake Tupu & Talia-Rae Mavaega
Jake and Talia-Rae have built careers from performing, devising and directing work for young people, working all the way from pēpī (with Talia-Rae's latest collaboration with Cubbin Theatre) to primary school children, and half a decade of touring, devising and directing Court Theatre youth plays, then 2023-2026 spent with Sexwise creating applied theatre shows about sexual health, for teenagers in youth justice residences, alt eds, kura kaupapa māori, teen pregnancy units, hospitals and more. Just in their 30s, Jake and Talia-Rae have already completed a lifetime's worth of work, creating performances that have been seen by tens of thousands of young people across Aotearoa, from our most hard-to-get-to rural schools, to incarcerated youth and more.
The PAYPA Award for Production of the Year
For a production for, by and/or with young people, that shows overall excellence in form and content and has resonated superbly with its intended audience.
Taniwha
Silo Theatre
Created & composed by Leon Radojkovic
https://silotheatre.co.nz/show/taniwha
Rere Atu Taku Poi
Taki Rua Productions
The Tantrum
Java Dance Theatre
The Griegol
Trick of the Light Theatre
The Peter Wilson Supreme Award for Significant Contribution to Performing Arts and Young People
This award will be announced on the night.
Join PAYPA and the Performing Arts and Young People community 7–9 November at The Court Theatre in Ōtautahi for a weekend of performances, workshops, connection and kōrero — plus the PAYPA Awards! Come for one event or the whole weekend. All events are free (except theatre tickets), so book your flights and RSVP now! Come ready to share ideas, spark new relationships, and leave with renewed hope and purpose for the road ahead.
RSVP for the Hui and/or PAYPA Awards Evening here: https://events.humanitix.com/paypa-annual-hui-2025
The awards evening starts at 6.00pm at The Court Theatre.
We will live stream on our Facebook Page: Performing Arts and Young People Aotearoa