Sunset Road takes audiences on a coming-of-age journey

Sunset Road takes audiences on a coming-of-age journey

Summer, 1975. Rotorua, New Zealand … Jimi Hendrix, motorbikes, ika mata and dawn raids…it’s the scene of Tawata Productions’ new play Sunset Road.

Tawata Productions presents Miria George’s Sunset Road at Q Theatre in Auckland fromAugust 20-23.

Set in Rotorua and the Cook Islands, Sunset Road is a dramatic coming-of-age story. It’s two days before twins Luka and Lucia finally cross in to adulthood. Free, they roam the steam filled streets of Rotorua on Luka’s trusty Bonneville and dream of taking on the world.
Luka desperate to escape, Lucia to become Miss Geyserland.

The twins work with their devout father at the local sawmill, uninspiring to them, for him where he has been since he first brought his family to this dry and broken land. A near death experience drags father back to memories of Atiu, Cook Islands and the secrets and mistakes of his past, shaking the family’s foundations and ultimate love of each other.

Sunset Road features Cook Island actors Taungaroa Emile (Tu, Once on Chunuk Bair) and Nathan Mudge (Lord of the Flies), with Aroha White (Tu) and premiered in Wellington in 2012 as the much-anticipated new stage play from controversial New Zealand born Cook Islands playwright Miria George.

Miria’s plays, including the provocative and what remains, boutique musical He Reo Aroha(co-written with Jamie McCaskill), and the gritty Urban Hymns, have been performed in international festivals around the world including the United Kingdom, Hawai’i, Australia and Canada to much acclaim.

Schooled in New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Costa Rica, Miria is the daughter of renowned Cook Islands visual artist Ian George. Sunset Road is her first play focusing on her Cook Islands whakapapa.

Sunset Road is at Q Theatre from August 20-23. Book by phoning (09) 309 9771www.qtheatre.co.nz

“Heartfealt and heart-wrenching… the emotions are raw and exposed” – Dominion Post

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