The superstar alumni of an enduring theatre company tell Shilo Kino of their Massive journey
Dominic Ona-Ariki
When I joined the Massive company, it was kind of a sweet spot for me. I was at the perfect age for certain roles at the time. There was an audition that theywere holding at Aotea Centre and that was for a show called Up Close Out Loud. I managed to get that job and that's how I met Scotty (Cotter) and we kind of became this little package deal. We both went on to Shortland Street afterwards and now we're neighbours.
I was 15 and super-shy at the time. I grew up in South Auckland and so when I went to this audition in town, there were lots of white people and it was weird. I just didn't really know how to act. It took me months to start talking to Sam Scott (Massive founder) who was the creative director. I didn't really know how to operate around white people.
I was so shy that I remember doing hospo and I felt so nervous just going up to the table and talking to these people and asking them what they wanted for dinner. But jumping on stage, it feels like the safest place in the world. And I think it's because when you go on stage or on set, you put on a mask. You get put in these characters who wear a different kind of energy as opposed to being out in the world where it's just you. That can be confronting.
When I was finishing high school, I left acting and went to university. I ended up graduating with a marketing and advertising degree. I remember chatting to Scotty one time when we were out for drinks and I was just like, "I really want to come back and perform again." And he was like, "Talk to Sam."
That's how we made this show called The Brave, with Scotty, Beulah Koale and a couple of other guys. So now I've stayed on that path of performing arts. I've got a show called One Lane Bridge, which I've been lucky enough to do for the past three years.
Massive has been a lifesaver for me because there's so many moments where as a teenager I could have just f***ed around. I would have been pretty lost. Maybe I might have been a really hopeless marketer or really bad at advertising. Who knows? But I'm glad I'm not either of those things.
A five-year goal for me would be to crack Hollywood or crack the American market and make it internationally. But as time goes on, every year feels successful. I get to pay bills from doing work within the arts. That is successful to me.
Dominic Ona-Ariki stars as Detective Sergeant Ariki Davis in One Lane Bridge, coming to TVNZ 1 in early November.
Bree Peters
My first show out of drama school was The Crucible at the Auckland Theatre Company.
Sam Scott came up to me and gave me a card. She said, "If you'd like to come and do some workshops with us, give us a call." In that workshop, there were people I knew from the industry I would never have been able to properly meet otherwise, like Miriama McDowell, Blair Strang, Wesley Dowdell, Jared Turner. That was my first experience with them.
I started the workshop and I was real crap. I thought, "Well, I'm never going to be asked back again." And then Sam was like, "Do you want to come back?" Six months later, I was cast as Whero in Whero's New Net and that was my first show with Massive.
On my first day of workshops as Whero, I'm with all these people who are awesome and older than me. I've done all my work that I've been told to do in grad school. It was the first scene and I'm on the floor working with Sam, so I come out and I start doing my acting.
She stops me and is like, "It's not working, go out and do something else." I go out, come back and start the scene again. "No, it's not working. I don't know what you're doing," she says. So I said, "What do you want?" She had a pen in her hand and she slowly put the pen down. I thought, "Oh no, this is going to be a teaching moment."
She said, "I don't want to work with actors who don't come with anything. It's not about what I want. It's about what we find together. What are you going to bring?" So I went out of the room and I cried. It was so bad. I was like, "I'm getting fired. She's gonna send me a message tomorrow."
Madeleine Sami gave me a hug and was like, "It's fine. It's fine. Just go," and pushed me back out. That was probably the most monumental moment because now when I teach and coach I say, "What do you want to do?"
The first 10 years out of drama school, I couldn't pay anybody to put me on television. All of my work was through theatre. As hard as it is to be an artist, you build your little tribe, your working family and that's why I am not a crazy person now. You have your people who you can lean on and still grow with. The relationships are lifelong.
The connections through Massive are what keep you coming back to it. Now I'm working on a show at the moment called Wasp with another massive alumni, Miriama McDowell. I wouldn't be doing it if I hadn't built those connections.
Bree Peters is starring in The Wasp alongside fellow massive alumni Miriama McDowell at Wellington's Circa Theatre until October 29. circa.co.nz for tickets and more info.
Scott Cotter
My main highlight with Massive will always be The Brave. I think that's one of my favourites of the shows I've been in and helped to create. We were young at that time and just talking openly and vulnerably. It was like a massive love letter to my nana on stage.
She was a major touchstone for that show because the first thing that we shared with each other was a letter that I wrote to her and that became the basis of the show.
My nana is a deaf woman and we did this thing where we read the letter to her in sign language. She passed when we were on tour in Hawaii so we dedicated the show to her.
I was a teenager, 16, when I joined Massive. I'm 36 this year so it's been 20 years. I've done everything since then. I've been an actor, a writer, a director. I've been on the board for Massive, on stage doing sound. We go up north three times a year to run workshops. I love teaching up north because there's not that much for them art-wise and it's fun to spend a week with the rangatahi, to put on the show for the community.
Kura season three comes out soon and I've created my own theatre company called Neke Productions. I've just started directing Shortland Street. I'm just so proud of everyone. We're a massive whanau and we're all hard workers. I think that's something that we all instinctively do. We have a lot of fun and we all strive to be great instead of mediocre.
Scott Cotter stars as a construction worker who loses his last connection to his dead mum, in Disconnected at this year's Show Me Shorts Film Festival, now screening across Aotearoa. See showmeshorts.co.nz for tickets and more info.
Kura Forrester
What I love about Massive is once you work for them, you're sort of in. If you want to be a part of the company, then you can for as long as you like in any sort of capacity. Massive is a place where I've made lifelong friends like Miriama, Scotty, Dom. It's a real family for me.
I met people like Beulah Koale and Villa Junior Lemanu when they were 15 and now they're smashing it out there. I feel very very privileged and honoured because of the calibre of people who are in Massive. It's awesome mentoring now and it feels like such a natural cycle where I feel like I can give some stuff back I've learned as a performer.
There's a certain style of person who gravitates towards this type of work, which is all about being seen. It's about wanting to devise. It's about having fun and working really hard.
I will never forget when we were getting notes after a run of Whero's New Net and I remember just sort of arrogantly thinking that I had the performance down and I couldn't really put a foot wrong. And we've done it so many times. How could I possibly be s***? We were sitting around in the notes circle and Sam Scott said to me, "I feel like you don't know why you're here today. If that's the type of performance you want to bring, then I really want you to think about whether you want to be an actor or not."
The most crushing speech, but I'll never forget it because it was a real turning point for me. I was only 21, so I was just starting out, but Sam taught me so much about professionalism. My work ethic as an actor changed from that point onwards. She really taught me in that moment to not ever think that you can just cruise because we deserve so much more than that. I've never mucked around ever again.
Kura Forrester (Ngāti Porou) will be hosting the 2022 NZTV Awards on November 24 and is starring in the digital release of Massive Company's Half of the Sky on October 20. An accompanying documentary about making the play during the pandemic will be released on October 13. See massivecompany.co.nz for more information.
Villa Junior Lemanu
I was in Year 13 at an awards evening and Sam Scott handed me her famous card. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after school but I knew how to act and dance. I went home and looked up the Massive website and read through what they do. I went to the workshop and fell in love with what they did.
I think at the time being an actor was just a cool idea. But I think I was really scared by what that would have meant, like the amount of talent I was putting myself up against, as well as personal doubt. I studied dance at the University of Auckland. I was keen to be a dance teacher but from working at Massive, there was so much growth that happened within just a few years so that definitely steered me into my acting career.
The tutor who taught my first foundation workshop was Kura Forrester. All of the generations above me I see as my teachers and tutors. Even now I'm watching their work and taking notes. So I'm like, "Yo, that's cool." It's cool to work alongside people who come from similar backgrounds.
One thing I learnt from Massive is that time on stage is really precious and it's a massive privilege. Every chance that I got was like, this is my moment to shine. I did my first ever big theatre show, called The Wholehearted, back in 2016.
I get really anxious. At a workshop, I remember being stuck for 30 minutes and then we all had to come up with something on the spot. When it came to me I was just like, "I'm just gonna improv and see what comes to mind." And I remember everyone liked it. The one thing I learned was to just believe to your fullest and just come up with stuff, knowing sometimes you just have to fake it until it becomes a belief. And I think I've just been doing that ever since.
Villa Junior Lemanu co-wrote and stars in Atali'i O Le Crezent (Sons Of The Crezent) screening now as part of "The Cost of Progress" session at the Show Me Shorts Film Festival 2022. See showmeshorts.co.nz for tickets and more info. He also stars in Duckrockers, coming to TVNZ 2 and TVNZ + in November.