A group of ancestors takes it upon themselves to improve the lives of their descendants. Their method? Intercepting the descendants’ prayers and making a few adjustments. But when one ancestor — a journalist in his previous life — goes rogue and decides to rewrite rather than amend, things get more complicated.
This is the starting point for Te Haukoti / The Interceptors, a new work in development by award-winning playwright, interdisciplinary artist and arts therapist Poata Alvie McKree (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Yurumein, Barbados).
Coming to The Hannah as part of Tawata Productions’ Breaking Ground, the work will be shared through New Pages, which invites audiences into the earliest stages of a story’s life.
For Alvie, that means arriving with a first draft and being ready to discover what it might become.
“I'm holding the pages loosely, knowing that a lot of it will probably change.”
A sketchbook full of words
Alvie’s path to playwriting has brought her from nursing and midwifery to visual art and art therapy. After her fourth child, the demands of being on call while raising her own young family prompted a pause and a painting class.
That class opened up a whole new set of creative possibilities. Art school followed, with a practice spanning collage, installation and textiles. But amongst the art materials, there was a clue about where she might eventually land: while other students filled their sketchbooks with images, hers were full of words.
Writing had been part of her upbringing, too. Her mother, a schoolteacher who had published some of her own writing when she was young, encouraged Alvie to give anything and everything a go, and regularly took her to experience things across The Arts, including theatre.
Alvie felt that writing was something that came easily to her, and something she really enjoyed. After enrolling for a novel writing course, however, she learned that not all writing is equal. Novel writing didn’t seem to be working, and when her tutor explained to the class that some writers are great at prose, and others are great at dialogue, an ‘aha’ moment followed. Playwriting, it seemed, was to be Alvie’s happy place.
“I can write pretty good dialogue so I just had to figure out the other parts of it, you know?”
Her first full-length play, The Handlers, debuted at Te Pou Theatre in 2024. Its subsequent Kia Mau Festival production earned multiple honours at the 2025 Wellington Theatre Awards, including New Playwright of the Year and New Aotearoa Play of the Year.
The stories that keep coming back
Throughout Alvie’s work, questions of lineage and ancestral inheritance recur. Often, the creative process begins with something she has heard within her family: a memory or story that refuses to leave her alone.
The Handlers grew from her mother’s account of having to conceal a family connection at work because her employer would not allow relatives to be hired together. Te Haukoti / The Interceptors also has its origins in whānau, sparked by something an uncle and Anglican minister spoke at a family gathering
These stories have stayed with Alvie for years before finding their form. Making the work is part of understanding why they matter.
“I tend to make the thing and then know towards or at the end of making… ‘oh, that's what I wanted to say’, and in the case of my tūpuna, ‘oh, that’s what they wanted me to understand.’”
That approach connects her writing to her visual art practice, where meaning often emerges through working with materials. A chosen medium or a few self-imposed limitations give her somewhere to begin. The understanding comes through doing.
Then the words come alive
For a writer who welcomes discovery, the rehearsal room offers something that working alone cannot: other people’s imaginations.
For Breaking Ground, Alvie will work with actors, a director and a dramaturg to explore the script before sharing a reading with an audience. Hearing actors inhabit the characters helps her recognise what is working — and what needs another pass.
“It's such a gift for the writer, to hear your words come back.”
Their questions are just as valuable. An actor will often ask something she has not considered, sending her home with a problem to work through and a new possibility to bring into the room the next day.
“Otherwise it’s just the voice in your own head,” she says.
The development process gives those private uncertainties somewhere to go. Dialogue can be tested aloud, characters can surprise their writer, and pages can be changed or cut as the work finds its shape.
That willingness to revise is central to how Alvie approaches the session. The first draft is a place to start; there is room to try things and find that they do not work.
Making room for the making
Alongside her writing, Alvie works as an arts therapist, often with people who have survived strokes. The work brings together her background in care and her creative practice, supporting people as they navigate profound changes in their lives.
It also keeps her close to a question she values. When she meets people she studied art with, she wants to know whether they are still making.
“You know, it's not, are you exhibiting? It’s, are you still making? Are you still creating?”
That emphasis on the act of creating runs through her approach to writing, too. She appreciates the opportunities that help a play reach production, while finding purpose and pleasure in the work of shaping the story itself.
“Actually, what I love doing is writing the story and then crafting the story I've written to make it better until I'm really happy with it.”
Breaking Ground has held space for Indigenous new writing in Te Whanganui-a-Tara since 2010. Its invitation to gather, wānanga and create gives writers time to follow those possibilities — including the ones they cannot yet name.
For audiences at New Pages, it is a chance to encounter Te Haukoti / The Interceptors while its characters and ideas are still shifting. To hear a story taking shape, and share in the discoveries that happen along the way.
New Pages is part of Breaking Ground 2026, produced by Tawata Productions with support from Wellington City Council and Creative New Zealand.