Are you a Pacific producer who is seeking hands-on experience, mentoring, and time to hone your skills? Basement Theatre, in partnership with Creative New Zealand, is calling out for a Pacific producer in residence. From September 1st to October 31st 2025, you could be navigating your creative career alongside a dynamic crew in the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau. During these two months, the successful applicant will receive a $12,000.00 stipend. Relocation costs, accommodation, ground transportation, mentorship fees, and Pacific arts engagement or mealofa will also be covered.

Danielle Thomson sat down to talanoa with Izzy Robinson (General Manager) and Selu-Kian Lealiifano-Faletoese (Programmes Navigator) from Basement Theatre to learn more about this career-defining offering. Here’s what you need to know:

Dani: Who is this opportunity for? Who did you have in mind when you co-designed it

Selu: Someone who walks in the spirit of their community, is grounded in their identity, and has drive and passion for not only the mahi that they are doing but the way that it affects the community around them.

Dani: Does this person need to have experience producing theatre shows to be considered?

Izzy: We want to make sure that people who maybe don’t see themselves as producers, but are the ones organising and running their communities in the way that producers do, understand that their vā is just as valuable in a theatre space as it might be in a community space. The successful applicant could be someone who has produced their school’s Polyfest performance for many years, taking that team from the school stage to the main stage, and maybe they’re actually a teacher or a community leader. So, they’re familiar with staged works, but maybe they don’t see themselves as a career producer.

Dani: So, this is for someone who has been in and around the stage but, perhaps, hasn’t given themselves the title of “producer” yet? Which skills might this person already have?

Izzy: What CNZ and Basement Theatre see as a real gap in the industry right now, in particular within the Pasifika community, is that we don’t have that many producers who can pick up a work and run with it; take it overseas; take it to the stages where it needs to be seen; understand that a work that is community focused or maybe not mainstream might need a different way of being presented. We’re looking for someone who is ready to come into the space with an existing body of work, which might look like community impact rather than a catalogue of shows.

Dani: In addition to having community-building and producing skills, would the successful applicant be expected to have a large existing network and experience engaging with a vast range of artists?

Izzy: This opportunity is designed to give someone time, space, and significant funding to practice that at a full-time level so when they come out of this two-month residency, they’ve been able to hone their own skills in a fully supported way, utilise the networks that Basement already has, connect with other producers and venues around Auckland, and be able to understand what it is to work within an arts organisation. As a freelancer, you don’t always get the time to sit down and ask the questions and learn, which is what Basement has always been about. We are designed to upskill emerging artists and administrators.

Dani: Does this residency aim to upskill someone who is called to serve Pasifika arts communities, so they are prepared to tap into these networks through a culturally informed and responsive lens?

Izzy: Hopefully, when they finish up this programme they’ll be in a position to make their living full-time producing high-scale, highly developed Pasifika works for stage, and be able to pick up existing works and go “Yes. I can help you. I know what to do with it.” And, they’re someone who knows how to hold that kind of a work.

Dani: Are there any specific requirements that applicants should be aware of?

Izzy: We’ve asked for a minimum of five works or projects under your belt that you have either led or been within a leadership team of, including one that happened overseas, and that you have an existing practice or body of work.

Dani: Why would someone want to work at Basement? What would it feel like to work with your team?

Selu: If you want to create some sort of radical change, Basement is the place for that. It genuinely is VIBES. You’re gonna be around a group of people who not only work in theatre, but also have their own freelancing artist careers themselves, so they all get it as well. All of us are at different points in our careers. We all have a collective determination to make what we’re working in the best that we possibly can, just because for us it has always been community first. Here, we actually action that. The way that we are set up is like an arts organisation, but as well as our processes that we have in place to make sure that artist care is first and foremost. Whatever we are doing is actually serving our communities that are coming through here, which are values that align with our communities and our people anyway. A lot of what we do is quite selfless as Pacific people. It is to be of service. I personally gel with working here just because it’s like, “Yes, what you’re doing is great. But, it’s also not about you.”

Dani: What is your biggest dream for the Pacific producer in residence?

Selu: I hope that they have a really strong understanding of their own agency as a Pasifika creative moving through arts spaces. I hope they become a reference point for other emerging Pasifika creatives. Those intergenerational connections are really important to me.

Dani: Having examples of people who have already carved out certain paths is so impactful for future generations. The only reason I thought I could do half the things I have done is because of the people who did them before me. The blueprints.

Selu: Yes! Being a blueprint and being able to take on that tuākana role and upskilling the next gen’

Dani: If we’re shaping it around service, it’s a responsibility.

The Pacific Producer Residency is the perfect opportunity to expand your capacity to elevate Moana storytelling on national and international stages. Utilising the guidance of expert producers, administrators, and artists, this residency is designed to accelerate your creative career. If you are called to serve and ready to soar, find out more HERE. 

Applications close at 5pm on July 24, 2025.

O le ala i le pule o le tautua. The path to leadership is through service.