Toa Fraser: Writer/Director
Born in Britain in 1975 to a British mother and a Fijian father, Mr. Fraser moved to Auckland, New Zealand, in 1989, where he continues to live.
A graduate of the University of Auckland, Mr. Fraser’s first play BARE premiered in 1998 and achieved national and international success, winning Best New Play and Best New Playwright at the New Zealand Chapman Tripp Awards. It played to considerable acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999.
In that same year, Mr. Fraser won New Zealand’s prestigious Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Award as outstanding playwright. He also completed the solo show, No.2, performed by Madeleine Sami. No.2 won a Festival First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2000, and has since had rave reviews in Jamaica, Australia, the UK, and was translated into Spanish for the Cervantino Festival in Mexico.
His third play, Paradise, premiered in Wellington in 2001. Later that year Mr. Fraser was awarded the University of South Pacific’s Writer in Residence fellowship. It was during this fellowship that he adapted his stage play No.2 into the first draft of the screenplay for Naming Number Two. After the film’s New Zealand release, Mr. Fraser was honored for his work on Naming Number Two with nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay at the New Zealand Screen Awards in 2006.
Mr. Fraser also co-wrote River Queen, starring Samantha Morton, Keifer Sutherland, Cliff Curtis and Stephen Rea. He is currently developing other projects for the stage and screen.