Julian Noel, who’s 69, received 10 awards nominations and won ‘most promising Māori artist’ and ‘best writing’.
His mother, Māori artist and poet Eve Patuawa Nathan, was one of the first published Māori poets.
His dad was Pākehā, but Julian says his parents weren’t capable of looking after him, so he was in foster care in Wellington/Lower Hutt from the age of five, as was his brother.
"It all comes out in the play, but I didn’t know until my 30s my mother and father weren’t married to one another.
"He was married to someone else, so I discovered I had seven brothers and sisters from a variety of different mothers with the same father."
He also had a year in Kaihu, near Dargaville, where his mum’s family was from, and even went to Malaysia after she married "a really wealthy guy in Malaysia".
The marriage didn’t last, so mum and her two boys ended up in Sydney "basically back on welfare".
Deciding to become an actor, Julian first had to finish school.
He finally graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, then, from the ages of about 21 to 34, Julian acted on stage and in film and TV.
He landed roles in TV series Neighbours and Prisoner, playing a journalist in the latter.
On the stage he says "I was mainly attracted to new works, working with playwrights who were exploring new approaches to theatre, and on self-devised work".
"But then I got tired of starving, because that’s the lot of an actor."
He got into business, creating an award-winning line of hair products which he sold in 14 countries.
"I used the same creative kind of impulses and the same kind of creative mechanics but just applied them in a different way."
He started in Melbourne, then had two years in London with Sassoon before moving to Adelaide, Australia, then Sydney.
"I was basically living in a suitcase.
"I was looking to expand into America and had sunk quite a bit of money there.
"And then when the Twin Towers came down [in 2001], all the Americans panicked and I basically went out of business overnight."
Julian then went into business development, which he carries on with today.
Asked to categorise what he does, he says "basically I make shit happen".
"If you have a vision or a dream, I’ll work with you to make it happen."
Returning to New Zealand, he thought he’d stay up north where his whānau were from, "whom I had no idea about, but, oh man, it was the Wild West up there".
"Friends of mine from Sydney had moved to Queenstown and they sent me a ticket."
Before long he was looking after their house when they travelled to Europe for four months.
"It took me a year before I met another Māori in Queenstown, so I kind of felt like I could have been anywhere in the world."
Julian says BONES sprang from stories he was writing from his time in Kaihu.
"And then one day I just went, ‘oh, I think this would make a great play’."
He plays eight family members including his grandmother, various uncles and himself as a child.
"Although this is a Māori story, I wanted to reach beyond culture to universal themes, touching what lives in all of us — the broken stories we carry in our bones."
To quote the programme notes: "BONES tackles themes of generational trauma, sexual violence, imploding families, colonial violence and the complex, painful inheritance of identity."
The play’s directed by noted actor Martine Baanvinger, whom he’s worked with by Zoom.
Julian appears on stage with just a fold-up table, three chairs and a suitcase.
"It’s a very powerful piece, there’s always handkerchiefs and tissues.’’
He say he’d like to take BONES overseas — "I’m thinking wherever there’s indigenous communities, because it’s very much about that’’.
"Currently I’m looking at Australia as a first leaping-off point, but I’ve also had some initial conversations around America, so, yeah, I’m kind of wide open at this stage."
Julian’s recently been playing a role in the second series of locally-based murder-mystery TV drama, A Remarkable Place to Die.
"It’s a minor role, but it’s a fun role.
"I enjoyed it immensely because I hadn’t been on set for decades."
He loves the sense of community in Queenstown and the outdoors.
"I love spending time in nature, so I really love walking, and I just find it constantly inspiring."
• Julian performs BONES at Queenstown’s Te Atamira on May 23 at 4pm — tickets via Humanitix — and appears at a Tiny Room Concert in Arrowtown’s The Blue Door in Arrowtown on June 4 at 6.30pm and 8.30pm; the play’s website is bonestheplay.com
