Scarlett Robinson-Kean and Sefa Tunupopo

Vela Manusaute's Niuean play over 40 years in the making

Vela Manusaute arrived in New Zealand in 1979, living in a cold Ponsonby flat and fishing five minutes from what is now the ASB Waterfront Theatre. Sons of Vao, his new play for Auckland Theatre Company, is the first Niuean story on ATC's main stage. It is also the first time Vela has written about his father, who raised his sons with violence and died before Vela could make his peace with him. He describes writing it as opening a door to 40 years of pain. The cast includes Beulah Koale as the father, Vao, and it runs 18 June to 5 July.

Bel Monypenny from Christchurch institution Scorpio Books as they celebrate 50 years

Scorpio Books in Christchurch turns 50 this year. Founded by David Cameron, who started with a tiny specialist shop and built it into a store with more than 30 staff and over 26,000 titles, it has survived the internet, Amazon and the Canterbury earthquakes. Head buyer Bel Monypenny joins Culture 101 to talk about what keeps an independent bookshop alive, the authors who have walked through the doors unannounced, and the book she most recently pressed into customers' hands.

Kura Forrester's new show, new baby, and what appropriation actually is

Kura Forrester has a new TV show, a six-week-old daughter and a recent engagement. Appropriation Nation follows Kura on a journey to understand what appropriation actually is, speaking to experts including Tina Ngata about how colonial tropes still echo through to today, and a descendant of the composer of Ka Mate who surprised her with how proud he is of how famous the haka has become. She also tells Culture 101 what the clown school master Philippe Gaulier said to her when she trained in Paris, which was not a compliment.

Museums Aotearoa CEO Jaenine Parkinson on the feast-and-famine funding model

Jaenine Parkinson is the new CEO of Museums Aotearoa, the peak body for the country's museums and galleries, having come from a near-eight-year stint at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery and then a brief role at Te Papa that was disestablished in a restructure. She joins Culture 101 to discuss what she calls a feast-and-famine funding model, why the burden of caring for the nation's taonga falls almost entirely on ratepayers, and what she wants the next government to understand about the things museums do that don't show up in GDP.

Grace Gassin: the Asian New Zealand stories that didn't make the history books

When the draft New Zealand Histories curriculum went out for public feedback in 2021, Grace Gassin noticed something missing: not just Asian New Zealand stories, but any critical take on how those histories fit alongside Maori and Pacific ones. The result is Between Dreams: Resistance and Representation, an essay collection she edited as Curator of Asian New Zealand Histories at Te Papa. She joins Culture 101 to talk about moving past the grateful migrant narrative and why she finds the word multiculturalism more limiting than it sounds.