INFO
| Name | Jane Yonge (she/her) |
| Born | 1988 |
| Country of Birth | Aotearoa |
| Place of Residence | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland |
| Ethnicities | Fijian, Chinese, Pākehā |
| Artform | Theatre |
| Decades Active | 2010s, 2020s |
ABOUT
Jane Yonge is a theatre-maker, dramaturg and director who works across a range of theatrical genres to explore her dual interests in the formation and expression of cultural identity in Aotearoa, as well as experiences of loss, memory and grief.
Born in Tāmaki Makaurau and raised in Glen Innes, Yonge moved to Te Whanganui-a-Tara in 2013 to study directing at Victoria University and Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. After graduating in 2015, she was supported through BATS Theatre’s STAB Lab to develop Not Chinese New Year. “I’ve never made a show about what it means to be a Chinese New Zealander,” wrote Yonge in a reflection in 2019, saying: “I’m concerned about the representation of Chinese-New Zealandness.”
Much of the research for this work drew on oral histories of Haining Street conducted by Lynette Shum. “Haining Street was home [to the early residents and their descendants],” wrote Yonge. “One house was apparently a de facto restaurant for the entire neighbourhood, and on Sundays, the locals would go and share a whole roasted pig… To the rest of Wellington, however, the street was notorious, full of opium dens and drugged-up crazy Chinese who, if they caught you, would put you in a pot and eat you.” Following a development period, Yonge decided not to develop the work into a production: “Haining Street is not my story, yet I have permission to tell it because of my ethnicity. Apart from being Chinese, how is this my story? Whose story is it? What do I do with it?”
Yonge has worked as a director and co-creator on shows like Vinay Hira’s performance art mash-up Hetero-performative (2016), Waylon Edwards’ hellish bureaucratic colonisation comedy WEiRdO (2017), and Stella Reid’s unsettling domestic thriller, Basement Tapes (2017), for which Yonge received Best Director at the Wellington Theatre Awards. The play toured to Edinburgh Festival Fringe the next year, where The Scotsman wrote in its four-star review of the play, “While Reid is the focal point for the various narrative threads, it’s Jane Yonge’s confident direction that spins them into something more expansive and durable.”
In 2017, Yonge was awarded a Fulbright General Graduate Award to study a Master's in Arts Politics at NYU: Tisch School of Arts, graduating in 2019. Following this, she briefly returned to Pōneke before moving to Tāmaki Makaurau in 2020 to work at arts advocacy organisation Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi.
In 2021, Yonge worked with artist Nathan Joe to present a reading of his kaleidoscopically poetic, funny, furious work Scenes from a Yellow Peril at the Civic Theatre as part of Auckland Arts Festival. The show was presented by Auckland Theatre Company the following year. During this period, she worked with Joe and A Slightly Isolated Dog’s Leo Gene Peters to develop her autobiographical work, Slay the Dragon or Save the Dragon or Neither. Set in 2012, it explores her experience of travelling to China after her mother died in an attempt to connect to her whakapapa and process her grief.
Alongside her MA in Arts Politics, Yonge graduated with a BA (Hons) in Drama from the University of Auckland in 2011 and a Master of Theatre Arts (MTA) in Directing from Victoria University and Toi Whakaari in 2015.
LINKS
Key works / presentations
As a director and co-creator:
2017 — Chaffers Apartments, New Zealand Fringe Festival, Pōneke
2017 — BATS Theatre, Pōneke
2017 — Arts House, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne
2018 — Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2018 — Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh
2019 — HOME, Incoming Festival, Manchester
2019 — New Diorama, Incoming Festival, London
2019 — Tobacco Factory, Incoming Festival, Bristol
2019 — The Maltings, House Theatre Touring, Norfolk
2019 — Stantonbury Theatre, House Theatre Touring, Milton Keynes
2019 — Old Fire Station, House Theatre Touring, Oxford
2019 — Greenwich Theatre, House Theatre Touring, Greenwich
2019 — Woodville, House Theatre Touring, Gravesend
2019 — Ashcroft Arts Centre, House Theatre Touring, Fareham
2019 — Forest Arts Centre, House Theatre Touring, New Milton
WEiRdO
2017 — BATS Theatre, Pōneke
2018 — Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
Hetero-performative
2016 — Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
As a dramaturg:
2023 — Losing Face, Punctum Productions
2023 — Basmati Bitch, Auckland Theatre Company
As a creator:
Slay the Dragon or Save the Dragon or Neither
2021 — BATS Theatre, NZ Fringe Festival, Pōneke
2022 — Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
As a director:
a mixtape for maladies [performed reading]
2023 — ASB Waterfront Theatre for Auckland Arts Festival, Tāmaki Makaurau
2021 — Civic Theatre (reading), Tāmaki Makaurau
2022 — ASB Waterfront Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2023 — Tauranga Arts Festival (reading), Tauranga
2021 — Circa Theatre, Pōneke
2019 — Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2018 — Circa Theatre, Pōneke
2016 — St James Theatre, New Zealand Festival, Pōneke
Key awards
2018 — Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Fringe First, Week One (The Basement Tapes)
2017 — Fulbright General Graduate Award
2017 — Wellington Theatre Awards: Best Director (Basement Tapes)
