25 years ago was opening night of "Fresh Off the Boat"...

25 years ago tonight (17th November 1993), "Fresh Off the Boat" the play Oscar Kightley and I wrote had its opening night at the Free Theatre in Christchurch. It was acknowledged in its first performance as a "milestone in New Zealand theatre". More recently it has moved into the realm of a New Zealand Classic.

To celebrate the first New Zealand Theatre Month last month the Court Theatre staged a professional play reading and people called it #stillrelevant. Dealing with #immigration, #identity, #culture, #feminismand #race. That recent play reading gave me an understanding of what makes something a classic - it keeps on working over time for new (and old) audiences. Opening night 25 years ago was memorable for me by the way my Dad leapt to his feet with his thunderous applause, followed by my mum and the Polynesian community. For me, it was the equivalent of a Graduation ceremony in that I chose a path of theatre over a traditional University education.

Last month's play reading was so brilliant in that the brand new cast only worked together for one and a half read-throughs on the day of the staged play-reading. Yet they were ON FIRE. I had tears streaming down my face as I listened to the lines being spoken. It was like the actors were musicians their voices were the music and the script was the score. I was hearing reverberations of 5 stagings, the original cast, working with Oscar intently on the crafting of the script and still getting delighted and surprised at every scene.

Every one of the new cast was extraordinary, as was Tanya Muagututi'awho cast and directed the reading (she was one of the original cast members along with her sister Mishelle Muagututi'a and Tanya's two daughters were reading the parts of two sisters in the play!).

"Fresh Off the Boat" has been professionally staged 5 times, including a memorable staging in Samoa where the perceptions were flipped because the 'fish out of water' character who in the play leaves Samoa and comes to New Zealand (Charles), was suddenly the local and no-one laughed at him when he turned up in bright colours - they laughed at the people he was visiting in New Zealand who talked funny and didn't understand the Fa'a Samoa (traditional customs).

"Fresh Off the Boat" was recorded as a radio play by Radio New Zealand and continues to be broadcast on the radio in New Zealand and Australia.

Because of the way we addressed alcohol in the play, for the first season (which Losa Tamati and I Produced), Losa got sponsorship from the Alcohol Liquor Advisory Council of New Zealand. As a thread possibly connected with this "Fresh Off the Boat" was nominated for a New Zealand Peace Prize.

A year before the opening night (November 1992 after a successful tour of an earlier show I had written called "Horizons"), when Oscar and I were thinking about starting a Pacific Island theatre company specialising in modern storytelling, we came up with the name "Pacific Underground"; commisisoned a logo, got some cool jackets made. We wrote a schools touring show and were awarded by Playmarket a professional workshop to develop "Fresh Off the Boat" for a mainbill staging.

Today Pacific Underground is still going. The work still continues across theatre and music. The Museum of New Zealand, "Te Papa" have started achiving Pacific Underground's historical documents and merchandise (nice to know my closet has a jacket of national significance).

"Fresh Off the Boat" was also published as a book and what I recall from my days studying New Zealand plays in the late 1980s was that there was very little by way of any Pacific Island roles. That's what drove me to start creating the plays for my friends and I to produce. If there's nothing out there lets make our own. It's nice to know that for young Pacific Islanders today, there is a solid libarary of work (far greater than this one play) as reference points.

Quincy Jones (in the latest Netflix documentary on his life) says how growing up in the US in the 1930s there were no books with African American people in them. There was a complete void and it was very disempowering. And he turned to music where there were role models and reference points.

There's something comforting about knowing that a published play in a book will continue on and not just die with scripts on floppy disks (like some other scripts I need to resurface).

It was a marvellous writing experience with Oscar. Highlight of my creative career. Thanks to everyone involved to make this possible and those who made the subsequent staging happen and who kept the Pacific Underground fires burning bright!

Twenty-five years ago tonight was a special moment and it was a cross-roads for me as a 23 year old. I took a different path after this inaugral season of "Fresh Off the Boat" to study television at the New Zealand School of Broadcasting, then to the UK to get into technology.

But who knows - maybe one day (soon) someone will produce the 6th Professional Season of Fresh Off the Boat. I'll be there with some tissues, listening to the score of a classic...

Thanks to the original cast who inspired Oscar and I to create this vehicle for you: David Fane, Erolia Ifopo, Michael Hodgson, Tanya Muagututi'a, Mishelle Muagututi'a, Oscar Kightley. To the best Producer Losa Tamati; to the hugely supportive Vic Tamati, to Illi for keeping the peace. And ofcourse I could not forget the man who was willing to read the script from a couple of nobodies who turned up at his house one day, Director Nathaniel Lees.

And the new cast who did a spectacular playreading: Fa'afetai Lava!