ABSTRACT
In 1995, when she was presented with Hawai‘i’s highest award for literary achievement, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl pointed to her unbroken connection with Pacific island life as the rich well-spring that inspires her work. Born in Honolulu of Samoan, Hawaiian and Caucasian ancestry, and later educated at university in Hawaiian cultural studies, Kneubuhl is ideally positioned as interpreter of her homeland’s unique history. She holds a master’s degree in drama and theatre studies and has worked extensively on Hawaiian heritage projects, most notably as curator of education at the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu, where she trained and directed staff in the living history programmes. Such experience has enabled her to develop an extraordinarily rich and detailed knowledge of her region’s history, which is imaginatively replayed in a number of dramatic works across genres ranging from historical dramas and pageants to children’s plays and contemporary comedies. Kneubuhl has also written documentary scripts for video and television as well as being involved in various community arts organisations, including Kamu Kahua Theatre, which is dedicated solely to the development of local playwrights, directors and performers.
