Receiving the Springboard Award for Theatre gifted by The NZ Players Trust – Mentored by 2024 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate Miriama McDowell

Talia Pua is a theatre maker of Malaysian-Chinese heritage based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her theatre practice spans across acting, playwriting, set design, directing, and most recently, puppetry. She is a co-founder and artistic director of theatre company, Hand Pulled Collective. 

Talia graduated from AUT with a Bachelor of Creative Technologies, specialising in interaction and play design. As a theatre-maker, Talia brings her unique background in design and love for physical theatre to tell compelling stories with breath-taking movement, music and visuals. In 2021, Talia made her award-winning playwriting and directing debut with ‘Pork and Poll Taxes’ which was shortlisted for the Adam NZ Play Award (2022) and won the b425 Award (2023). 

In 2023, Talia hit the ground running set designing under the mentorship of John Verryt. Since then she has already designed for several productions including: 'Body Story' (Pride Elevates, 2025), 'A Slow Burlesque' (Silo, 2024), ‘How to Throw a Chinese Funeral’ (Proudly Asian Theatre and Hand Pulled Collective, 2023), and ‘Rituals of Similarity’ (Dance Plant Collective, 2023). Her most recent performance credits include: ‘Heart Go… Boom’ with Massive Theatre Company (2023), Ellen in ‘The Valentina’ at Auckland Arts Festival 2024, and Mei-ling in New Zealand feature film ‘Tinā’. 

Just last year, Talia completed a two month residency with Papermoon Puppet Theatre in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She used her time there to develop her third full-length play, and first ever solo puppet show titled, ‘The Girl Whose Twin was a Bird’.

Panel statement: “Talia is a creative polymath. Her artistic practice spans across various mediums and form, whilst theatre is her primary practice I would call her multi disciplinary artist. she is an exciting, dynamic, surprising and mysterious voice to our sector and we are in for treat with her artistic journey.”