The Handlers
By Poata Alvie McKree

Crown Lynn wahine, handling it all. 

When a whānau of Māori women working at the Crown Lynn factory all take time off to attend a tangihanga, the production line grinds to a halt, putting their jobs on the line.

It’s 1976 in West Auckland; the Crown Lynn factory is producing record amounts of crockery made primarily by the hands of Māori and Pacific peoples. Running the Handle Room is Aunty Whero, who, despite her boss John’s mandate against close whānau working on the same production line, hires her nieces Kiri and Hine to work alongside her. Their Tongan mate, Salote, keeps their secret well.  

These wāhine keep things moving at mahi and on the home front while also handling the workplace discrimination and racism that was rife in the 70s. This was when the fires of mana Māori motuhake were being stoked; meanwhile, the Dawn Raids were traumatising and tearing Pacific families apart. As if these wāhine didn’t have enough to handle already!

The Handlers by Poata Alvie McKree will make you laugh, cry, reminisce, get you all fired up and make you remember all the mana wāhine in your life, as well as your favourite Crown Lynn mug. While The Handlers is a fictionalised account of Māori women’s experiences working in factories like Crown Lynn in the 70s, the wāhine that carries these stories are familiar to all of us.

The Handlers was previously developed by Black Creatives Aotearoa, an organisation dedicated to supporting creatives of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage living in New Zealand, and was further workshopped through Te Pou Theatre’s development of Māori playwrights at the Koanga Festival in 2022.

This production is presented by Te Pou Theatre, in partnership with Te Rēhia Theatre.

Meet the Kaituhi

Poata Alvie McKree (Ngāti Kahu, Ngāpuhi ki Whangaroa, Yurumein, Barbados) is an interdisciplinary artist and arts therapist. She is committed to telling stories that foster a connection to the earth, the ancestors, other peoples, and the divine. This manifests variously through writing for live performance, facilitating therapeutic art and movement workshops, and offering ritual and ceremonial gatherings for women. Alvie works across mediums, reimagining her ancestors’ lived experiences as a way to heal the rifts in cultural identity caused by colonisation, migration, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  

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Graphic Design: Frank Turner

Photography: Andi Crown | Hair & Make Up: Shirley Simpson