Dianna Fuemana

Fuemana was one of nine writer-directors on the New Zealand Pacific Island feature film Vai released in 2019.

2008 - Pacific Innovation and Excellence Award, Creative New Zealand Pasifika Arts Award.

Dianna Fuemana has three children and has attracted media attention as the Wife of Jay Ryan. Her parents have been supportive of her career and her father wrote the song that opens her play Mapaki. Her father died in 2000 and she dedicated the Auckland season of Mapaki to him.

In 1997 Dianna Fuemana was one of three women acting in the play Frangipani Perfume written by Makerita Urale and after this in 1999 Fuemana wrote and performed in her own play, a solo show called Mapaki. For this she was nominated at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for Outstanding New Writer and Best Upcoming Actress of the Year. After being performed in New Zealand Mapaki toured across the United States and in Athens, Greece.

Dianna Fuemana (born 1973) is a New Zealand writer, director and performer. She writes for theatre and screen. Her solo play Mapaki was the first that brought a New Zealand born Niue perspective to the professional stage. In 2008 Fuemana won the Pacific Innovation and Excellence Award, at the Creative New Zealand Pasifika Arts Award. Fuemana was one of nine women writer-directors of the 2019 feature film Vai.

Dianna Fuemana was born in New Zealand in 1973 and is one of seven children. Her mother is American Samoan and her father Togavale is Niuean. The singer Pauly Fuemana was her cousin. When she was a child she acted in church plays in her community. She went to Henderson High School in Auckland as a teenager, while she was there she attended a short course in performing arts run by Cath Cardiff and Jay Laga'aia. In 2005 she graduated with honours with a Master of Creativity and Performing Arts from Auckland University.