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Writer Witi Ihimaera says it's important the contribution of Maori to World War I is acknowledged.
He attended Armistice Day commemorations this morning at the Cenotaph in Wellington, where his play All Our Sons still has three nights to run at Circa Theatre.
Ihimaera wrote the play because he felt the 2500 Maori and Pacific soldiers were being overlooked in the official events marking 100 years since the Great War.
He'd like to see it performed widely around New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries to remind people of the cost of war.
"We lost not just those soldiers but a whole group of leaders, a whole group of iwi not just from the war but the terrible mate that came back from the war so we want to take it around to every place where every family lost someone so that they, both Maori and pakeha, could come and receive the kawe mate back, the memories back and acknowledge that sacrifice," Ihimaera says.
He wrote the play in English, and it has been translated into the reo of the period by Hohepa Waitoa of Christchurch.
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