William Takaku

William Takaku (died 3 January 2011) was a Papua New Guinean film, television and theatre actor. He was also a screenwriter and a former theatre director.

Career
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he travelled far from his birthplace on the island of Bougainville, as a storyteller and spokesperson for his people. They had recently expelled from the island copper mining operations which had been polluting the river they depended upon. In June 1991, he was a guest speaker and storyteller at the International Gathering of Mother Earth's People, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Education
In 1975, as a celebration of Independence, William and a PNG colleague, Matalau, were chosen by the director of NIDA (Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, in Sydney) to undertake a year-long special Acting Course. He studied under Alexander Hay with other teachers including Keith Bain, Jicky Martin and Aubrey Mellor. Other students in their cohort were Mel Gibson, Judy Davis and Steve Bisley. He acted roles in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), The Tempest (Caliban) and Chekhov’s Swan Song (Svetlovidov).

In 1981, William returned to NIDA to complete the Dilploma in Directing. In the Directing Course he studied along with Gale Edwards, Mark Gaal and Musa bin Musa.

He was for a time director of the National Theatre Company in Papua New Guinea.

He co-wrote, with Albert Toro, and directed the television miniseries Warriors in Transit (1992). Takaku has also directed the Milne Bay Provincial Theatre Group.

As an actor, he co-starred as Man Friday alongside Pierce Brosnan in the film Robinson Crusoe (1997) and he appeared as Magnus in the television miniseries The Violent Earth (1998).

Unpublished Plays by William Takaku
1980, Eberia. 1985, Medea. A Dream for Melanesia. For Our Tomorrow. Gilgamesh. The Jawsharp Mosquitoes. Judgement of the Birds. On Coughs, Colds and Pneumonia. On Tuberculosis. Pekato bilong Man, (adaptation of Fall of Man by Ulli Beier) The Principal. The Rain Tree. Tru Tru Man.

Plays by Takaku performed in the National Theatre Repertoire 1974-1982
Eberia                       Musical Legend      1980 Flying Fox                 Skit – with Golila Pepe Gilgamesh                One Act Play National Puppet Show     With Oliver Sublette Olpela Akta              Two-hander based on Chekhov’s Swan Song Pekato Bilong Man         Social comedy adapted from Ulli Beier The Principal             Social Issue Drama The Rain Tree             Environmental play

Painim Rot: Making New Roads. The Published Plays of Papua New Guinea. Stonehouse, Gary. NIDA Conversion 2001.