The many stages of Miranda Manasiadis: a cross-cultural theatre maker and family life

Basic Information

Between Aotearoa and Athens: an artist in motion

Miranda Manasiadis stands at a crossroad where myth meets modernity. She has built a career that moves fluidly between Aotearoa New Zealand and Greece, often drawing on Greek lineage while grounding her practice in the collaborative, community-minded ecosystem of Wellington theatre. She works as an actor, director, dramaturg, choreographer, producer, and playwright—roles that suggest not a single path, but a constellation. Her resume reads like a map of creative ways to stage ideas: spoken text and movement, myth retellings and contemporary conversations, intimate productions and outdoor festival pieces.

Her practice leans into interdisciplinary making—music, physical theatre, and installation intersect—and into dramaturgy that patiently refines the bones of a story. She has shaped new work in studio rooms, on festival platforms, and within institutions that support experimentation. That restlessness is her signature: she moves, she tests, she returns with clearer edges.

Family and personal life

In August 2008, Miranda married Jemaine Clement, the New Zealand actor, comedian, musician, and filmmaker best known for Flight of the Conchords and for performances in films ranging from What We Do in the Shadows to international blockbusters. Their partnership is often footnoted in profiles of his career; here, it is part of a shared creative life that threads across capitals and rehearsal rooms.

In October 2008, they welcomed their son, Sophocles Iraia Clement—a name that elegantly carries both sides of the family’s whakapapa, linking Greek heritage on Miranda’s side and Māori ancestry on Clement’s. The family’s details are kept low-key in public, but the arc—marriage, child, work across borders—aligns with Miranda’s wider inclination toward careful visibility: enough to place her, never so much as to expose.

Theatre highlights and creative leadership

If you trace the themes that course through Miranda’s projects, Greek myth surfaces repeatedly, not as dusty inheritance but as a living vein. Ikarus (2018), made with musician Andrew Laking and staged for the Lōemis festival, revisits the myth through the eyes of a parent—a subtle reframing that puts care, risk, and loss in play without the usual melodrama. The piece matches the festival’s winter rituals with a spare, luminous stillness: firelight for thought.

She has worked with Circa Theatre and other Wellington platforms, contributing as an actor and creative leader. Her dramaturgical work—helping shape scripts, structures, and performance textures—has become a particular specialty, and it underpins a broader production and direction portfolio. Festival projects over recent years, including Lemons [Prelude] in 2023, show her inclination toward prelude, fragment, and workshop as valid public events: works that invite audiences into process.

Alongside making, Miranda has moderated industry conversations and contributed to sector development, including women-in-film-and-television panels and creative councils. In late 2024 she joined the board of Footnote New Zealand Dance, a signal of trust in her governance instincts and a reflection of her ongoing relationship to contemporary dance and movement-led performance. Her position on The Performance Arcade’s Creative Council underscores a similar commitment to city-making through art: site-specific programs, waterfront encounters, and a thriving annual platform for experimental work.

Screen credits: concise but telling

Miranda’s screen work is selective and often tied to New Zealand’s independent feature scene. She appears in Tongan Ninja (2002), a low-budget martial arts parody that later became a minor cult reference; in Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs Shark (2007), a film that helped define a generation of Wellington comedy and romantic anti-heroics; and in the speculative feature REALITi (2014), a moody, near-future thriller anchored by a tight ensemble. The credits are not extensive, but they sketch a clear taste: offbeat, local, collaborative.

A working timeline

Style, themes, and collaborators

Miranda tends to build with others. Musicians, dancers, designers, and writers gather around each concept, and she oscillates between the roles those processes require: on one project she is in the room as a performer, on the next she is peeling back scenes as the dramaturg, on another she shifts to production, shaping budgets and schedules so that the art can breathe. Rather than oversize spectacle, she favors clarity: a lamp on a table, a voice in the dark, a locus of attention that draws the audience in like a tide pulling at the shore.

Her thematics often touch migration—literal and metaphoric—and the ways family stories echo across countries. Myth serves not as conclusion but as invitation, a way to speak about contemporary longing and the borderlands of identity without flattening nuance. She is as comfortable with a ritual cadence as with a joke: humour, for her, is a valve for pressure and a quick path to shared ground.

Community roles and sector impact

In Wellington’s arts ecology, Miranda functions as both maker and connector. Creative councils and boards rely on practitioners who can translate between artistic risk and organizational responsibility; she has repeatedly been trusted with that translation. As a moderator and panelist, her approach is generous: get the conversation started, keep it moving, leave space for new voices. Those roles are quieter than headlining acts, but they shape the conditions in which artists can thrive—funding, rehearsal infrastructure, public visibility—and they help keep a city’s performance culture dynamic.

Selected works and activities (by focus)

• Theatre and Festivals
  • Ikarus (2018): a myth retold from a parent’s perspective; intimate scale, music-led.
  • Lemons [Prelude] (2023): a development-stage performance presented in a festival context.
  • Circa Theatre projects: acting and creative roles across contemporary productions.
• Industry and Governance
  • Moderator for screen and theatre industry conversations (e.g., women-in-film-and-television events).
  • Creative Council, The Performance Arcade (waterfront, site-responsive annual program).
  • Board Member, Footnote New Zealand Dance (from November 2024).
• Screen
  • Tongan Ninja (2002), Eagle vs Shark (2007), REALITi (2014): selective independent features with strong Wellington ties.

The family lens

Miranda’s public story is braided with family: marriage to a high-profile artist, the arrival of a child in late 2008, and an intergenerational tethering of names and narratives. Yet the line between personal and professional remains carefully drawn. If you want to understand the family through the art, listen for it in the work itself—in how myths are reframed as intimate conversations, how caregiving and risk become dramaturgical tools, how the domestic sphere is neither glamorized nor hidden but allowed to ripple quietly through choices of scale, subject, and collaboration.

FAQ

Who is Miranda Manasiadis?

She is a New Zealand-born theatre practitioner of Greek heritage, working as an actor, director, dramaturg, choreographer, producer, and playwright.

How is she connected to Jemaine Clement?

She married Jemaine Clement in 2008, and they have one child together.

Do they have children?

Yes, their son is named Sophocles Iraia Clement, born in October 2008.

What is she best known for professionally?

Her reputation centers on contemporary theatre and festival work, including the myth-inspired piece Ikarus and projects with Circa Theatre and The Performance Arcade.

What screen projects has she appeared in?

Selected credits include Tongan Ninja (2002), Eagle vs Shark (2007), and REALITi (2014).

Where does she primarily work?

She works between Aotearoa New Zealand and Greece, with strong ties to Wellington and ongoing collaborations in Athens; she has also worked in New York.

What is her heritage?

She is of Greek heritage, which often informs the themes and imagery of her work.

Is her net worth publicly known?

No, her personal financial information is not publicly disclosed.

What recent roles does she hold in the arts community?

She serves on The Performance Arcade’s Creative Council and joined the board of Footnote New Zealand Dance in November 2024.