By Virginia Winder

A life of drama fits television star Katie Wolfe as comfortably as a made-to-measure costume.

"I remember the first time standing on stage," says the New Plymouth-born woman. "If I've ever had a feeling of coming home that was it. It just felt right."

That first show was Annie, staged by the New Plymouth Operatic Society back in 1983. Katie, then 14, didn't get to wear the curly red-haired wig of the leading lass and instead appeared as one of the older orphan girls.

In 1984, she played Chava in Fiddler on the Roof, and in '85 was Lisel Von Trapp in the Sound of Music, appropriately singing "I am 16".

There is another list of names and show titles that flow behind her, like the ribbon-tasseled tail of a high-flying kite.

Try Ginny Gannaway, the feisty part-Maori star of Marlin Bay. Or Bridget Hastings, the complicated but cunning Shortland Street doctor. Remember Brenda in Duggan III and Arciana in Hercules? Then there are a couple of Amanda parts. The first is Amanda Robbins, the hard-bitten reporter of Coverstory, a role that won Katie a best actress award in 1997.  Her latest Amanda is an estranged wife on Mercy Peak, which also stars her real-life husband, Tim Balme.

These women are all parts that have been played by the television actor, who rejects the feminine description of one who acts. "It's a generation thing, we just don't call ourselves actresses these days."

From sporting genes

The daughter of Neil and Raewyn Wolfe, sister of Todd, Sally and Brooke, grew up in a well-known Taranaki family. "I come from a sporting pedigree," Katie says.

Neil is a former All Black, Todd a Taranaki rugby representative, Sally a speedy surf lifesaving beach sprinter and Brooke an all-round sportsman.

Raewyn is renowned for her award-winning garden surrounding the "Wolfe Den" on Fillis St, next to Pukekura Park.

Katie is from Ngati Tama descent, an iwi from northern Taranaki. This was the home of her maternal grandparents, Ivy and Alan Phillips. "Most weekends were spent either whitebaiting on the Mimi River or exploring the caves at Wai-iti Beach. Nana and Granddad ran the shop there."

In New Plymouth, Katie went to West End School, but moved to Central School when the family shifted beside Pukekura Park. "That was my playground. That is an amazing park. I used to do a lot of long-distance running and I used to run in that park. I was very fit."

Like Sally, she also became a lifeguard.

"We used to swim in that west coast sea. I used to do the surf club thing. I was only there for the social life - I don't think I could've saved anyone if I'd tried," Katie laughs.

The outgoing girl continued her schooling at Highlands Intermediate and New Plymouth Girls' High School.

In 1985, Katie helped form a drama group called 15-24. "That was the age range you had to be. We used to meet on a Tuesday night at the old War Memorial Hall (now Puke Ariki) and would do scenes and skits. We eventually devised a show that we performed at the Citadel Cafe and the now-defunct Renonsense Festival."

Under Fire: Telephonist Katie Wolfe (left) comes in for a little criticism from the bosses during a dress rehearsal of the New Plymouth Girls' High School 1985 centennial production of "Network". Image: The Daily News

Learning with Dorne

That same year, Katie also had one-on-one sessions with one of Taranaki's greatest drama teachers. "One of my biggest influences growing up there was Dorne Arthur," she pauses. "My dear friend Dorne, who's no longer with us."

Dorne died on 3 November 2000, at the age of 79. During her life, she directed nearly 200 shows and plays for New Plymouth Operatic, Little Theatre, Repertory, the Inglewood Dramatic Society, the Country Women's Institute and youth groups.

"In my sixth form we had electives and I managed to wangle out of that and spend my Thursday afternoons with Dorne - and that was great. I'd just go to her house and we'd just chat. She was an incredibly knowledgeable women and she was a real treasure."

So is Katie's mother, who had the wisdom to realise her youngest daughter was restless and needed to move on.

"I went back to school in the seventh form and was like 'what am I doing here?'"

One morning, Katie got a message to see her mum at lunchtime. "So I went home and my mother said to me, 'do you want to go to university?'"

A capital move

Katie had two days to make up her mind before enrolments closed. The teenager opted for life at Victoria University and hard work towards a Bachelor of Arts. "It was an incredibly difficult year, because I wasn't ready academically for university and I struggled through - really struggled. I did it somehow."

After three years, Katie had her degree. "I failed my last paper by 2%, but they eventually gave it to me because it was my last paper. There's a process - they can go back and have a look at your academic record. So it's almost a Clayton's degree - but there you go."

Next step, she auditioned for Toi Whakaari, the New Zealand Drama School. While the try-outs are notoriously terrifying, Katie went forward undaunted. "When I did my BA I spent most of my time in the drama department. I did Drama 2, Drama 3 papers, performed in all the university drama society's plays, made so many contacts, like the guy that directed me in my Shakespeare at university, he's now the executive producer at Shortland Street."

New Zealand's longest-running soap is Katie's bread and butter these days - but wait, we're not there yet. We must rewind to 1988.

Stars in her eyes

"So I went into the drama school auditions feeling confident and equipped to audition. Also, I decided that if I didn't get into drama school I was going to be an actor anyway...come hell or high water."

She got in, along with a whole bunch of names that continue to appear on movie, TV and book credits. Among her peers were author Emily Perkins, Hollywood ethnic chameleon Cliff Curtis, television doctor Michael Galvin, writer-producer Hone Kouka and Tim Balme.

Katie says it was a whole new era when she went to the Newtown-based institution.

"Drama school had become bicultural, which meant that we spent a lot of time doing powhiri and waiata and working through Maori protocol. And I was really miffed about this, I have to tell you," Katie says.

"I went to drama school to become a movie star, not a Maori. I had stars in my eyes..."

Challenge of biculturalism

Katie can look at herself through wiser eyes now; see how far she has come - and still has to go. "I felt there was an agenda going on at drama school that was getting in the way of us learning. Basically, we were there to learn the techniques of acting.

"In hindsight, I can see it was a very important time and a very important agenda but it was one that was in evolution, so sometimes I felt it wasn't applied well. It wasn't applied in balance.

"I think it's interesting because I had quite a knee-jerk reaction to it. I also felt threatened by it because when you're a part-Maori person and you're confronted by the fact that you are Maori and you know very little about it and are surrounded by people who are knowledgeable, it is very confronting," she says.

Even though it was a time of turmoil for the school and the young Taranaki actor, she still thrived. "My goodness we did some great stuff - it was wonderful."

Now, in her own time and her own way, Katie is learning about her Maori background.

"I now know that exploring my identity is part of my evolution as an actor and a story-teller."

Interestingly, Katie's ethnicity helped her break into TV - but that comes later.

Fame and fortune

Meanwhile in 1990, with only a $400 overdraft after five years of tertiary study, Katie went south to seek her fame and fortune.

In Character: Katie playing Mrs Sullen in a restoration comedy, The Beaux Strategem, by George Farquar in her second year at drama school, Toi Whakaari. Performing alongside her are fellow students Hone Kouka and Larissa Matheson. 

She got a whiff of the former and a touch of the latter - in name only.

In Dunedin, Katie worked full-time at the Fortune Theatre, earning just $199 per week. "What a wonderful time that was, because you did plays back to back, with three-week rehearsal periods."

One of her highlights was getting to know playwright Robert Lord, and performing in his Glorious Ruins. He died in 1992.

"I got to meet Mervyn Thompson, who was another godfather of the New Zealand theatre industry." Katie performed in his play, Children of the Poor.

She also got a taste of TV, fronting a couple of shows for Wildtrack. "I was being a presenter at large up Mount Cook, which was my first foray into telly. And often when they do those 'look at where they are now; how far they've come' shows on television, they always get a clip from that."

Hooked on TV

Next came her big break, delivered via Ginette McDonald who was in Dunedin visiting Robert Lord. Ginette, the woman who breathed life into Lyn of Tawa, had a friend who was about to make a new TV series called Marlin Bay.

"They were looking for a little part-Maori girl - and there she was," Katie says.

She auditioned, got the part and moved to Auckland. "I got to work alongside Andy Anderson and Ilona Rogers. That's where I learnt my TV craft, I guess."

Marlin Bay lasted three seasons - 1991, 92 and 93. "So that was a big break and a good time - it was great."

Also in 1993, Katie worked on her first full-length movie. In The Last Tattoo, she played Rose Mitchell, while Tim Balme played her brother Jim Mitchell.

Hanging with Tim

"That's when I sort of started hanging out with him - we didn't get together then because I was with someone else."

When they did become an item, Katie and Tim got married quickly. "It was a real whirlwind romance and quite an interesting time because our profiles were both quite high at the time."

Tim had been in the spotlight for his lead role in Peter Jackson's spoof splatter movie, Braindead.

"It was a very heady time when I think about it now. It was wonderful," Katie says.

And so began a new era for the high-flying couple.

Tim introduced Katie to producing plays and together they started their own company, Tasman Ray Productions. The name comes from the wild sea that pounds Taranaki's coast, and the sun.

The first show they produced together was The Blue Sky Boys, about the Everly Brothers. Appropriately, it premiered in Taranaki at the 1995 arts festival and was then taken on a national tour.

Television shows continued with Katie appearing in two series of Coverstory, playing the aforementioned, Amanda Robbins, a feisty but friendless TV journalist.

Earning their stripes

In 1997 and '98, Katie joined the show so many of New Zealand's acting fraternity have appeared in - Shortland Street. Tim Balme had already earned his "Street" stripes, by playing bad biker boy, Greg Feeney.

Acting the likeable rogue, Tim also hit the stage - running - with his one-man play, Jimmy Costello. The high-energy show, produced by Tasman Ray, had its first public outing at the Taranaki Festival of the Arts in 1997. "Interestingly enough, everyone who saw Jimmy Costello in New Plymouth saw a different play every night because we changed the ending of the play. In the second tour it got changed again so I've always worked closely with that production," Katie says.

"But Tim and I work very closely together anyway. We're always bouncing ideas off each other and we know when to leave something alone and when to get involved."

Not everything has been a success.

Company's rise and fall

The New Zealand Actors Company formed by Katie, Tim and fellow ex-Shortland Street workers, Robyn Malcolm (actor) and Simon Bennett (director), didn't survive.

After touring with A Midsummer's Night Dream, Roger Hall's A Way of Life and Leah, an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, the company closed in 2002.

"It was disappointing because it was a good thing that we were doing. It worked, but it needed more support and more infrastructure and we just couldn't find it. We just couldn't get up to that next level, so when we hit the whitewater, we capsized. C'est la vie."

On 12 January 2001, Katie gave birth to a new life - daughter Edie. During a break in the interview, Katie rolls on the floor with the toddler, who happily screeches from her mother's tickling.

Motherhood and age have shifted Katie's dramatic focus now. "Acting work usually gets a bit tricky around this age because there's quite a market for younger women. There's still the theatre, but that's a bit tricky with kids and stuff, and it's hard work. I find theatre exhausting. My passion now is directing."

Even more 'Street' wise

Finally, we make it back to Shortland Street.

In 2002, Katie applied to train as a director on the successful soap opera. "It was tough training. They throw you bang on in the deep end, but man, I just knew I was in the right place. I really love it."

She continues to work as a director on the half-hour programme that screens at 7pm each weeknight on TV2.

Gone are her film star dreams, but not her big-screen aspirations. "I would love to make a movie. As a director it's opened up a whole new world as a storyteller, so now it's just wait and see."

Call of Taranaki

Moving on, she turns to Taranaki, the place she still calls home.

"I love the mountain. It's funny because when you live there I think you sometimes take it for granted."

But not now. Often when Katie visits the family home on Fillis St, she finds herself staring out the kitchen window at the view, thinking: "Oh my God, this beautiful maunga (mountain), it's amazing."

And the pull of home is getting stronger, like a magnet hovering over iron sand. 

"With my work and stuff - I'll find a way. It's a matter of making time and I can do that with my work in between contracts, go down for a few months at a time," she says.

"I've always known where I come from - I'm so steeped in Taranaki."

The mountain is calling her home.