started the New Zealand Drama School, Bailey was one of the core tutors. Bailey continued teaching at the New Zealand Drama School until 1988. She was instrumental in the drama school identifying as a bi-cultural institution using the governments policy requiring agencies to recognise the Treaty of Waitangi as a driver for conversations including changing the name to Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa. The school is now know primarily as Toi Whakaari. Bailey in retrospect criticised the speed of the change:"It would have been preferable if [the Drama School] had waited a year, and then gone for the name. You need a track record first: and to have demonstrated your commitment. The journey is a hard one." Rona BaileyOne thing that Bailey was very proud of is her involvement with Project Waitangi. This was government funded education for non-Māori people in New Zealand that ran anti-racism and Treaty of Waitangi workshops, with a principal from pākehā (white New Zealanders) for pākehā. Bailey was a member of this project from when it started in 1985 until when the funding was withdrawn in 1990. Rona Bailey was a member of Taki Rua Theatre (formally The Depot) that started in 1983 and is now described as one of the kaumātua (respected elder). Activism and associations Bailey was a member of the Communist Party of New Zealand, she first became interested in these politics while in the USA. In New Zealand she met members through Unity Theatre. She joined in 1943 and was active for many years becoming a national committee member in the 1960s. There was a split in the party in the 1970s and Bailey was one of six prominent members that got de-registered and denounced as the 'Manson/Bailey Gang'. In 1975 Bailey was a founder of the Wellington Marxist Leninist Organisation (WMLO) and in 1980 the Workers' Communist League (WCL) formed in 1980. She left the WCL in 1985. For a time Bailey was elected president of the Public Service Association (PSA) women's committee and a women's representative on the executive with part of her work being campaigning for equal pay for women public servants. Bailey was a long time member of the Labour History Project (formerly the Trade Union History Project). In 1972 Bailey became treasurer of the National Anti-Apartheid Committee. She committed many years of her life to the anti-apartheid movement in New Zealand and was part of