There is a great deal about AUNTY MERLE THE MUSICAL that deserves to be recognised. Most importantly, it is a homegrown musical created largely by people of colour with a significant number of roles for people of colour. It attempts to connect with contemporary South African social dynamics and issues using a medium that not only has wide appeal but which can also give voice to ideas in an often unexpected and effective ways.
Aviva Pelham will return with SANTA'S STORY to Theatre on the Bay for a week-long season this October, starting today. The moving, one-woman show depicts Santa Pelham's journey of courage, hope and inspiration through discrimination and heartbreaking losses and represents a triumph of the human spirit.
The international premiere of Lara Foot's THE INCONVENIENCE OF WINGS, which has played three successful seasons in its country of origin, South Africa, takes place as part of the Baxter Theatre Centre's impressive showcase of six award-winning and cutting-edge productions at the 2017 Edinburgh Assembly Fringe Festival in Scotland this August.
This Sunday, 11 June 2017, Athol Fugard celebrates his 85th birthday and the Fugard Theatre will mark this occasion with an all South African, star-studded production of his acclaimed play THE ROAD TO MECCA.
The Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards were presented at a ceremony themed 'Live with Flair' at the Artscape Theatre Center last night, with the undisputed highlight of the night being the disruption of the ceremony by Mamela Nyamza, Chuma Sopotela, Buhlebezwe Siwani, and Zikhona Jacobs.
In a co-production with the Young Vic-which partnered with Isango on 2014's Olivier Award-winning The Magic Flute-the company adapts for the stage South African native Jonny Steinberg's 2015 book about a Somali refugee's journey from Mogadishu to Johannesburg and finally to the US.
Following the South African premiere of Florian Zeller's THE FATHER last year, the same playwright's companion piece, THE MOTHER, made its bow last week at The Fugard Studio. David Fick reviews.
In a co-production with the Young Vic-which partnered with Isango on 2014's Olivier Award-winning The Magic Flute-the company adapts for the stage South African native Jonny Steinberg's 2015 book about a Somali refugee's journey from Mogadishu to Johannesburg and finally to the US.
Comic of The Year, Tumi Morake and the original Cavewoman, Vanessa Frost team up in TEASE!, which premieres in Johannesburg at the Market Theatre on 16 November. TEASE! enjoyed a successful debut run at the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, with sold out shows, standing ovations and a Standard Bank Ovation Award.
The Young Vic is teaming up with the Royal Opera House, the Repons Foundation and the Isango Ensemble to bring a musical inspired by one refugee's true story to the Baxter Theatre Centre's Flipside venue this August. A MAN OF GOOD HOPE is based on the book by Jonny Steinberg and has been adapted for the stage by the Isango Ensemble under the direction of Mark Dornford-May.
Lara Foot's latest play, THE INCONVENIENCE OF WINGS, has been seven years in the making. Since Foot started dreaming up this startling, intimate tale about the challenges of living with a mental disorder, both as a patient and a caregiver, this play achieving the same rich fulfilment of the promise that Foot's first original play, TSHEPANG, embodied in 2003.
Piecing together a new mythology is an audacious undertaking, and yet it is an act that is at the very heart of theatre-making: the building of a new world, with its own origins and order, that only becomes fully realised when an audience believes in it. THE FIREBIRD attempts just that, telling a post-apartheid South African story against the backdrop of a created mythology.
Acclaimed writer and director Lara Foot's latest play, THE INCONVENIENCE OF WINGS, brings bipolar disorder and friendships into the spotlight. The world premiere of the play takes place at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, after which a season at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town follows.
An innovative new puppet and dance production of THE FIREBIRD, featuring Igor Stravinsky's original score, will head to the Artscape Opera House, the National Arts Festival and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
The NAACP Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch's Theatre Viewing Committee announces nominations for the 25th Annual NAACP Theatre Awards. The awards include 32 categories, which encompass local and equity nominations. Winners will be announced in the first quarter of 2016.
The Queen of Flanders, Madame Zingara's opulent new spiegelpaleis, will be at Montecasino in Johannesburg from next month, in time for the festive season! After a sell out three month season in Cape Town, the Queen bids a royal farewell to the Mother City and heads to the City of gold for two months from 4 November 2015 until January 2016.
In a first for Cape Town Opera, leading stand-up comedian Alan Committie takes to the Opera House stage in THE MERRY WIDOW OF MALAGAWI, which premieres at Artscape on 5 September 2015 and runs until 12 September. Tickets are available at Computicket.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the passing of theatre legend Barney Simon, the Baxter Theatre Centre, in association with the National Arts Festival, is proud to revive his hit production BORN IN THE RSA, 30 years after its world premiere.
"Welcome to the mystical world of Madame Zingara. A world where dreams become reality and everything is possible. A place where people are the magic, and flights of fantasy happen in real time... where memories created and friends found linger on like the stars light up in the nights sky."
