Percy Mtwa News

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that playwright Mbongeni Ngema has died at age 68, following a car accident. Ngema was best known for writing the musical Sarafina!, which premiered on Broadway in 1988, and was later adapted into a film starring Whoopi Goldberg in 1992.

The South African State Theatre has announced that veteran performer Bheki Mkhwane will no longer be part of Bopha's season -starting from 25 May to 13 June 2021- after being booked off sick for four weeks.

With uncertainty of when theatre doors will re-open, the South African State Theatre (SAST) continues to keep its audiences engaged through its growing online theatre platform (#SASTOnlineTheatre).

Acclaimed South African theatre luminaries, Mbongeni Ngema and Percy Mtwa, reprise their original roles - created some 40 years ago - in one of this country's most brilliant and popular classics, Woza Albert!, at the Baxter Flipside from 5 February to 2 March 2019 at 7.30pm and Saturday matinees at 2pm.

The eighth annual 2018 Zabalaza Theatre Festival to showcase some 40 productions by dynamic young theatre-makers from all over the Western Cape.

It was no unlucky Friday the 13th for South Africa's theatre community when BroadwayWorld's Regional Managing Editor Christina Mancuso released the names of the of the winners of the 2016 BroadwayWorld South Africa Awards.

WOZA ALBERT! remains an incredibly powerful play. That it can withstand mediocre productions and still, more or less, manage to resonate with an audience is a testament to what Ngema, Mtwa and Simon achieved 35 years ago. When the real WOZA ALBERT! stands up, it takes no prisoners. It is a play that reminds us of the journey we have travelled, and the long way we still have to go.

Writer-director Koleka Putuma's assemblage of ideas and motifs in WOZA SARAFINA! is constructed within the context of the #RhodesMustFall movement and is informed by the ideologies that underpin that movement. While it speaks many truths, the play never finds a way to deliver more than just "the feels".

With a career spanning seventy years in the theatre, Lucille Lortel's life mission was to help nurture emerging innovative playwrights.

Although the basic outline of the play remains the same, RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS has been revised in the four months that have passed since its premiere. The new script and its associated theatrical production improve on the earlier version of the play.

Mike van Graan's RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS, the penultimate production in Artscape's 2014 Spring Drama Season, is a hard-hitting satire that genuflects to the South African classic WOZA ALBERT!, in which Mbongeni Ngema, Percy Mtwa and Barney Simon crafted a tale in which Jesus returns to South Africa during the apartheid era.

This year sees the tenth anniversary of Artscape's annual Spring Drama Season, which runs from October to November 2014 featuring four diverse plays and two showcases at the Artscape Arena Theatre. The season forms part of the Artscape's New Writing Programme, which is devoted to the professional writing and production of new South African plays.

Protest theatre should burn fiercely in the darkness that surrounds it; RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS only flickers enough for us to make out what we have already seen.

Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre's 44th anniversary will culminate with a special Gala at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center (199 Chambers Street) on Sunday evening March 16th. This special event saluting NFT, for over 40 years a seminal force in Black Theater, will be hosted by Danny Glover and Debbi Morgan. Honorary Chairmen are Harry Belafonte and Hon. Mayor David N. Dinkins. The celebration will kick off at 4pm, and feature performances from Daniel Beaty, Impact Repertory Theater (Academy Award Nominee, 'Raise It Up' from the film August Rush), Chuck Jackson, and Valerie Simpson.

This retrospective focuses on revivals of classic South African plays and local productions the work of international playwrights.