...MISKIEN Returns to Cape Town 2-27 September

Three continents, multiple awards and an avalanche of international acclaim later, ...MISKIEN is back in Cape Town. The universally lauded play returns to the Mother City five years after its premiere for a run at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio this September. Presented by The Pink Couch in association with Freckle Productions, ...MISKIEN is directed by Tara Notcutt and features Albert Pretorius and Gideon Lombard. It is written by the cast and director, with design by Tara Notcutt and lighting by Matt Lansing.

Performed in English and Afrikaans, ...MISKIEN is a simple story of two guys: best friends who are stuck in similar dead end jobs and nondescript lives, both waiting for Happy Hour at the end of each day to drink, to talk about rugby and other regular guy stuff and to drag them into the next. It is a story that examines the spaces between people, what we do and what we don't do, and what we say and what we don't say when we want to fill the gaps.

"...MISKIEN is about the deep love you can feel for someone that can't be expressed," says Notcutt. "It explores how we often talk, but never say what we really mean. We are delighted to be returning to Cape Town with ...MISKIEN, as Gideon , Albert and I are co-founders of The Pink Couch and ...MISKIEN was our debut production. It is fitting that during the course of this run, we will not only mark our 100th performance of the show, but The Pink Couch will celebrate its fifth birthday and we have an extra special evening planned for 25 September." The Pink Couch was co-founded by Notcutt, along with ...MISKIEN actors Pretorius and Lombard and Mat Lewis.

Notcutt is a seasoned and internationally acclaimed director and producer, and artistic director of The Pink Couch. The many productions she has worked on have toured around South Africa and abroad with much success. ...MISKIEN and THE THREE LITTLE PIGS have both been performed in Perth and Amsterdam and been invited to New York, while the latter won the Silver Award for Best International Production at the Amsterdam Fringe. Notcutt's numerous credits include MAFEKING ROAD; LAST ROUNDS; WHATWHAT; ILLUSIVE; THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING); WAITING FOR THIS GOD OU and A TOWN CALLED FOKOL LUTHO. At the tender age of 27, she has already received more than twenty awards and nominations.

Pretorius is a celebrated actor on the South African theatre scene. After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 2008, he made his professional acting debut in Jaco Bouwer's #UNTITLED. He has performed with Dutch theatre group Toneelgroep De Appel on various occasions, both here and in Holland, as well as in plays like Sam Shepard's DOODSNIKKE (directed by Janice Honeyman), Athol Fugard's PLAYLAND (directed by Albert Maritz) and Christiaan Olwagen's DOGMA, to name but a few. In 2012, he collaborated with Rob van Vuuren, Tara Notcutt and James Cairns on THE THREE LITTLE PIGS, a political satire that received great accolades here and abroad. Pretorius recently played worked with Bouwer again in Saartjie Botha's BALBESIT. Together with ...MISKIEN, Pretorius has performed on three continents and at various theatre festivals all over the world. In 2013, he won a Standard Bank Ovation Award for his performance in THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING), which was also performed in Holland. He has also been nominated for numerous Best Actor awards, for ...MISKIEN at the Clover Aardklop Festival; for THE THREE LITTLE PIGS at this year's Fleur du Cap Awards; for MESSE IN HENNE and NAGWOND at the kykNET Fiesta Awards; and most recently for DOGMA at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees Kanna Awards. DOGMA will head to to Aardklop later this year.

Lombard originally hails from Namibia, but grew up all over the world, owing to the fact that both his parents are academics. He has been educated in Namibia, on the East and West Coast of the States, Holland and South Africa. Since graduating from the University of Cape Town, Lombard has worked in a wide range of fields, including acting, directing, lighting design, set design and sound design for theatre, art and sound installations, film, opera, dance and fine art. He was nominated for the Best Actor award at the Aardklop Festival for his role in ...MISKIEN and, in 2012, he was one of a few in the history of the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards to be nominated in both major acting categories for plays: his role in THE VIEW earned him a nomination for Best Actor and his role in SPECIAL THANKS TO GUESTS FROM AFAR earned him another nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2014, Lombard toured with Cape Town Opera's production of George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS, as a performer and as Assistant Director. He is a member of the Polony Theatre Collective.

Now in its fifth year of touring, ...MISKIEN has received rapturous reviews and earned Pretorius, Lombard and Notcutt a string of awards and nominations, among them the Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors at the Fleur du Cap Awards in 2010, as well as the Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award for Theatre at the National Arts Festival and the Clover Soveel Beter Prize for Best Production at the Clover Aardklop Arts Festival in 2011. and In addition, the team has been nominated for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Production in South Africa, as well as at the Amsterdam and Perth Fringe Festivals. ...MISKIEN was also one of eight recipients of a Jury Commendation Award at the National Arts Festival and was invited to the New York Fringe Festival.

...MISKIEN will be performed at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio from 2-27 September at 8.15pm. Tickets cost R80 for the previews on 2-5 September. Tickets for Baxter Mondays cost R100, which includes a light meal, while tickets on Tuesdays cost R120 for 2 tickets and student tickets cost R65. Tickets for the historic Birthday Bash on 25 September when ...MISKIEN marks its incredible 100th performance and The Pink Couch turns five cost R145, allowing audience members to celebrate in style with the cast and team after the show with pink champagne and cake. All other tickets cost R120. Bookings can be made online at Computicket or by calling 0861 915 8000 as well as at any Shoprite Checkers outlet. The show has an age guidline of 16+ for language.

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