Baxter – Sarafina Magazine

A Q&A with Chantal Stanfield

In December 2017, we sat down with actress, singer and playwright Chantal Stanfield to chat about her one-woman show, From Koe’siestes To Kneidlach, which was about to debut at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town following a successful run at Theatre On The Square in Johannesburg. Fast forward to 2020 and a global pandemic that has left theatres around the world dark. In response to this, Chantal has released a pre-recorded version of the show that audience members can stream to their homes, in the hopes of raising funds for the two theatres that From Koe’siestes To Kneidlach called home.

Click here to read our conversation with Chantal from 2017.

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July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Interview, Now Playing, Performer, Playwright, Producer, Production, Q&A, Sarafina Magazine, Singer, Songwriter, South Africa, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, Womxn, writerTags: Art, Baxter Theatre, Chantal Stanfield, Conversation, Covid19, From Koe'siestes to kneidlach, Livestream, Lockdown, Q&A, Quicket, Recorded, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, Theatre on the Square, Women 1 Comment

A Conversation with Rushney Ferguson

Rushney Ferguson is a triple threat performer from Cape Town having completed her advanced I.S.T.D training in Modern, Tap, Ballet, Jazz and Musical Theatre, including Associate qualifications, at the Waterfront Theatre School. Her theatre career started with David Kramer’s District Six: Kanala, Amper Famous and Langarm for which she received a Fleur du Cap nomination. Rushney also Dance Captained and starred in the revival of King Kong: Legend of a Boxer at The Fugard Theatre. Choreographically, she works regularly behind the scenes with many local artists like Emo Adams: Brother Love 2, Emo Celebrates 30 Years in Music and the live finale of Maak My Famous. She recently appeared as Juanita in David Kramer’s new musical Danger in the Dark which returns to the Baxter Theatre in March 2020. She is currently starring as Abigail in Aunty Merle: It’s a Girl!, the highly anticipated sequel based on Marc Lottering’s beloved character, Aunty Merle. Continue reading →

December 18, 2019January 22, 2020 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Comedy, Conversation, Dancer, Fleur du Cap, Interview, Musical, Now Playing, Performer, Photography, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, WomxnTags: Abigail, Actor, Actress, Advice, Aunty Merle, Aunty Merle: It's a Girl!, Cape Town, Conversation, Danger in the Dark, David Kramer, Fleur du Cap, Marc Lottering, music, Musical, Rushney Ferguson, Singer, The Baxter, Theater, Waterfront Theater College, Women Leave a comment

A Conversation with Alexis Petersen

Alexis Petersen is a UCT Performance Diploma Graduate who majored in Western Classical Voice. She has performed on various stages both nationally and internationally. Alexis has performed in several musical theatre productions including Calling Us Home, The Little Mermaid and David Kramer’s Langarm. Her opera credits include FOUR:30, Le nozze di Figaro and La traviata. With a strong passion for dance, she has also competed as a ballroom dancer, dancing under the Federation of Dance Sport South Africa. She also features as a vocalist in a unique contemporary trio called Inside Voice. Alexis is currently starring at the Baxter Theatre as Pamela in Danger in the Dark, David Kramer’s re-imagining of the Kramer/Petersen ’90s hit, Poison. Continue reading →

October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Art, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Conversation, Dance, Dancer, Interview, music, Musical, Now Playing, Opera, Performer, Photography, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, Singer, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Uncategorized, Vocalist, Woman, Women, WomxnTags: Advice, Alexis Peterson, Baxter Theatre, Calling Us Home, Conversation, Danger in the Dark, David Kramer, Interview, Langarm, music, Musical, Pamela, Photography, Poison, Sarafina Magazine, Singer, Theater, Theatre, UCT, Vocalist, Western Classical Voice, Women Leave a comment

Guest Post: The Chronicles of an Independent Theatre-Maker

In 2018 during our interview with theatre-maker Dara Beth, we spoke about the return engagement of her play, Nasty Womxn. Now, 18 months later, Nasty Womxn is back for its third return engagement, this time featuring a new cast, a reworked script and coinciding with Dara’s latest theatrical offering, The Chronicles of Athena, Babes. Tasked with staging two independently produced works which almost run concurrently, we ask Dara to share her thoughts around this creative process. Continue reading →

August 14, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Advice, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Conversation, Culture, Designer, Director, Essay, Guest Post, Now Playing, Producer, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Alexander Bar, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, Womxn, writerTags: Alexander Bar, Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, Dara Beth, Director, Essay, Guest Post, Masambe Theatre, Nasty Womxn, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Chronicles of Athena Babes, The Furies, Theater, Theatre, Theatre-maker, UCT, Women, writer Leave a comment

A Conversation with Carin Bester

Carin Bester is a performance artist, actress, set designer and art director who has been working in the film, television and theatre industry for the past 10 years. In 2015, Carin performed her first performance art piece Verlies. She was drawn to performance art because of its immediacy and honesty. She views it as a medium in which she can express herself freely as she interrogates issues of social importance effectively. In 2017, she did My Body My Life, a performance installation which took the statistics of gender-based violence in South Africa directly to the viewer. Since then she has done various other pieces about gender-based violence in South Africa. Currently, she is experimenting with documentation of performance elements to create print and video art. A piece called Dress of Remembrance, which was worn on August 1st 2018 as part of the #TheTotalshutdown March against gender-based violence to Parliament, has been included in an exhibition at the Iziko Slave Lodge Museum. Cape Town audiences recently saw Carin’s set design featured in Figure of 8 Dance Collective’s Wag/Waiting which debuted at the Baxter Theatre. She will be performing a new piece Till Death Do Us Part this August as part of the Vavasati International Women’s Festival at The State Theatre in Pretoria.

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July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Art, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Conversation, Culture, Designer, Film, Fine Artist, Interview, Performer, Photography, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, Sculpture, Set Design, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, WomxnTags: Actor, Actress, Advice, Art, Artist, Baxter, Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, Carin Bester, Conversation, Designer, Figure 8 Dance Collective, Film, Interview, My Body My Life, Performance Artist, Photography, Set Design, Set Designer, South Africa, Theater, Theatre, Wag/Waiting, Women Leave a comment

A Conversation with Naledi Majola

Naledi Majola is an actor, performance-maker and sound designer. In 2018, she was seen on stage in Tara Notcutt’s historic all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew and in Stream, a multimedia performance work led by Jennifer Steyn at the Baxter Theatre. She makes her feature film debut later this year in The Banana Splits. Her performance work, Where is the black samurai? debuted at Arcade, a durational live art platform curated by Gavin Krastin, and was most recently performed at the 2018 ICA Live Art Festival. Naledi also designs sound for performance, having recently done so for her own work, as well as AMES, written and directed by Andi Colombo in 2018 and the upcoming production of Tales from the Garden written by Ameera Conrad, which will run at the Baxter Theatre’s Masambe Theatre followed by a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this year.
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May 9, 2019May 22, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Art, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Composer, Conversation, Culture, Designer, Interview, music, Musician, Now Playing, Performer, Photography, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, Sound Design, Sound Designer, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, WomxnTags: Actor, Actress, Ameera Conrad, Ames, Cape Town, Composer, Conversation, ICA Live Art Festival, Interview, Kathleen Stephens, music, Naledi Majola, Performance, Performance Artist, Photography, Sarafina Magazine, Sound Design, Sound Designer, Soundscape, South Africa, Stream, Tales from the Garden, The banana splits, The Taming of The Shrew, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, UCT, Where is the black samurai? 4 Comments

A Conversation with Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni

Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni is a South African playwright, theatre director and performer. With a Bachelor of the Arts in Political Science, Philosophy and Dramatic Arts from Rhodes University and a Bachelor of the Arts (Hons) in Directing for Stage, Writing for Film and Avant-garde Film from the University of Cape Town, she attempts to make provocative work that deals with themes of violence, sexuality, race and history within a contemporary South African setting. As a playwright and director, her debut play, Sainthood has received a Standard Bank Ovation Award and a Fleur du Cap nomination and is the subject of her TEDxYouth Cape Town Talk, ‘Another Conversation for the Dinner Table?’. Following a successful run at the National Arts Festival and at Theatre Arts Admin Collective, Sainthood makes its way to the Baxter Theatre for a limited engagement.

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February 6, 2019February 6, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Choreographer, Conversation, Culture, Director, Interview, Now Playing, Performer, Photography, Playwright, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatre Arts Admin Collective, Theatre Awards, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, Womxn, writerTags: Actor, Actress, Advice, Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, Chanel Katz, Conversation, Director, Grahamstown, Interview, National Arts Festival, Ovation Award, Performer, Photography, Playwright, Rhodes, Sainthood, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, Theater, Theatre, Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni, UCT, Women, writer 4 Comments

A Conversation with Gina Shmukler

Gina Shmukler has been in the entertainment industry since she was six years old. In her career, her theatre work as an actress, director and producer, has garnered ten theatre nominations and four awards across different genres ranging from Mamma Mia and Chess, to Master Class and Silk Ties. In 2013, after completing her Master’s Degree in Drama at the University of Witwatersrand, Gina was the proud recipient of the Dr Sibongile Khumalo Creative Research Award. Her select directorial credits include; The Line, Lost in the Stars, Songs for a New World, The Market Theatre’s Brer Rabbit, Beautiful Creatures, Love: A Musical Revue, The Last Five Years and The Whole Megillah. Having taken a performance hiatus, Gina returned to the stage in 2017 in Mike van Graan’s Helen of Troyeville. At the end of 2018, she returned to her musical theatre roots by stepping into Aunty Merle the Musical, which makes its way to Joburg Theatre following three sold-out engagements in Cape Town.

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January 16, 2019January 16, 2019 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Artist, Arts, Baxter, Candice van Litsenborgh, Cape Town, Conversation, Culture, Dancer, Director, Interview, Joburg, Johannesburg, Musical, Now Playing, Performer, Photography, Playwright, Producer, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, Womxn, writerTags: Actor, Actress, Advice, Aunty Merle, Candice van Litsenborgh, Canned Rice, Cape Town, Conversation, Dialect Coach, Director, Emotional Creature, Film, Gina Shmukler, Helen of Troyeville, Joburg Theatre, Johannesburg, Lara Foot, Lecturer, Mamma Mia, Marc Lottering, Performer, Photography, Playwright, Producer, Singer, South Africa, Television, The Baxter, The Line, Theater, Theatre, TV, Wits, Women 4 Comments

A Conversation with Marisa Steenkamp

Marisa Steenkamp is the Deputy Stage Production Manager at the Baxter Theatre, a position she has held since 2012. With her work ever-changing and evolving, she has worked as a stage manager, assistant stage manager, technician and costume designer. Her work has seen her tour with productions to various countries across the globe including Sweden, Germany, Columbia, France and England. She created the costume design for The Fall and facilitated and styled costumes for various productions including #JustMen, Fisher’s of Hope and Blue/Orange. Most recently, she has worked on productions such as Remembering the Lux, Blue/Orange, Marat/Sade, The Fall, Aunty Merle: The Musical and Endgame. Continue reading →

November 28, 2018November 29, 2018 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Arts, Backstage, Baxter, Candice van Litsenborgh, Cape Town, Conversation, Interview, Photography, Production, Production Manager, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, Stage Manager, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, WomxnTags: ASM, Aunty Merle, Baxter, Baxter Theatre, Candice van Litsenborgh, Canned Rice, Cape Town, Conversation, Deputy Stage Production Manager, Drama, Marisa Steenkamp, Musicals, Opera, Photography, PM, Production Manager, Sarafina Magazine, SM, South Africa, Stage Manager, Stellenbosch, Technician, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Women Leave a comment

A Conversation with Leila Henriques

Leila Henriques is an actor, writer, director and teacher. As an actress, she has starred in more than 30 productions. Some of her select stage credits include: Hedda Gabler, The Something Prince, Yerma, Red Shoes and The List. She has taught acting at various academic institutions across South Africa including Wits, AFDA and The Market Theatre Lab. Together with Irene Stephanou, she wrote the book The World in an Orange –exploring the work of Barney Simon published by Jacana, which was shortlisted for the Alan Paton award. Following a successful run at Woordfees earlier this year, she is currently starring in Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class directed by Sylvaine Strike at the Baxter Theatre. Continue reading →

October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 by Sarafina Magazine Categories: Actor, Actress, Advice, Art, Arts, Baxter, Cape Town, Conversation, Director, Interview, Johannesburg, Now Playing, Performer, Photography, Production, Sarafina, Sarafina Magazine, South Africa, The Baxter, Theater, Theatre, Theatremaker, Uncategorized, Woman, Women, Womxn, writerTags: Advice, Author, Barney Simon, Cape Town, Conversation, Curse of the Starving Class, Director, Florence, Interview, Lecturer, Leila Henriques, Photography, Sarafina Magazine, Sophie Kirsch, South Africa, Sylvaine Strike, Teacher, The Baxter, The Market, The Market Theatre, Theater, Theatre, Women, writer 1 Comment

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