Quanita Adams is an award-winning stage and screeen actress, vocalist and director. A four-time Fleur du Cap Theatre Award winner, she has taken on notable theatre roles including Valley Song, Boesman and Lena, Nadia Davids’ Cissie and At Her Feet, also penned by Nadia Davids, which was met with critical acclaim and has gone on to tour extensively over the last 15 years. We sat down to chat about her career and her latest film, Susters, which is now playing in select cinemas. Continue reading
Samantha de Romijn is the co-founder of The Imbewu Trust, a non-profit organisation which was established to promote the development of contemporary South African theatre and arts. She has also worked as a producer, agent, arts manager, performer, stage manager and director. Now in it’s seventh year, the SCrIBE Scriptwriting Competition, a flagship project of the Imbewu Trust, was recently awarded a Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for Innovation in Theatre. SCrIBE is an opportunity for South African playwrights to further develop their work. A staged reading is held for each of the finalist’s scripts, providing the chance for feedback from the industry and members of the public. An overall winner is announced at the end of the week, with one of the prizes being having the play professionally mounted for a run at a Cape Town theatre. Another writer has the chance to win The Scribblers Dream, a prize which enables a writer the opportunity to work alongside a mentor to develop their script and another writer has the chance to further workshop his or her play.
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Genna Gardini is a writer and teacher. She is the author of Matric Rage, which was published in 2014 by uHlanga Press. In 2012, she was awarded the DALRO New Coin Poetry prize and was chosen as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for 2013. She is also the co-founder of Horses’ Heads Productions and has had several of her plays produced at the National Arts Festival including WinterSweet and Scrape, both of which went on to win Standard Bank Ovation Awards. In addition, she also works as the poetry editor of Prufrock Magazine, a journal in which her own work has featured.
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Prolific choreographer and ballet dancer, Veronica Paeper has created more than 40 ballets, among them sixteen full-length works. During her performing career Veronica rose to become a principal dancer with three South African companies; CAPAB Ballet, PACT Ballet and PACOFS Ballet. Her latest production, Carmen, is a restaging of her award-winning choreography and makes its way to Joburg Ballet for a limited engagement. Continue reading
Melanie Burke is the chairman of the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards. Originally based in the corporate world, Melanie was appointed to her position six years ago. She serves on the board of many NGO’s but it’s the Fleur du Cap’s that have broken her “three-year volunteering rule.” A fierce and formidable presence in the theatre industry, we sat down with Melanie at the Baxter Theatre, the upcoming venue of the 53rd annual Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, to discuss her journey as chairman of South Africa’s most coveted theatre award. For a list of the nominees, please click here.
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For the last 25 years, Jo da Silva has had an extensive career in TV, film, radio and theatre. After a decade long hiatus from theatre, she makes her much-anticipated return to the stage juggling two roles in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter presented at Theatre on the Bay before jumping into Fatal Attraction which will play Theatre on the Bay and Pieter Toerien’s Monte Casino Theatre in Johannesburg. We sat down with her to chat about the show, her career and surving portraying the “most hated woman in the history of South African television.” Continue reading
Triple threat, Sihle Ndaba is well-known to South African audiences for her award-winning role as ‘Smangele Maphumulo’ in SABC 1’s hit primetime soap Uzalo, for which she won the Simon Sabela Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2015. She is currently making a return to her musical theatre roots by starring as ‘Petal’ in The Fugard Theatre’s return season of King Kong. We sat down with her to chat about joining the illustrious company and navigating the fame that comes along with starring on South African television.
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Lesedi Job is an actress and director. Lesedi made her directorial debut in 2017 with Mike van Graan’s When Swallows Cry at the Market Theatre and went on to win the Sophie Mgcina Emerging Voice Award. The production, which has transferred to Cape Town, is currently running at the Baxter Theatre. An accomplished performer in her own right, Lesedi received a Naledi Theatre Award nomination for her role in Lara Foot’s Fishers of Hope. Continue reading
For months Cape Town has been buzzing about the upcoming historic all-women production of The Taming of the Shrew, which is set to take the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre by storm. Fierce and formidable theatre veterans, Daneel van der Walt and Alicia McCormick have been tapped to lead the company by playing sparring partners Petruchio and Kate, respectively. We sat down with them to chat about the history-making production, debuting at Maynardville and the importance of working with women.
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Theatre-maker and performer Dara Beth describes herself as “first and foremost an angry, Jewish feminist”. She is one half of the cabaret duo Plumsong, which she has been performing as since 2011 with her mom and fellow performer, Sharyn Seidel. A recent UCT graduate, Dara has written and performed in Just a Song and a Dance with co-performer Sharyn at the Alexander Bar and the National Arts Festival. Dara has also worked as a stage manager on Wessel Pretorius’ Klara Maas se Hart is Gebreek and Die Ontelbare 48, Ameera Conrad’s Reparation and Jon Keevy’s The Underground Library. Dara also makes up one third of The Furies, a womxn-centric artistic co-op, who are responsible for presenting her latest original piece, Nasty Womxn, which makes its return to the Alexander Bar for a limited engagement following its triumphant success at the end of last year. Continue reading
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