Company And Artist Biogs

Brett Bailey

Brett Bailey is founder and Artistic Director of South Africa based Third World Bunfight. He is also Artistic Director of Infecting The City, a festival of public art and performance in the Cape Town area. His work fuses ritual, political satire, cabaret and performance art, and deals with the complexities and wonders of the post-colonial landscape of Africa.

He studied Drama and English at the University of Cape Town and in 2004 received a Masters Degree in Performance Studies from Das Arts in Amsterdam.

In 1997, he received the Vita Award for iMumbo Jumbo (best director, script and design) and in 2001, the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award for Drama. In 2002 he received the Rosalie van der Gucht Award for best director for Big Dada, and also Fleur du Cap Awards for best new play and costume design – also for Big Dada. In 2007, medEia won a gold medal for design at the Prague Quadrennial for Design.

Brett Bailey’s work has toured throughout Southern Africa, Europe and Australia, receiving accolades wherever it has been presented.

“We are a South African theatre company strongly committed to the stories, performance forms and spirit of Africa. Our works dig deep beneath the surface of post-colonial Africa: we explore sensitive and contentious issues, and dramatise them in ways that validate and celebrate the extraordinary wealth of cultural modes that exist.” - Brett Bailey

Brett Bailey’s current productions are Big Dada, Blood Diamonds, Exhibit A, House of the Holy Afro, Orfeus, macbEth, and medEia

To find out more about Brett Bailey and Third World Bun Fight please click here

To view Third World Bunfight's online brochure click here

Market Theatre, Johannesburg

The Market Theatre was founded in 1976, by Mannie Manim and the late Barney Simon.

The Market Theatre challenged the apartheid regime, armed with little more than the conviction that culture can change society. The strength and truth of that conviction was acknowledged in 1995 when the theatre received the American Jujamcyn Award. In providing a voice to the voiceless, The Market Theatre did not forego artistic excellence, but, rather, made a point of it. Its twenty-one international and over three hundred South African theatre awards bears eloquent testimony to the courage and artistic quality of its work.

The Market Theatre are co-producers of both Elephant and Songs of Migration

If you would like to find out more about the Market Theatre, Johannesburg please click here

Greig Coetzee

Greig Coetzee has worked as a performer, director and writer for television, radio and theatre. His numerous South African accolades include National Vita Awards for Best Actor and Playwright of the Year. His first play, White Men with Weapons, hit the stage in July 1997 at the Lincoln Center, New York. Since then, a number of Greig’s plays have run in theatres throughout South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Europe, the US and the UK. At the Edinburgh Festival 2000, Greig received The Stage Award for Best Actor on the Edinburgh Fringe and a Scotsman Fringe First Award. His West End debut was at London’s Soho Theatre with Happy Natives in 2002.

Greig Coetzee’s current productions are Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny, which won a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival and also played at the Belfast Festival, and White Men with Weapons

If you would like to find out more about Greig Coetzee please click here

To view Greig Coetzee's online brochure please click here

Steven Berkoff

“Steven Berkoff has been an undisputed theatrical legend since the 1970s,” - Australian Stage

Steven began his acting career working in repertory companies, after studying drama and mime in London and Paris, and in 1968 he founded his own company, the London Theatre Group. He began by creating adaptations of classic plays such as Metamorphosis and The Trial before going on to write and direct his own plays.

Steven has, in recent years, been short listed twice for the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Play and has received two Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Awards, two Glasgow Herald Golden Angel Awards and an Award for best comedy of the year by the Evening Standard.

Steven Berkoff has appeared in numerous films including The Krays and A Clockwork Orange. He has also published a number of fiction and non-fiction books.

His solo work has been presented throughout the world and most recently, his production of On the Waterfront had an extended West End run and played at the Hong Kong Festival.

Steven Berkoff’s current productions are One Man, On The Waterfront, Requiem for Ground Zero and Shakespeare’s Villains

If you would like to find out more about Steven Berkoff please click here

To view Steven Berkoff's online brochure click here

Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom

Dubbed 'the Township Tarantino', Grootboom’s work continues to amaze audiences the world over as he proves himself to be one of the most exciting writers and directors to be working in post-apartheid South Africa.

In 1993 Paul met John Rogers, of Bataleur films, who became his confidant and mentor and introduced him to Aubrey Sekhabi, who Paul has written many plays with since.

In 2005 Paul’s work was recognised with him receiving the National Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Theatre and, in the same year, he also received the Naledi Theatre Award as director of Township Stories.

His work has toured throughout Europe and Australia, with Township Stories touring extensively in the UK, after having received a Herald Angel at the Edinburgh Festival.

Paul Grootboom is currently based at the South African State Theatre in Pretoria and also works in South African film and television.

Paul has been described as the “fast-rising saviour of South African theatre” - The Guardian

“A South African director who is forever trying to push boundaries.” - The Guide, S.A.

Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom’s current productions are Interracial, Foreplay, Township Stories and Welcome to Rocksburg

To view Paul Grootboom's online brochure click here

State Theatre, Pretoria

The South African State Theatre plays a leading role in the development of the performing arts in South Africa, and is host to the colourful variety of entertainment found in the countries’ diverse cultures.

The theatre complex which opened in May 1981 offers a variety of exciting venues for performances and festivals, where audiences can attend world-class shows ranging from Opera, Ballet, Musical, Drama, Cabaret and Children's Theatre.

The State Theatre’s current touring productions are Songs of Migration and all of Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom’s productions .

If you would like to find out more about The State Theatre, Pretoria please click here

Hugh Masekela

Hugh Masekela is one of South Africa’s best known and loved musicians and political activists - a trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and singer.

At the end of 1959, Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moekesti, Makhaya Ntshoko, Johnny Gertze and Hugh formed the Jazz Epistles, the first African jazz group to record an LP and perform to record-breaking audiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Following the 1960, Sharpeville Massacre - where 69 peacefully protesting Africans were shot dead in Sharpeville, Masekela left the country. He was helped by Trevor Huddleston and international friends like Yehudi Menuhin and John Dankworth, who got him admitted into London's Guildhall School of Music. During that period, he visited the United States, where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte and attended Manhattan School of Music in New York where he studied classical trumpet.

He has played primarily in jazz ensembles, with guest appearances on albums by The Byrds (So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star) and Paul Simon. In 1987, he had a hit single with Bring Him Back Home, which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela. A renewed interest in his African roots led him to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with South African players when he set up a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, in the 1980s. Also in the 1980s, he toured with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Miriam Makeba. He also collaborated with Mbongeni Ngema on the musical Sarafina! which played on Broadway and toured the world.

In 2003, he was featured in the documentary film Amandla and in 2004; he released his autobiography, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela

In 2009, Masekela released Phola (meaning "to get well, to heal"), which includes songs he wrote in the 1980s.

Hugh Masekela’s current production is Songs of Migration .

Theatre Royal Stratford East

Theatre Royal Stratford East became world famous in the 50’s and 60’s as the home of the Theatre Workshop Company under the direction of Joan Littlewood. Her productions of new shows such as A Taste of Honey, The Hostage and Oh, What a Lovely War brought a much-needed lift to British drama, all of them transferring to the West End from Stratford East. In the 90’s Five Guys Named Moe followed this trend - the fourth Stratford East production to do so in ten years, followed by The Invisible Man and The Big Life which opened at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in 2005. This tradition of adventurous new work still informs TRSE’s productions today and adds to the theatre’s well-earned reputation as a crucible for the West End.

Theatre Royal Stratford East produced The Harder They Come with UK Arts International and opened the show at its theatre in 2006.

If you would like to find out more about Theatre Royal Stratford East please click here

To view the online brochure for The Harder They Come please click here

TTwo

Two Gents Productions

Two Gents Productions was established in 2007 as they collaborated on Vakomana Vavirive Zimbabwe or Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare. Marrying their differing cultural backgrounds and point of view, they soon found common ground with their audience-centered, physically engaging yet technically minimalist theatrical style that came to fruition through Vakomana. The company has since performed their breakthrough show in a successful run at the Oval House Theatre, London, followed by a UK-wide tour.

The company is made up of Denton Chikura, Tonderai Munyevu and Arne Pohlmeier. Between them they have consolidated years of experience in acting, devising and directing to create shows of beautiful, beguiling simplicity that effortlessly fuse the old with the new, the canonical with the contemporary.

Two Gents' current productions are Kupenga Kwa Hamlet, Magetsi , The Moors Project and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

If you would like to find out more about Two Gents Productions please click here

To view Two Gents Productions online brochure click here

Farber Foundry

Yael Farber is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed director and playwright; Farber Foundry is her company.

Farber was named the Standard Bank Artist of the Year in South Africa in 2003 and has subsequently toured her three major testimonial-based works worldwide, resulting in the published collection ‘THEATRE AS WITNESS: Three Testimonial Plays from South Africa' from Oberon Books. She has created a singular body of highly acclaimed original works that have toured extensively, earning her a reputation among the world's finest directors for challenging work of the highest artistic standard.

Farber Foundry's current productions are Amajuba , A Woman In Waiting and Molora .

Quick Links

Dada Masilo