Saturday, 7 December 2019
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Living the Word
In primary school in the 1970’s I wrote a composition for the June examination that was read to the assembled school by the principal on the day that we returned after the holidays. As I listened I realised that I had written it and I began to notice the reactions of my peers. At that moment I knew that this was what I was meant to do.
Since then I have honed my craft on the streets and in the gutters; in the ghetto and the ghetto hotels; with passion and certifiable insanity. One of my first short stories won a competition in a daily newspaper while I was still at school and my poetry has been published in various compilations and anthologies as well as the African arts and culture magazine Rootz.
I have been writing professionally for theatre since 1996 when I was commissioned to write a children’s play for the North West Cultural Calabash Festival. My first feature play was the only South African entrant to be short-listed for the 1997 British Council International New Playwright Competition. I have since worked on various documentaries and stage productions including an original adaptation of Can Themba’s short story ‘The Suit’, as well as the pop-opera ‘Torong – A place to dream’ which I wrote, composed and directed. My theatre credits include writing and co-directing the musical ‘Maloba – Memoirs of a Nation’, ‘Waiting’ which I also produced and premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2008, ‘Live rAGE’ which was a birthday tribute to the poet and writer James Matthews and ‘Progres’ inspired by the life and work of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
I have written for television and radio as well as various South African newspapers and magazines and I am currently working on my debut novel entitled ‘A Tale of Extra-Ordinary Madness’ while co-ordinating an arts project at an underprivileged primary school in the Eastern Cape.