Paarlites at festival
2006-03-02
DEVELOPMENT theatre will celebrate its annual triumph when the Ikhwezi Community Theatre Festival bursts onto the boards of the Baxter Theatre Centre with 11 new plays from 2 to 18 March.
Two of the young directors, Andile Nebulane and Thami Mbongo hail from Paarl. Mbongo is the writer and director of Ubizo - Voices of elok’shini.
This gritty drama looks at the division between township and suburban life in a black society. It focuses on a reformed tsotsi who falls in love with a suburban girl who can't speak her own home language. There are many obstacles for these young lovers. Will they be able to overcome these complicated obstacles in order for them to live a happy life?
The programme for this year’s festival was launched in October last year with a comprehensive programme of workshops, during which 23 young directors were taken through their paces.
Intensive fortnightly two-day workshops were held, leading up to the festival, under the guidance of highly acclaimed local playwrights, directors and other theatre specialists.
The workshops formed the foundation of the overall vision of the Ikhwezi Festival as a community development project.
At the workshop directors were taken through the finer arts of the director’s task, such as duties of the director, pre-production planning, casting, rehearsals and the opening night.
This ongoing development culminates in the staging of 11 selected new and original plays during its run in the Baxter Sanlam Studio.
The festival celebrates the coming together of the best community-based drama groups in the Western and Eastern Cape, ranging from the townships of Cape Town, to Bellville, Paarl, East London and Port Elizabeth.
Ikhwezi is a Baxter Theatre Centre initiative started in 1998 and won the 2004 National Arts and Culture Trust’s Cultural Development Project of the Year Award.
The overall aims of the festival include developing critical thinking among audiences and theatre practitioners through the arts; popularising social programmes such as health, environment, education and human rights; using the arts to stimulate community initiatives; developing new playwrights in the Western Cape and to expose new and upcoming actors, writers and directors to mainstream theatre.
The festival runs daily with performances at 10:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 19:00 or 20:15. Book through Computicket or the Baxter Theatre Centre on 680-3989/685-7880.
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