‘Reading Gay’ set to sizzle at UJ’s Con Cowan Theatre

In celebration of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) History Month, the month-long annual observance of LGBT history, gay rights and related civil rights movements, UJ Arts and Culture in collaboration with the Artscape New Writing Programme proudly presents READING GAY, presents a season of staged readings of multi-award winning new South African gay plays from 26 to 30 October 2011.

The plays in the season all feature in “SA Gay Plays 1” compiled by Robin Malan and published by through his independent press, Junkets Publisher. “The social issues addressed in the collection include more than just LGBT themes,” says Grace Meadows who is the Manager of Performing Arts at UJ and the producer of the season of readings. “Sexual awakening, issues of identity and abandonment are interlaced with the added grit of revenge, passion and sex. Most important of all is that the work is young, fresh and compelling,” she adds.

The Season Director of READING GAY is Alby Michaels who has pulled together a formidable team of new young directors, UJ students, UJ alumni and professional guest performers to tackle the five plays:

• Wednesday 26 October at 19:30: Capetownian Jade Bowers directs "The Boy Who Fell from the Roof" (2007) by Juliet Jenkin leads the line-up. A heartfelt story about a boy, Simon, who, with his best friend, Georgina, falls into the cold bath waters of homosexuality, race, love, death and growing up in contemporary Cape Town.

• Thursday 27 at 19:30: UJ Arts Academy alumnus Motlatji Ditodi directs Gideon van Eeden’s "Myth of Andrew & Jo" (2010) which is the last of the plays in the collection which toured to Dublin. A contemporary tale of a gay couple, a lesbian couple and a pregnancy – how will the live, how will they love and how will they laugh?

• Friday 28 October at 19:30: Musical Theatre star Neels Clasen directs Ashraf Johaardien’s “Happy Endings Are Extra,” (2006) which was the first of the plays in the collection to be invited to Dublin. A provocative story of love and betrayal unravels as one man comes to terms with the life he’s leading and the one he’s left behind.

• Saturday 29 October at 19:30: Alby Micheals, who is the resident Director of the UJ Arts Academy, takes on "Dalliances" (2008) by Pieter Jacobs. Leo and Janet are friends. Ken is involved with Andy. When Ken meets Leo and make out in a lift, the lives of these four characters intersect with extraordinary results. Jacobs scooped the KKNK Nagtegaal Debut Prize for his Afikaans play “Plofstof” earlier this year.

• Sunday 30 October at 16:00: television personality, Jacques Bessenger who plays Renier in Erfsondes 2 on SABC2 directs the lesbian themed "Careful" (2009) by the late Fiona Coyne. "Careful" was her last play. “(It is) about woman and lesbianism, about friendship and fear, or fear and friendship, and being willing to take the risk to care, both about oneself and others.” (Fiona Coyne) “This season is a precursor to the PLAYING GAY Festival we are planning for next year; a multi-layered and textured smorgasbord of performing and visual arts aimed at social interchange,” says playwright Johaardien who is also the new Head of Arts and Culture at UJ.
READING GAY is supported by LIBERATI, UJ’s LGBT student society and Babylon Bar, Gauteng’s premier gay clubbing experience. Readings are each on for one night only at the Con Cowan Theatre located at UJ’s Bunting Road Campus (adjacent to the SABC in Auckland Park). Tickets are available at R30 for public audiences and R20 for valid student card holders through Computicket. Season Tickets at R100 for all five plays are available from the UJ Arts Centre on the Kingsway campus. For further details contact 011 559 3058 or visit www.uj.ac.za/artscentre.

Alby Michaels

Alby has been performing from a young age- whether with or without an audience. In 1998 he graduated at the University of Pretoria, cum laude, and made his professional debut that same year in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, according to him – a good omen.
Highlights of his stage career include Vonke Uit die Vuurklip, in which his portrayal of Stefanus earned him a Vita award nomination in 1999, Amy’s View (Toby) directed by Alan Swerdlow in 1999, Adamas (Adam) directed by Louw Verwey in 2001, Skilpoppe (Ching Kung) directed by Lizz Meiring in 2001, Jo’burg Zoo Storie (Albie) directed by Christo Compion in 2000, Vlerkdans (Anton) directed by Lizz Meiring in 2001, Macbeth (Malcolm) directed by Janice Honeyman in 2000, The Artful Dodger (Oliver Twist) 2002 and Alan Strang in Equus, directed by Thorsten Wedekind in 2011. The small screen beckoned in 1998, when Alby made his television debut as Eugene in Die Netwerk. His credits include Jozi Streets (2004), Binnelanders (2005) and 7de Laan (2006) as well as Luke Taylor in One Way in 2006/2007.

In 2003, Alby joined the Business Against Crime campaign as co-creator and artistic director of the educational theatre project, No Time for Crime. Not only where the learners exposed to groundbreaking edutainment, but also took part in several Youth Against Crime Festivals across South Africa. He received a School Enrichment Award in 2006 for his efforts and contribution.
Although his portfolio reflects a range of diverse projects, it is directing that offers the greatest career satisfaction. South African theatre audiences have experienced Alby’s disciplined attention to detail and abundance of creativity in shows such as Jozi (2002), You Cant Keep a Good Love Down (2003), SING with Tobie Cronje, Lizz Meiring and Terrence Bridget (2008/2010), Vrou in die Maan for Lizz Meiring (2009), Youth Oratorio composed by Jeanine Zaidel-Rudolf (2009), It Takes Two for Rocco De Villiers (2009), The Crucible for Promusica (2011) and [K]not for Eloise Clasen (2011).

Alby sites his involvement with the University of Johannesburg Arts Academy as the most rewarding experience of his career thus far. He joined the Academy in 2004 as Resident Director, describing it as the perfect environment in which to live and express his passion for directing as well as education and training. Highlights from the 27 productions he has directed for the academy include; Die Keiser (2004), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (2004), Metamorphoses (2006), We Shall Sing for the Fatherland (2006), Cabaret (2007), Our Town (2007), African Dust (2008), Jozi Ma Sweetie! (2009), The Far Off Off Broadway (FOOB) Festival (2011) and Flash – a musical blog (2011).

Neels Clasen

Neels Clasen has been an active member of the South African entertainment business for the past twelve years. During this time, he has made his marks as actor, singer, director, writer and lecturer. His most notable theatrical acting credits include leading roles in musicals like FAME (2003), WE WILL ROCK YOU (2006 – 2008 both locally and abroad) and MAMMA MIA (2010). In the musical theatre genre, Neels has also been seen in numerous Barnyard Theatre productions as well as three Janice Honeyman pantomimes at the Joburg Theatre.
Between 2006 and 2008, Neels was co-writer and actor on the comedy series KOMPLEKS I & II, nominated for four SAFTA awards including best writing and best comedy series. Other television credits include CINEMAGIC (presented with Barry Ronge), DIE CASPER RASPER SHOW, SOUL BUDDYZ (2005 – 2007), ZERO TOLERANCE, ISISDINGO and currently BINNELAND. Feature films include SLASH, SECRET OF THE WHALES and PLATTELAND, due to be released later this year.

Neels Clasen has directed numerous theatrical plays, musicals and corporate entertainment events. During his time as lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology, he directed HELLO AND GOODBYE, NAG VAN LEGIO, WAITING FOR GODOT, ROOIKEPPIE AND THE SEVEN BERGIES as well as his acclaimed production of RENT in 2009. Other Directing highlights include Bruce J. Little’s THE LITTLE POOF I & II, FRIDA KAHLO’S EYES and numerous musical revue shows written and directed, for the Barnyard Theatre, Peermont Casino group and uShaka Marine World.

“I’m incredibly excited about HAPPY ENDINGS ARE EXTRA. I think it’s a brilliant play dealing with so many levels of the human condition. I’m truly looking forward to the reaction this play will evoke”.

Jacques Bessenger

Jacques Bessenger, a drama graduate from TUT, is a well-known face in the South African performing industry. He is best known for his roles in Song vir Katryn (Mossie) and Erfsondes 2,3&4 (Renier) SABC 2. He has also acted supporting roles in local TV series and soaps like Binnelanders, 7de Laan, Getroud met rugby, Villa Rosa, Justice for All, Jozi Streets and Thisa. He is also known for his part as Matthew Dekker in the SABC mini series House of love. Earlier this year he worked on a feature film, ‘Ordinary People’ which will be released world wide in April 2012. His passion for stage has seen him in productions like The Crucible (playing both minister Paris and Hale), The quiet violence of dreams (Grahamstown), The Zoo Story (Grahamstown), Die Afrikaner with Guys de Villiers, Varkdop (KKNK), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Lead), Die Kabaret with Amanda Strydom (Aardklop), Loving Apollo and For whom the Southern Bell Tolls. His educational theatre experience includes productions such as Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Kringe in ‘n bos, Die keiser and various productions for the ATKV Children’s Theatre Company.

He is well experienced in the industrial and corporate theatre industry having worked for companies such as Eskom, The Nelson Mandela Foundation 46664, Hewlett Packard, Olthaver and List in Namibia, Department of Economics and productions for Bluemoon productions. As a director he directed the ACT/DALRO/Nedbank Scholarship Final programme for 2010 and 2011, Ligte Uit- a cabaret and educational programs.

Motlatji Ditodi

Motlatji Ditodi has been performing since the age of 3 throughout primary- and high-school. While completing her BA (Audiovisual Production Management) degree at the University of Johannesburg, she became a member of the (then) RAU Song and Dance, RAU Dramatic, and RAU Contemporary Dance companies. As a student, she played various lead roles in the productions Anything Goes, Jump for Joy (written and directed by Ian Von Memerty), West Side Story, and Cabaret. As a singer she performed with Rocco de Villiers, Antoinette Kellerman (Spier Arts Festival) and with jazz diva, Abigail Khubeka, in Black Street Jazz. She’s taken part in various projects under the WITS Drama For Life programme, notably being a current member of the DFL Playback Theatre Company. Television credits include playing Nombulelo in the SABC 2 sitcom Askies, as well as soon to be aired Thembi in the SABC 1 drama Zone 14.
She’s had some directing exposure from being Assistant Director to Alby Michaels (Resident Director at UJ – APK Campus). She assisted the UJ Drama and UJ Song and Dance company productions of The Far Off-Off Broadway Play Festival, and Flash – A Musical Blog respectively in 2011. Myth of Andrew and Jo will be her directing debut.

Jade Bowers

Jade Bowers graduated from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Drama and Sociology, she is currently doing her Honours degree at the University of the Witwatersrand with a focus on directing and design for the stage.
She has worked as a production manager, stage manager, festival director for WALE 4.0, director and designer.

Bowers has worked with the likes of Jay Pather, Mwenya Kabwe, Daniel Galloway, Ashraf Johaardien and Janni Younge.
She currently has her own production company, Jade Bowers Design and Management.

UJ ARTS & CULTURE is a world-class professional receiving house and performing arts training facility offering a diverse range of vocational programmes, hands-on practical training and community outreach programmes on all four UJ campuses. Facilities include the UJ Arts Centre including the Main Theatre, Gallery and Studios as well as the Experimental Theatre on UJ's Kingsway Campus and the Con Cowan Theatre and studios on the Bunting Road Campus.

Worldclass Crucible opens at Promusica

On the first day of Lent the curtain lifted on one of the best non-commercial theatre productions we have seen in this province for a very a long time – and, there were not ONE Naledi judge present to bear witness to a night of thespian genius. Were they sleeping off their hangovers following the Awards night 48 hours ago? Who knows. But, what I know and am grateful for - and what they do not know - is that tonight's audiencve shared the first night thrill of a magnificent staging of this classic work and also the debut of 10 new young serious stars as we haven’t seen young stars shining on our stages in many years.

This Arthur Miller play uses one of the most awful chapters in human history – in 1692 in the United States town of Salem in Massachusetts, this strange piece of history about witch hunts and hangings played itself out and, the story found its echoes again in post- WWII America as American fear of Germans and Japanese was transferred onto the communist Soviet Union. Though the Soviets had been their allies during the war, Americans began to see them as a threat. The Soviets had a nuclear bomb and were aggressively expanding their influence into Europe and Africa. China was soon taken over by communists.

The American Communist Party, other left-wing organizations, and minority groups - including African-Americans, Native Americans, and various immigrant groups - became targets of suspicion, surveillance, and infiltration. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's trial and execution for conspiring to steal secrets of the atomic bomb convinced many Americans that communist spies were among them. Propaganda films such as "Red Nightmare" and "Duck and Cover" further fueled this anxiety. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 expanded the battle, authorizing financial support for foreign governments fighting communism.

The Rosenbergs stoically maintained their innocence throughout the length of the trial and appeals. They were executed by the electric chair on June 19, 1953. Up to this day nobody really knows If indeed they were innocent but what we do know is that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct and that Ethel Rosenberg was convicted on the most flimsy of evidence to place leverage on her husband; and neither deserved the death penalty.

It is against this background that Arthur Miller revisited the Salem Witch Trials and delivered to the world a classic allegory in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are represented by the character of John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor. They too, in the end, go their deaths as innocent victims of a public hysteria in which many men and women were sent to the gallows for the alleged and ipso facto crime of being witches. What makes this shameful period off atrocity even more shocking is that these brutal and unfounded punishments for an invisible crime all stemmed from the allegations of a handful of teenage girls.

On the other side of the world and hundreds of years later, in our own beloved country, in the Eastern Cape and the Limpopo province , an epidemic of witchcraft accusations have prevailed since the demise of Apartheid. This has led to mock trials (kangaroo courts) and has seen refugees feeling for their lives – destroying not only families but also crippling society in general.

I am only mentioning Alby Michael's, the director of the – if otherwise, I will have to list dozens of names on whom praise needs to be bestowed. Michael’s conceptualization of the play, having the same actors play different characters using masks as in the classic Greek theatre, is to say the least, breathtaking. The production and lighting design by Kosie House of Theatre are breathtakingly simple an dramatic. Just to mention one of the many moments of genius: The prison bars in the last act becomes glockenspiel, evoking the sounds of church bells – and cleverly one is never quite sure for whom the bells are tolling - for the accusers or the accused?

Music for the production was specially composed and arranged by Dawid Boverhoff – and, the genius of the direction, design and lighting also runs through every bit of the magnificent sound that is created in tandem with the drama. The director/ composer also uses the device of a fiddler on the stage – the fiddler playing little melody lines around the characters as the play evolves, bringing to mind memories of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, The Devil's Fiddler and A Fiddler's Tale among many similar works.

I can continue heaping praise on this tour de force of an entire company but, I need not. It will speak for itself, for in this production the devil is to be found in the exquisite detail and a mighty fine reading of Arthur Miller!

On the first day of Lent the curtain lifted on one of the best non-commercial theatre productions we have seen in this province for a very a long time – and, there were not ONE Naledi judge present to bear witness to a night of thespian genius. Were they sleeping off their hangovers following the Awards night 48 hours ago? Who knows. But, what I know and am grateful for - and what they do not know - is that tonight's audiencve shared the first night thrill of a magnificent staging of this classic work and also the debut of 10 new young serious stars as we haven’t seen young stars shining on our stages in many years.

This Arthur Miller play uses one of the most awful chapters in human history – in 1692 in the United States town of Salem in Massachusetts, this strange piece of history about witch hunts and hangings played itself out and, the story found its echoes again in post- WWII America as American fear of Germans and Japanese was transferred onto the communist Soviet Union. Though the Soviets had been their allies during the war, Americans began to see them as a threat. The Soviets had a nuclear bomb and were aggressively expanding their influence into Europe and Africa. China was soon taken over by communists.

The American Communist Party, other left-wing organizations, and minority groups - including African-Americans, Native Americans, and various immigrant groups - became targets of suspicion, surveillance, and infiltration. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's trial and execution for conspiring to steal secrets of the atomic bomb convinced many Americans that communist spies were among them. Propaganda films such as "Red Nightmare" and "Duck and Cover" further fueled this anxiety. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 expanded the battle, authorizing financial support for foreign governments fighting communism.

The Rosenbergs stoically maintained their innocence throughout the length of the trial and appeals. They were executed by the electric chair on June 19, 1953. Up to this day nobody really knows If indeed they were innocent but what we do know is that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct and that Ethel Rosenberg was convicted on the most flimsy of evidence to place leverage on her husband; and neither deserved the death penalty.

It is against this background that Arthur Miller revisited the Salem Witch Trials and delivered to the world a classic allegory in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are represented by the character of John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor. They too, in the end, go their deaths as innocent victims of a public hysteria in which many men and women were sent to the gallows for the alleged and ipso facto crime of being witches. What makes this shameful period off atrocity even more shocking is that these brutal and unfounded punishments for an invisible crime all stemmed from the allegations of a handful of teenage girls.

On the other side of the world and hundreds of years later, in our own beloved country, in the Eastern Cape and the Limpopo province , an epidemic of witchcraft accusations have prevailed since the demise of Apartheid. This has led to mock trials (kangaroo courts) and has seen refugees feeling for their lives – destroying not only families but also crippling society in general.

I am only mentioning Alby Michael's, the director of the – if otherwise, I will have to list dozens of names on whom praise needs to be bestowed. Michael’s conceptualization of the play, having the same actors play different characters using masks as in the classic Greek theatre, is to say the least, breathtaking. The production and lighting design by Kosie House of Theatre are breathtakingly simple an dramatic. Just to mention one of the many moments of genius: The prison bars in the last act becomes glockenspiel, evoking the sounds of church bells – and cleverly one is never quite sure for whom the bells are tolling - for the accusers or the accused?

Music for the production was specially composed and arranged by Dawid Boverhoff – and, the genius of the direction, design and lighting also runs through every bit of the magnificent sound that is created in tandem with the drama. The director/ composer also uses the device of a fiddler on the stage – the fiddler playing little melody lines around the characters as the play evolves, bringing to mind memories of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, The Devil's Fiddler and A Fiddler's Tale among many similar works.

I can continue heaping praise on this tour de force of an entire company but, I need not. It will speak for itself, for in this production the devil is to be found in the exquisite detail and a mighty fine reading of Arthur Miller!

.