2016 Mentoring Directors
Tamara Guhrs - The Three Witches
Tamara is a drama, arts and culture educator/ facilitator with specialised interest in pan-African culture and environmental justice. She has written, co- written, directed and co-directed many plays after attaining her education at Rhodes university.
In the margins and on the fringe, rummaging through dustbins and cooking up a stink, three women watch the games of those in power, hedging their bets as a revolution brews. One of them is in labour. Another is searching for the face of the man who will rise to the top. The third is keeping record of it all. Or trying to. In this contemporary feminist re-imagining of Macbeth’s witches, the “Weird Sisters” possess prophetic powers only because they have seen it all before. But things have gone too far and a dark menacing force threatens their power. But whose rise are these strange sisters predicting, and what creature will be born when delivery comes?
Nelago Gloria Shilongoh – Kuku
Nelago Shilongoh is a theatre maker and performer with an Afrocentric approach to her work, reflecting interests and research in culture and identity. She is currently pursuing her BA Honours in Drama Studies & Visual Culture at the University of Namibia.
Kuku is an expression of the memories and lessons learnt, an inquiry into life, along with the love and guidance of a Grandmother.
“I was really attracted to the idea of directing and theatre making after staging my first written play Broken Butterflies in 2012, at the National Theatre of Namibia. For me it is not just about the end product of productions, but I also appreciate the making and rehearsal process, especially finding myself with other creatives and storytellers.”
Megan Godsell - Talking to Water
Currently studying for her MA Performance as Research- Participatory Theatre as a Receiver for Dangerous Memory at the University of the Witwatersrand- School of Dramatic Art.
“Escape the loneliness of your memories. Slip into the world of the Dirty Girls. These three Water Spirits are locked in the heart of a Dry Spell. They want only to forget, but they need you to help them remember. What is water? What does it do? What do you remember about it? The Dirty Girls have been hurt. They stopped looking back. Their home is in the Land of Rain but they cannot return there until they remember how to talk to Water. They hurt, so they forget. They dance and sing instead. They tell jokes instead, but they are drying out. If they don’t remember soon, if they cannot open the Rain Door they will turn to dust and blow away like so many others before them.
Meet Aps, Ona and Lena. Only you can save them. Leave your doubts and bring your umbrellas.”
Philisiwe Twinjistra - Mattie and Sis
Philisiwe is an actress, musician, emerging stage director and playwright. She resides in Durban. She was selected as one of the delegates in Women Playwrights International Conference. She was also part of a women’s festival in Johannesburg to stage her first adapted play Sugary Spice, which it was also selected for Uhuru International arts Festival in Durban, Currently she is writing her new South African script 'The Red Suitcase’ ‘Salty Pillows’ and a Novel. She just came back from Mozambique with her second award winning play Matty and Sis.
Matty and Sis is a tale of two sisters, like any other relationship they have issues and fights. They play games to keep the time in a distance and laugh together to soothe any sadness and guilt. As the play unfolds it is revealed that one of the sisters is dead, she keeps coming back every night to Matty’s bedroom because Matty cannot let go, cannot accept the reality. The touches on themes about life, guilty, love and death.
Momo Matsunyane - Penny
Momo Matsunyane matriculated from Sacred Heart College in 2005 and in 2007 she attended Wits University and completed an Honours Degree in Dramatic Arts, Film and Television in 2011.
“I look up to a few people like my father Neo M. and my aunt Kgomotso. They have taught me so much about this industry, about being professional and having a great work ethic as well as always doing everything to the best of my abilities. I am inspired by past Afrikan leaders who were executed because of what they stood for, they have taught me that silence and passivity doesn’t serve anyone and that it’s my responsibility to have a voice and to exercise it”
Penny explores some of the challenges faced by actors in trying to navigate the fickle business of show and some of the repercussions of mixing business with pleasure.
Sonia Thandazile Radebe - Broken Chants
Sonia Radebe believes in using the body to tell stories and, through them, to create dialogue and greater interconnectedness in society.
Radebe, who hails from White City, was introduced to dance by the Arco Dance Theatre in Soweto. She began her career as a professional dancer in 2001 with Moving into Dance Mophatong in Newtown. Radebe is passionate about training people with physical disabilities to explore and uncover the magic.
Her career has been punctuated by a number of accolades, most notably being acknowledged in 2007 by the Gauteng MEC for Arts and Culture as the Dance Umbrella’s Most Outstanding Female Dancer in Contemporary Style and in 2011 being awarded the Gauteng Dance Manyano Best Female Dancer of the Decade Award and won the 2015 Naledi Theatre Award for best Choreographer.