Drama company gives new actors a leg up
Anew drama company, a collaboration between the Market Theatre Laboratory and the Windybrow Arts Centre, will offer trained actors a professional career.
“We’re busy with auditions,” says Clara Vaughan, head of the Market Lab, who hopes that for a few of their graduates from the past five years the company will function as a bridge at the beginning of their professional lives.
“For actors, there are no structures in place,” she says, especially for newbies.
The company, which will be based at the Windybrow Arts Centre, will consist of six young people — four from the Lab and two from other institutions. Vaughan is excited that two British actors who participated in a collaboration with the Lab have also applied.
The Market Theatre Foundation has appointed Keituletse Gwangwa as the head of the Windybrow Arts Centre. She will run the company with Vaughan, and the Market Lab will contribute to programming, partnerships and operations.
The new drama company’s programme will include productions, workshops and teaching opportunities. The aim is to select six actors who have the skills to work without outside intervention, while more experienced actors will be brought in for specific programmes.
Already in the planning stages is a programme for a recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theatre fellowship, which provides travel opportunities for enterprising young theatre directors to immerse themselves in artistic experiences. This director will stage Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors with the company in collaboration with PopArt.
They are also looking at a site-specific work that investigates the history of the historic building that will become their home for a year.
The new as yet unnamed theatre company envisions collaborations with Gerard Bester and the Hillbrow Theatre Community Centre.
Vaughan says that with Windybrow and the Market Lab working in the same area geographically and philosophically, they want to ensure they complement rather than replicate services. “There’s such a need,” she says.
The actors will benefit from their teaching experience. Some Lab students participated in the Hillbrow Theatre’s Inner-City Festival, discovering their skills and love of directing.
“One of our students codirected the winning production last year,” says Vaughan.
The students and graduates are guided gently into the industry where possible. There will be learning experiences for actors who become members of the company to work with one company of actors for a year in a diversity of projects — something that is regarded as a necessity in the industry to learn, develop and grow.
The other expanding enterprise at the Lab is its acting class for anyone over 16. “It is so oversubscribed,” says Vaughan, which tells her that there’s a need for affordable classes.
The Lab offers a 12-week course that runs on Saturdays and attracts a diversity of people across race, gender and age groups. “The diversity is exciting,” says Vaughan, who explains that anyone — from actors in soap operas to people who have always wanted to act but have never had any coaching — can apply for the course.
For the Lab, the course is a way to generate money for other projects and an investment in growing its audiences.
Audiences that are invested in the acting process are loyal and interested.
“It’s as if they suddenly care about acting and it’s not just someone randomly attending one of our shows. They’re invested, which means they will keep coming back,” Vaughan says. But they also learn, and some stay on for more courses after the first round.
The Lab students will be working on exciting projects while learning their craft. Vaughan has obtained the services of actor Andrew Buckland to work with the students.
Like Leila Henriques, who directed the successful Hani, The Legacy with Lab students, Vaughan believes it’s important to use the resources available to them. “Just think of the skills we’re tapping into,” she says, pointing to people such as Dorothy Ann Gould and others, who invested time and skill in the Market Lab over the years.
Another avenue Vaughan is keeping on point is international collaborations after witnessing what their UK experience taught her students in 2017. She says she can see how they internalise everything they have experienced and learnt.
She is hoping to work with the Market Photo Workshop on a collaboration with a New York Instagram outfit, which has the handle Everyday Africa. It seems the perfect fit and will hopefully turn into another great learning experience that the soon-to-be graduates can pass on.
While there’s immediate opportunity for only a few at the Market Lab, every student who walks through its Newtown doors can reach larger audiences on many diverse levels.