PUSH FOR NEW DRAMA TALENT
Actors Mavuso and Sekhabi revive festival
AWARD-winning thespians Meshack Mavuso and Aubrey Sekhabi have teamed up to revive an almost forgotten school culture and drama festival.
The two, who have established profiles in the theatre industry, have created a platform for talented young school goers – the School Drama Festival.
Luminaries Napo Masheane, Baby Cele and Peter Mashigo, have been appointed as judges to sift through the talent that is worthy of training and mentorship.
Some 45 township schools from Ekurhuleni, Vaal, Soweto, Tshwane, and Motsweding have participated.
Since this year the country had marked 40 years since the June 16 student uprising, schools were asked to interpret the events of that fateful day and produce a play.
It further required them to look at how it relates to the shift we are seeing in our education landscape right now.
Sekhabi explains: “We wanted young people to interpret the situation, and bring it back to today.
“We wanted them to come up with solutions of how we move forward.
“The idea is to urge the young to look to the past in order to reimagine their present and future.
“With education being a hot topic in our country right now, and youth rising up to defend a cause, the time has never been better to interrogate what it means to be a young person in South Africa today,” adds Mavuso.
Both theatre experts are chuffed that schools have interpreted the theme well and produced great talent in the process.
The winning school will get an opportunity to work with an experienced director and scriptwriter.
They will present their production at the schools festival in Grahamstown.
“We are going to monitor them and make sure they grow in the industry, until they participate in community theatre festivals. We are going to get field workers to work and help them.”
Mavuso, an established TV and stage actor, says the platform is chosen as something people can relate to and he believes that there is a dearth of good, young actors.
“We have realised that many pretty faces who cannot act are dominating our television screens.
“A lot of people ditch their highly paying jobs so that they can appear on television.
“And because they look good on television, they are given roles and they think they can act,” Mavuso charges.
Sekhabi, the CEO of the State Theatre in Pretoria, who has also been an advocate of theatre development, believes that through drama festivals they can encourage township schools to offer drama classes.
Moreover, they want young people to be able to tell stories from their own communities and create a new history.
“We want to connect the young people with their stories. Theatre should comment on what is happening to create stories. In that way, young people will be taking theatre to another level.”
Mavuso believes that empowering children with acting skills will improve their academic performance.
He says pupils who do drama tend to excel academically because they are confident. “I have never gone to university or college to study acting. I would like to give younger children that opportunity.
“It is not everyone who can afford to go to acting school.”
The finals of the School Drama Festival will take place on November 26 at the State Theatre in Pretoria.