The Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival, the Western Cape’s greatest staging of fresh, innovative developmental theatre, will take the stages, through to 1 April 2023.
Dance, drama, music and poetry will permeate and reverberate through The Baxter! The annual Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival will showcase 37 productions and 189 participants, who will entertain, captivate and intrigue audiences.
Now in its 13th year, this year’s festival is the product of the successful hybrid mentorship programmes launched during the COVID-19 lockdown. The programme saw script writing mentorship for writers and mentorship workshops for directors, to ensure the finest in trailblazing theatre. This year the mentorship collaboration has extended with double the number of mentor’s offering support to each of the main festival productions. The main festival programme includes themes of tradition, culture and identity.
This year, the festival will pay tribute to writer, actor, director and mentor, Khayalethu Anthony, who passed away in September 2022. Anthony’s work won the Best of Zabalaza award in 2013 and was published by Junket Publishers in 2014. The Champion also won the Fresh Award for Writing in the 2017 Cape Town Fringe Festival. He was the founder of the Imbawula Theatre Company in Khayelitsha. Khayalethu performed with Dame Janet Suzman in Baxter CEO and artistic director, Lara Foot’s, award-winning two-hander, Solomon and Marion, at The Baxter and abroad.
The 37 productions on the main festival, takes place from Monday 27 to Friday 31 March, with performances at 9.45am, 11am, 12pm and 7pm daily. These productions were selected after months of mentorship and development culminating in mini festivals which took place over three weekends at the end of November and early in December at the Baxter Concert Hall, Makukhanye Art Room in Khayalitsha, the French Alliance in Mitchell’s Plain, Black Box Theatre, Delft Rent Office in Delft, and Masambe at The Baxter respectively.
Curated by award-winning director Mdu Kweyama, along with Zabalaza team members Imameleng Masitha (festival administrator), Bulelani Mabutyana (coordinator), Nonsikelelo Maboza (audience development) and Katharina Rosch (dramaturg). The festival will culminate in a gala awards ceremony, on 1 April where accolades will be handed to various artists and productions and the Best of Zabalaza winner will be announced. The winner will enjoy a two-week run at The Baxter in August 2023.
For over a decade the Baxter Zabalaza Festival has grown and developed young theatre-makers and artists, many who have gone on to receive recognition and accolades in the local (and in some cases, international), theatre landscape.
WHAT: Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival
WHERE: Baxter Theatre Centre,
WHEN: until 1 April 2023
TICKETS: Tickets to the main festival are R30 each or R45 for two shows for schools and organisations only. They are available through Webtickets and at Pick n Pay stores
INFO: T 021 680 3871 | Visit I Facebook | Twitter
PHOTO: Back to Ashes Pic by Imameleng Masitha
The Zabalaza Theatre Festival is generously supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the Western Cape Government, National Arts Council of South Africa, an agency of the national Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, through the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme, the Distell Foundation, the HCI Foundation and Pick n Pay, while the script of the winner of the Best of Zabalaza is published annually by Junkets Publisher.
