Alexander Upstairs Theatre Looks Back at 2014

By the end of 2014, Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre will have hosted 98 music and theatre productions, selling 11 670 tickets for 407 performances. With numbers up from 2013, during which 10 040 tickets were sold for 338 performances, this makes the venue one of the busiest fringe performance spaces in Cape Town. Programming has settled more into a rhythm, so the theatre hosted fewer once-off performances than in 2013, with longer runs for many shows. A intense schedule of two shows per night has also been cemented.

Based on audience responses, the highest rated show of the year was Jemma Kahn's THE EPICENE BUTCHER, which returns in January 2015, and the highest earner was Oskar Brown's BETWEEN, which recently had a sold-out run at the King's Head in London. More Johannesburg productions were hosted in 2014 compared to 2013, including THE EPICENE BUTCHER, Diane Simpson's ROSE RED, Mpapa Simo Majola's THE FUNERAL, Jannes Eras­mus's SMAARTIES and BOYLESQUE.

New writing that debuted at the Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre included Jon Keevy's DIRTY WORDS, Louis Viljoen's THE KINGMAKERS, Genna Gardini's THE SWELL, Tara Notcutt's LAST ROUNDS, Megan Furniss and Lynita Crofford's adaptation of VIOLET ONLINE and Thoko Masikini's MODERN AFRICAN. Highlights also included the venue's own productions in the theatre, including CIVIL PARTING, DIRTY WORDS and STEALING THE SHOW: BETTE MIDLER.

PLAY THINGS, the theatre's monthly open mic performance evening has settled into an institution. Many artists returned to this experimental platform in 2014 and the bar hopes to replicate anarchic energy of the early PLAY THINGS events, challenging artists not to be safe in their presentations. Two performances from PLAY THINGS developed into full productions this year, DIRTY WORDS and MODERN AFRICAN. Gabriella Pinto and Kelly-Eve Koopman will bring their PLAY THINGS seedling RUN FOR YOUR LIFE to bloom in January 2015.

ANTHOLOGY was hatched by Nicholas Spagnoletti and Louis Viljoen in bar, featuring short plays by different local writers on platform. The first of these ran in the second week of December and was a resounding success. They were joined by Candice D'Arcy to create three 20 minute plays performed by Brendon Daniels, Adrian Collins, and Amy Wilson. The next ANOTHOLOGY is tentatively scheduled for May.
The Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre ran their second annual pre-National Arts Festival season featuring 12 different shows headed up to the frozen city of Grahamstown. The stay-in-CT punters got a taste of what they were missing and the producers got to practise sharing tight get-in times and get some petrol money. The venue was also hosted productions during the first Cape Town Fringe. It was an exciting project and Nicci Spalding's technical and logistical wizardry helped to steamline the venue to meet the festival's requirements. The Upstairs Theatre's management and staff hope that more independent venues join them to make the Fringe the festival Cape Town deserves, hosting a wide variety of theatre-makers from different backgrounds and forms in the venue, bringing in a diverse audience.

With so much excellent theatre in the first week of December, including WAR HORSE on the grand Artscape stage, Louis Viljoen's THE PERVERT LAURA, Rob van Vuuren's WHATWHAT, Chris Weare's direction of George Brant's GROUNDED and the graduating students of UCT presenting UHM, the venue eschewed a second mini-festival in December despite the success of it in 2013,

Spagnoletti and Van Kuik's software laboratory, Nitric Industries, continued to develop the tools that make Alexander Upstairs run so smoothly. Audience feedback is slickly collected by email and presented for producers to examine. No other theatre in the Mother City can come close to the integration of ticket sales, marketing management and producer transparency of the Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre. With a great deal more to be accomplishe in this area, 2015 will be an exciting year for the venue and theatres in South Africa.

Keevy was selected to participate in a new project by British Council Connect ZA, Business Arts South Africa (BASA, who gave Alexander Bar a Small Business award in 2013) and the Arts Marketing Association (the AMA, a UK based network of marketers figuring out how to bring together artists and audiences). This project saw him and three other South Africans travel to Cambridge and London to take part in arts marketing training and conferences. This is an ongoing project for 2015 and will be the start of great opportunities for South African arts administrators.

Hugo became the night manager of the theatre, moving up from Front of House to technician to second in command.

The Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre spent their first year working out the space they occupy in Cape Town; in 2014, the venue found its rhythm, making a firm foundation upon which to build next year. 2015 will see things being shaken up again as the venue pushes to get more new and emerging artists into the venue, with a strong focus on new writing, resurrecting our play reading program and pushing PLAY THINGS and ANTHOLOGY.

The Alexander Bar and Café is situated on 76 Strand Street in Cape Town's CBD. Book securely online with a credit card for any show at Alexander Upstairs by visiting shows.alexanderbar.co.za or purchase tickets in person at the bar anytime during its regular opening hours on Mondays through Saturdays from 11am to 1am. For telephone bookings and enquiries, call 021 300 1652. Strictly no under 18s are allowed in the venue due to the terms of the liquor license. Sandwiches, light meals, cheese boards and snacks served til midnight, with the menu available here. Follow the Alexander Bar and Café on Facebook (facebook.com/AlexanderBarCT) and Twitter (@AlexanderBarCT).