Third SCrIBE Scriptwriting Competition Nurtures SA Playwrights, Now thru 4 Oct

The third SCrIBE Scriptwriting Competition has given five local playwrights a chance to develop their work, with three grand prizes to be won when their plays are staged at the Cape Town Fringe Festival this week. The top entries for this annual competition will have their plays presented at nightly staged readings, with a professional director and cast, from today, 30 September, to 3 October at the Garrick Theatre in the Waterfront Theatre School, with the winners being announced at an awards ceremony on 4 October. Each night will be hosted by a prominent member of the theatre community.

The Imbewu Trust created the SCrIBE Scriptwriting competition to provide new opportunities for local writers to fully develop their work.The trust is a non-profit organization which was established to promote the development of contemporary South African theatre and arts and to help showcase it on an international stage. It seeks to create an accessible community of varied voices that can flourish through collaboration, resourcefulness and innovation.

Co-founder of the Imbewu Trust, Sam de Romijn says, "A script may go through many versions before it is a production that is presented on stage. With SCrIBE, we wanted to facilitate that process for playwrights, enabling them to get feedback on, and therefore evolve their text." A number of previous entrants have gone on to rework their text as a result of the open readings, and some on to further professional runs. Now in its third year, the SCrIBE Script Writing Competition has amongst its long term goals the publishing of a collection of scripts from the SCrIBE Scriptwriting Competition.

The 2014 finalists are: LAST COW STANDING by Menzi Mkhwane, DIRT ROAD by Kim Sanssoucie, 4 SMALL GODS by Joanna Evans, MAN IN THE GREEN JACKET by Eliot Moleba, and THE GREAT BEGINNING by Thomas Hopkins.

LAST COW STANDING will be presented on Tuesday 30 September. The play is an epic fantasy about a young boy, Samira, who is chosen to save the dying cow herds of his people from perishing. It is the story of a hero's journey, whose challenges reflect on the youth of South Africa, the youthful nature of our democracy and how imperative it is to shift from looking to leadership for all the answers and begin to search within ourselves. Playwright Menzi Mkhwane is the son of celebrated South African theatre legend, Bheki Mkhwane and graduated Cum Laude at the Durban University Technology after completing a National Diploma in Drama Studies in 2010. After successfully completing his last year of training he was chosen as one of four South Africans selected to perform in Holland in a Dutch production of OLIVER TWIST that was coordinated by Emma Durdan, Roel Twijnstra and directed by Jolanda van der Spoel under Theatre Groep Siberia. He returned to South Africa the following year and embarked on his first professional Durban performance debut with his father. He then established the Nu-Breed Theatre Company with Sabelo Ndlovu and the pair created their first professional production, POCKETS OF KNOWLEDGE, which was nominated for Best New South African Script at the Durban Mercury Theatre Awards in 2012. He was then cast as one of six actors in the revival of the internationally acclaimed HORN OF SORROW by Nicholas Ellenbogen.

On Wednesday 1 October DIRT ROAD will be read. The play explores the idosyncratic relationship between tradition and modernity and is a quirky but inherently tragic love story set in contemporary Johannesburg, that follows the relationship between a Xhosa man and an English-speaking coloured woman. Kim Sanssoucie, the playwright, graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama and Performance and Media and Communications. Some of her theatre credits include lead roles in William Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and TWELFTH NIGHT as well as productions of CINDERELLA, Michael Frayn's NOISES OFF, JAMAICAN JAM, AND 5, 6, 7, 8.., THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DR FAUSTUS and PUSS IN BOOTS. She debuted as a writer with her stage play ORDERED LOVE, which was accepted to be performed at The Musho! Theatre Festival Fringe and has also co-written the children's theatre production, HOW RAINBOWS WORK. In 2013, Sanssoucie wrote and starred in THE DIRT ROAD, which debuted in Paris as part of the French Seasons 2013 Cultural Exchange Festival at the American University of Paris and the Lavoir Moderne Parisien Theatre, and 2014 saw the play make its African debut at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Sanssoucie founded her live performance production company Slice Bean Machine in late 2013, and THE DIRT ROAD is its flagship project.

On Thursday 2 October, it is the turn of 4 SMALL GODS. 4 SMALL GODS is a comic-tragedy that rewrites the ancient flood myth to examine contemporary relationships between people, animals and the earth. Barriers between species, as well as barriers of language and theatrical convention, are destabilised on a storm-tossed boat. Joanna Evans is a director, playwright and performer based in Cape Town. She graduated with distinction from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Theatre and Performance in Theatremaking. Her specialisation lies in the creation of new plays through a process of collaboration, improvisation and writing, and she creates theatre for children, youth and adults. She has been awarded the Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award for excellence for her production THE YEAR OF THE BICYCLE at the 2013 National Arts Festival, the award for Most Promising Student Director at the 2012 National Arts Festival and the 2012 Ruth Peffers Trophy for Theatremaking. With her children's theatre company Pillow Fort Productions, Evans created the first professional South African show for babies. Her plays have been performed at festivals in Italy, Germany and South Africa, and she has worked as an actor in residence in Yaounde, Cameroon for a UN funded project on migration. Evans's areas of interest include animal studies and, specifically, modes of representing animals in performance, puppetry and object theatre, script-development, theatre for the very young, and inter-generational and cross-cultural performance.

On Friday 3 October, there will be a double bill OF MAN IN THE GREEN JACKET and THE GREAT BEGINNING. MAN IN THE GREEN JACKET is a socio-political drama about a father and son living in the heart of the platinum belt. It examines how politics affect the personal, everyday, ordinary lives of miners and what it means to be a working class man and a father in today's South Africa. Eliot Moleba is a Johannesburg based playwright, theatre-maker and director. He studied his Dramatic Arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. Moleba uses theatre to address relevant social issues affecting young people, especially the relationship between the 'old' and 'new' South Africa and how the transition affects youth identity. He was recently one of the playwrights in residence for ASSITEJ SA's Inspiring A Generation programme, currently one of the playwrights in residence with The Royal Court Theatre, London, and an alumni of the Theatre Project with the DO School, Hamburg, Germany. Moleb's credits include PONDOLAND, HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT WOMAN, THE IMMIGRANT, A LETTER TO NELSON MANDELA, SIZWE BANZI IS ALIVE, KRAPP'S LAST LETTER and THE UNTITLED.

THE GREAT BEGINNING is a two-hander drama about a friendship between a writer, Travis Hawkins and lawyer, Charlie Andrews. It engages with the perceptions of 'what it is to be young', through the lens of two young people whose seemingly privileged lives belie the demons they face internally. Thomas Hopkins was born and grew up in Johannesburg. He attended De La Salle Holy Cross College where he studied Dramatic Arts as a matric subject and acted in many school productions. In his final year, he was made Head of House as well as Head of Debating and Head of Public Speaking. He was also awarded an Honours Blazer and received the Dux Proxime award for academics. Hopkins is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand and hopes to major in English Literature and History.

The overall winner will have their play professionally produced at a Cape Town theatre in 2015. Another winner will be able to have his or her script further developed, with a third prize - named the Scribblers Dream - being a a financial prize that enables the writer to work alongside a mentor to develop his or her script. Each of the finalists will benefit from the opportunity to have a discussion with and feedback from the public and members of the theatre industry as part of the readings. The panel of SCrIBE judges comprises a group of seasoned theatre practitioners.

Tickets for the SCrIBE Scriptwriting Competition readings cost R50 and bookings can be made at www.capetownfringe.co.za.

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