Playwright Athol Fugard Dies at Age 92

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that South African playwright, novelist, and actor, Athol Fugard, has died at age 92. Some of his best known work included Blood knot (1961), The Island (1973), and Mr. Harold…and the Boys (1982).

Fugard was widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright, and he published more than thirty plays, mostly with political themes opposing the system of apartheid. He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2011.

His novel Tsotsi was adapted as a film of the same name, which won an Academy Award in 2005.  Outside of his own work, Fugard had a number of cameo film roles, most notably as General Smuts in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), and as Doctor Sundesval in Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields (1984). He was also the subject of a major documentary directed by Tony Palmer and produced by Eric Abraham and David Elstein called Falls the Shadow (2012).

Fugard received many awards, honours, and honorary degrees, including the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver from the government of South Africa in 2005. He was also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Fugard was honoured in Cape Town with the opening in 2010 of the Fugard Theatre in District Six. 

In April 2014, he returned to the stage in the world premiere of his The Shadow of a Hummingbird at the Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven. 

Fugard also served as an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego.