Photo Flash: Tricycle Presents Their South African Season 6/16-8/1

Following its critically acclaimed Afghanistan Festival, the Tricycle Theatre will present their South African Season (16 June - 1 August 2009) with the British premieres of the Baxter Theatre's Karoo Moose and David Kramer's Koos Sas: Last Bushman of Montagu.

BAXTER THEATRE'S KAROO MOOSE

The multi award-winning Karoo Moose is written and directed by Lara Foot Newton with set and lighting designs by Patrick Curtis choreography by Mdu Kweyama and music by Bongile Mantsai. Karoo Moose runs from 16 June until 11 July with press night on 16 June. In Johannesberg the production recently won eight Naledi Theatre Awards including Best New South African Play and Best Production of a Straight Play.

In a remote and impoverished village in the Karoo, South African, a young girl, Thozama, struggles to survive. A violent and terrifying incident and a chance encounter with an escaped moose change her life forever. A story of pain, redemption and hope, combining traditional African story telling and magical realism.

The South African cast, who will reprise their roles at the Tricycle, are Zoleka Helesi, Mdu Kweyama, Bongile Mantsai, Thami Mbongo, Chuma Sopotela and Mfundo Tshazibane.

Writer and director Lara Foot Newton won the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award in 1995 and went on to hold senior directing posts at the Market Theatre from 1996 to 2000. She has directed more than 35 productions, 25 of which have been new South African works including a staging of Zakes Mda's novel Ways of Dying and her own creations Tschepang and Hear and Now. Contemporary classics she has directed are Equus, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire and Waiting for Godot. In 2002 she teamed up with Gerhard Marx in an artistic collaboration entitled Duckrabbit. Their production of Hear and Now toured South Africa and Sweden in 2005. Their short film And There in the Dust has won six international film awards, including two recent South African Film and Television awards (SAFTA) - Best Short Film and Best Screenwriter for a Short Film. In 2006 she directed both Amadeus and Betrayal for the Baxter Theatre Centre to great acclaim. Earlier this year she directed Athol Fugard's play Victory and recently wrote Reach, which made its world premiere at the Theaterformen Festival in Germany and has also been performed in Sweden.

David Kramer'S KOOS SAS: LAST BUSHMAN OF MONTAGU

Koos Sas: Last Bushman of Montagu is written, directed and composed by David Kramer with additional text by Jody Abrahams and Gaerin Hauptfleisch. Designs are by Illka Louw, lighting by Daniel Galloway and sound by Graham Muir. Koos Sas: Last Bushman of Montagu runs from 14 July - 1 August, with press night on16 July. Koos Sas will be performed in Afrikaans with English surtitles.

The notorious and infamous Khoisan, Koos Sas was accused of murdering a shopkeeper in Montagu, South African in 1917. In this musical work, Koos Sas is re-imagined as a rebellious hero - a thorn in the side of The Farmers and the state. Shot as an outlaw, he was the last of what the authorities considered to be "bushmen robbers" of the previous century. Koos Sas is a love story played out against the background of racism and subjugation, a celebration or pre-industrial innocence, from the award winning company that brought you Kat and the Kings and Spice Drum Beat: Ghoema.

The South African cast, who will reprise their roles at the Tricycle, are Loukmaan Adams and Jody Abrahams who were first seen at the Tricycle Theatre in Kat and the Kings, and Natalie Cervati, Nicholas Ellenbogen and Robert Koen.

David Kramer's interest and passion has, for almost thirty years been to explore South African identity. His work in South African musical theatre has focused primarily in the retelling of suppressed history. His first production at the Tricycle Theatre was Kat and the Kings in 1997, which then transferred to the West End and went on tour winning Olivier Award's for Best Musical and Best Performance in a Musical for the cast. This was followed by other Tricycle productions Poison and Ghoema. Kramer has released twenty one albums as a songwriter/performer followed by a career as a writer/theatre director. Four of the musicals he wrote with the late Taliep Peterson - District Six, Poison, Kat and the Kings and Spice Drum Beat: Ghoema - have toured internationally. In 2005 he received a GMT Lifelong Achievement Award for his contribution to Afrikaans music and has been entered into the South African Composers Hall of Fame (SARRAL). Koos Sas has been awarded the De Kat Herrie Award and the Skouerklop Award for best musical contribution in South Africa.

ADDRESS Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road, London NW6 7JR

Phone 020 7328 1000

In person 10am - 9pm Monday - Saturday, 2 - 9pm on Sundays

On-line www.ticketweb.co.uk

Tickets: Monday evenings and midweek mats £10

Tuesday - Friday evenings and Saturday mats £15

Saturday evenings £20

Website: www.tricycle.co.uk C

Performances: Monday - Saturday at 8pm, Saturday matinees at 4pm

Midweek matinees:

Karoo Moose - Tuesday 16 June and Wednesday 8 July at 2pm

Koos Sas - Wednesdays 15 July and 29 July at 2pm

CAFÉ-BAR

The Tricycle Café (serving food) is open from 12noon to 8pm Mondays to Fridays and 10am - 8pm on Saturdays. The Tricycle Bar (serving drinks and snacks) is open from 12noon Mondays to Fridays & from 10.30am Saturdays & closes at 11pm Mondays to Saturdays. On Sundays the Bar is open 3pm - 9pm.

TRANSPORT

Tube: Kilburn (Jubilee Line)

Bus: 16, 31, 32, 98, 189, 206, 316, 328

Train: Brondesbury (London overground)

Photo credit: Ruphin Coudyzer and Lauren Clifford Holmes

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