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Amakhosi unveils World Theatre Day programme

Amakhosi Cultural Centre in Bulawayo has announced a very impressive programme for the World Theatre Day commemorations. The programme kicks off on World Theatre Day, March 27, and ends on March 31 and a number of World Theatre Expos and a series of theatre performance will be held.  Cont Mhlanga, the director of Amakhosi Cultural Centre, has stressed that the World Theatre Day that will be held under the Amakhosi’s Inxusa Festival brand is aimed at bringing together theatre practitioners and theatre scholars not only to commemorate the World Theatre Day with a rich programme of theatre performances.The event will also enable theatre practitioners, theatre scholars and theatre critics to “critically examine the arts discipline of the theatre arts sector”.

The World Theatre Day Expo under the theme “Content, Venues and Audiences” will host paper presentations by theatre scholars from “the three universities that have full departments of theatre studies”.

These are the University of Zimbabwe, Midlands State University and Lupane State University.

It is expected that the invited theatre scholars and theatre practitioners will present papers on how the theatre in Zimbabwe can grow in terms of content, venues and audiences.

In order to broaden the scope of discussions on factors that are critically in growing a theatre industry, Amakhosi Cultural Centre has also invited to the seminar scholars that offer courses in graphics, design and costumes.

On the five-day programme of commemorating the World Theatre Day, the mornings will be devoted to paper presentations and discussions while the evenings will be devoted to a presentation of plays at the main stage of the centre starting at 18.30 hours.

Evenings of theatre performances that have been dubbed “Braai Dinner Theatre Performances” is a programme with plays from the three universities and Bulawayo based theatre groups.

Midlands State University is expected to present its play on March 27 while the University of Zimbabwe is scheduled for the following day and Lupane State University on March 29.

Friday March 30 will belong to theatre presentations by Studio X while Ulemi Arts in collaboration with Umkhathi Theatre will close the Bulawayo World Theatre Day celebrations with a theatre performance on Saturday March 31.

This theatre feast can only be a fulfilling celebration if theatre-loving people of Bulawayo and all theatre practitioners support the event.

Cont had this to say:

“These evenings Braai Dinner Theatre performances everyday are a theatre experience under the African sky that any theatre lover cannot afford to miss.”

This five-day theatre event at Bulawayo’s prime home of theatre offers corporations and organisations opportunities to enable their workers and management staff to enjoy

theatre through corporate bulk purchase of seats for each evening of theatre.

Amakhosi Cultural Centre has a facility for special entry fees for groups in organisations and academic institutions, who may want to buy the tickets in bulk.

Having realised that many school-going theatre lovers who are the most regular patrons of theatre programmes during festivals in Bulawayo may miss evening theatre programmes, Amakhosi Cultural Centre will also host afternoon programmes.

The shows would be between 15.00 hours to 16.00 hours each day of the commemorations of the World Theatre Day.

The centre is also encouraging theatre scholars and theatre practitioners who would like to participate in the World Theatre Day Expo and present papers to register and confirm their participation with the Amakhosi functions manager, Thembi Moyo, who is reachable at 0778480237.

At the beginning of each programme of these celebrations, the international message of the 50th anniversary of the World Theatre Day will be ready or dramatised.

This year’s message has been written by John Malcovich — a United States of America actor, director of founder of the Steepenwolf Theatre Company of Illinois.

Each year the International Theatre Institute requests a prominent theatre scholar or practitioner to write the international message which is distributed to national centres of the International Theatre Institute to be read or dramatised at national events to commemorate the               day.

Last year Africa was honoured when Jessica Kaahwa —playwright, actress, director and academic in the Department of Drama and Literature at Makerere University in Uganda — wrote the international message and stressed in that message, “. . . theatre can bring many a soul to deconstruct previously held perceptions, and, in this way, gives an individual the chance of rebirth in order to make choices based on rediscovered knowledge and reality” .