Woza Albert!

1. Introduction1.1. A brief overview of the place and impact of Woza Albert! within the broader history of South African theatre, and the related cultural, social and political context1.2 Biographical details about the authors and the theatre company2. Woza Albert!. The play-text (with on-page explanatory notes)3. Discussion3.1 The play's main themes : a discussion focussed on key questions and issue3.2 How the play was created3.3 Production history since 1981 (including spin-off productions/adaptations)3.4 Critical views of the play and the various productions4. Contextual information4.1 Chronology of the apartheid era: significant cultural, theatrical, social, economic and political events in South Africa (1948-1994)4.2 Glossary of relevant dramatic and theatrical terms and unique South African expressions, terms and names4.3 Suggested reading: Bibliography of relevant sources and related texts

Percy Mtwa was born and bred in Wattville, Benoni. In 1979 director Gibson Kente gave him a role as singer/dancer in Mama and the Load, which played at the Market and Baxter Theatres and toured South Africa. Mbongeni Ngema was born in Umkumbane, Durban. He wrote and presented a play, Too Harsh, appeared in Kessie Govender's Working Class Hero, then wrote and, with Kessie's help, directed The Last Generation. In 1979 he came to Johannesburg and approached Gibson Kente for work, finally getting a character role in Mama and the Load, where he met Percy Mtwa with whom he would collaborate, along with Barney Simon, on Woza Albert. Barney Simon, founding Artistic Director of the Market Theatre, was born in Johannesburg. After backstaging for Joan Littlewood in the late 1950s, he joined Athol Fugard in Johannesburg's Dorkay House Rehearsal Room where The Blood Knot was first staged. He directed Fugard in Krapp's Last Tape and the first production of Fugard's own Hello and Goodbye. In 1974 he founded the Company with Mannie Manim, which made its home in Johannesburg's old Market in 1976. He was the three-time winner of the Breytenbach Epathlon for best director. Barney Simon died in 1995. Temple Hauptfleisch is a retired South African drama teacher, playwright and theatre researcher and historian. Currently Emeritus Professor at Stellenbosch, he is the former head of the Centre for SA Theatre Research (CESAT - 1979-1987), Chair of the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department (1995-2005) and director of the Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies at Stellenbosch (1994-2009). Founder-editor of the South African Theatre Journal (1987-) and its editor for 27 years, and the project leader and editor-in-chief of the online Encyclopaedia for South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT - 2005-). He has served on various international editorial boards for publishers and journals, and has published more than eighty works on South African theatre.

The most politically potent show ever staged in South Africa Observer