Female powerhouses owning the stage

ALYSSIA BIRJALAL

SOUTH Africa is home to a host of amazing and versatile actresses. Let’s take a look at five female powerhouses owning their craft on the theatre front.

Kate Normington

Award-winning South African actress and the queen of musicals, Kate Normington is best known for her work in the theatre productions, Sweeney Todd, Hair and Nunsense, which earned her a Fleur de Cap award for best actress.

Normington, a speech and drama graduate, went on to perform at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End in 1995 and the Haymarket in England in 1996, among other venues abroad.

The talented star has also performed jingles and voiceovers for local radio and television and has released her debut album, Mother’s Daughter.

Normington has made several TV appearances over the years.

Kate Normington

Fiona Ramsay

Award-winning theatre actress Fiona Ramsay played a critical role in South African theatre in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when theatre exploded with electrifying activity. Together with Richard E Grant, Henry Goodman, Fred Abrahamse and Neil McCarthy, she formed The Troupe Theatre Company which produced original, daring, creative, innovative and exciting work.

Ramsay spent five years performing in the West End and when she returned to South Africa she continued to perform at The Alhambra in Doornfontein.

In recent years as it has become harder to fill theatres, Ramsay has taken up film roles, one-woman shows, lecturing and voice coaching.

Fiona Ramsay

Palesa Mazamisa

Director, playwright and author Palesa Mazamisa captured audiences with her directorial debut, in the satirical play Shoes & Coups, in 2018.

She catapulted to fame after it received eight nominations including best new South African script, best director and best production from the Naledi Theatre Awards.

The play went on to win the best new South African script and best supporting actor awards.

Mazamisa’s writing has featured in several publications. Her short story, A Day In August, was published in the literary anthology Botsotso 17 in 2016.

She co-wrote and co-produced the play Bubbly Bosoms for the Thari Ya Arts group. It was staged at the National Theatre in Pretoria in 2010 and at the National Arts Festival in 2011.

Mazamisa was part of the Market Theatre’s virtual project #Ditshomo, which live-streamed nine productions across its social media platforms to ensure that its loyal supporters and new audiences were able to get a taste of South Africa’s theatre from the comfort of their homes during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Palesa Mazamisa

Lara Foot

Lara Foot is an award-winning playwright, director and producer. She is the chief executive and artistic director of the Baxter Theatre Centre at UCT.

Foot has put most of her energy into helping other playwrights and theatremakers realise their work and she has nurtured several dozen new South African plays to their first staging. Her own hard-hitting plays tackle social issues and have laid bare the brutality and sickening frequency of child rape in South Africa. Tshepang was based on a real event, the alleged gang rape of a 9-monthold baby by six men in a remote, impoverished community. Foot used refined, ironic humour to sketch a portrait of the community, and then turned everyday objects into symbols with horrific poetic effect. Karoo Moose (2007) returned to the subject of child rape in a rural town. In Solomon and Marion, Foot explores the cruelty of the meaningless murders which betray her country.

Dr Lliane Loots

Dr Lliane Loots is the founder of the Flatfoot Dance Company and UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts. The JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival’s artistic director works in the arena of African dance pedagogy and dance performance and choreography.

She has won several choreographic awards and commissions and has travelled extensively in Europe, America and Africa with her dance work.

As a researcher, she has published many articles over the years.