New role at Wits Theatre for local playwright

Ashraf Johaardien is the new General Manager of Wits Theatre, following his five-year tenure as General Manager of the Arts & Culture Trust.

Local playwright; performer; and arts manager, Ashraf Johaardien, joins Wits Theatre in April to manage one of the finest performing arts facilities in the country: the Wits Theatre complex comprising the Wits Theatre; the Wits Downstairs Theatre; the Wits Amphitheatre; and the Wits Great Hall.

Wits Theatre is a service organisation within the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, a leading higher education establishment in Africa and provides support for the mounting of productions, and aspects of technical teaching and practical training for the Schools of Dramatic Art and Music.

Johaardien holds an International Baccalaureate from the United World College of the Atlantic in the UK. He also earned two degrees from the University of Cape Town. The thirty-five year old called his appointment 'a dream come true."

“Theatre is my first love and it is an honour and a privilege to be entrusted with the responsibility of managing this one,” he said.

As an arts manager, Johaardien has played key roles with several major South African arts and culture organisations, including the Baxter Theatre; the SA National Gallery; Iziko Museums; the Film and Publications Board; and the SA National Library. He relocated to Johannesburg from his native Cape Town in 2005 to manage the Arts & Culture Trust, South Africa’s only independent, multi-disciplinary arts funding and development agency.

In addition to his arts management accomplishments, Johaardien has also written several original plays which have been produced at mainstream theatres and festivals in South Africa; Ireland; the UK; the Netherlands; and the USA. His work has been published by Oxford University Press; Waverley Books Glasgow; and Umuzi – an imprint of Random House Struik.

Coinciding with his new role at Wits Theatre next month, the American premiere of Johaardien’s 2008 stage adaptation of K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams hits the boards at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. In addition, Junkets Publisher’s Yes, I am!, a 176-page collection of South African short stories; poems; letters; diary-entries; SMSes; and emails, which he compiled with veteran editor, Robin Malan, will be launched in Cape Town.

For more information about Wits Theatre or to find out what’s on, go to www.wits.ac.za/witstheatre.