On New Year’s Eve the legendary Mannie Manim said goodbye as CEO and Director of the Baxter Theatre Centre, a position he has held since 2000.

Manim has been in theatre for over 50 years, garnering multiple awards and accolades as administrator; producer; and lighting designer with an international reputation during his illustrious and magnanimous career so far. He was Co-founder of the Market Theatre and has been responsible for several award-winning hit productions at the Baxter Theatre Centre over the past decade.

Some of the awards which he received include the Shirley Moss Award for the Greatest Practical and Technical Contribution to Theatre in South Africa; the South African Institute of Theatre Technology Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Theatre Technician, Administrator and Lighting Designer; the first Vita Award for the Most Enterprising Producer; and the Vita Best Original Lighting Award, which he snapped up ten times. In 1990 he was made Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres by the French Government and in 1996 he was awarded a gold medal for Theatre Development from the South African Academy of Arts and Science. In 2004 he was awarded the Naledi Lifetime Achievement Award by the Theatre Managements of South Africa.

At an intimate function held recently in the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio, South African theatre luminaries gathered to honour Manim for his contribution to the arts and entertainment industry in this country and abroad. He was thanked and applauded for his unfailing commitment to the development of local works and for mentoring and inspiring young actors, directors, writers and theatre-makers. His success in the business was celebrated with anecdotes and recollections of the struggle to keep theatre alive during the dark days of apartheid and beyond.
Joining their hero on stage was his successor, Lara Foot, who takes over on January 4, with blue-bloods, John Kani; Winston Ntshona; Janice Honeyman; David Kramer; and Marius Weyers. Foot encouraged everyone to share their favourite stories and reveal some never-heard-before tales of their friend. Guests included Kani and Ntshona, who both flew in especially to attend the tribute, and stalwarts like Danny Keogh; Nicholas Ellenbogen; Jeremy Crutchley; Thembi Mtshali-Jones; Rhoda Kadalie; and several other well-known personalities.

Messages were also received from all over South Africa and the UK, with the Royal Shakespeare Company leading the tributes. These and other messages were read out by local actors who were present on the night. Susan Danford read a note from Janet Suzman, who lives in London and who directed the Baxter Theatre Centre’s production of Hamlet, which travelled to the UK to launch the Royal Shakespeare Company’s prestigious year-long Complete Works Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2007. Cape Town-born actor, Antony Sher, and his partner, RSC Director, Greg Doran, sent a message which was read out by Jeremy Crutchley. In other messages Quanita Adams read for playwright and director Nadia Davids, who also lives in London; Thembi Mtshali-Jones read for Market Theatre Artistic Director, Malcolm Purkey; and Tinarie van Wyk Loots for former National Arts Festival head, Lynette Marais. UCT’s vice-chancellor, Max Price, managed to slip in for a short while to show his support amid his hectic schedule of annual graduations.

Percy Tucker, Founder of Computicket and author of Just the Ticket (which recounts the dramatic and exciting history of entertainment in South Africa) wrote, “In 1955 I went to the Brooke Theatre in Johannesburg, which had recently opened. I handed my ticket to the doorman, who then signalled a very young usher to come to show me to my seat. The usher approached and said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ - I liked the ‘sir’ part as it shows respect for one’s elders - and then with the utmost courtesy told me where to sit and said very politely, ‘I hope you enjoy the show, sir.’ Mannie Manim has progressed quite far since those early days as an usher but in that brief encounter you could sense already his love for the theatre.”

Positions which Mannie has held over the years include Administrative head of PACT Drama; Managing Director of the Market Theatre; and Director of Performing Arts Administration, Witwatersrand University, before he took up his tenure at the Baxter Theatre Centre nearly a decade ago. He has served on the boards of the Market Theatre Foundation, the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (as chairman), there Theatre Managements of SA, the Civic (now known as the Joburg Theatre) and the State Theatre in Pretoria, the Maynardville Theatre Trust and the Suidoosterfees.
Some of his highlights as a lighting designer include Cape Town Opera’s Show Boat in Sweden; Noah of Cape Town and the acclaimed I Am My Own Wife at the Baxter Theatre Centre; The Tempest at the Baxter Theatre Centre; the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and in five other cities in the UK; and Sheila’s Day and Nothing but the Truth at the Market Theatre. He was also responsible for the lighting on The Magic Flute and A Christmas Carol at the Young Vic and in the West End; Sizwe Banzi is Dead at the National Theatre, London; Nothing But the Truth at the Hampstead Theatre, London, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the National Theatre of Namibia in Windhoek; The Real Thing at the Strindberg Intima Theatre in Stockholm; Janet Suzman’s production of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Porgy and Bess in Umea, Sweden. Other productions include The Island at the National Theatre and the Old Vic in London, in Toronto, at the Kennedy Center in Washington and at BAM in New York; Carmen and The Mysteries at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York, at the International Theatre Festival in Perth, at the Queen’s Theatre in London and at the World Stage Festival in Toronto, and Sorrows and Rejoicings at the Tricycle Theatre in London.

Mannie has lit and produced the first performances of all Athol Fugard’s plays in South Africa, a relationship which started in the 70s with Boesman and Lena and People are Living There at the Alexander Theatre.

In January 2010 he takes up his new position at Isango Portobello’s brand new theatre, The Fugard, named after the iconic South African playwright, in Cape Town’s District Six, where he will be responsible for developing and programming of the venue.