The Sonwa Sakuba Institute for Performing Arts and Umtiza Arts Festival has partnered with the Guild Theatre to introduce a short play competition.
Entrants stand the chance to win R2,500 and have their play showcased on stage at the Umtiza Arts Festival in May.
Sonwa Sakuba says this is a great opportunity for playwrights to put their work on stage.
“A competition like this is a wonderful opportunity and platform for young writers to have their plays on stage. Sometimes writers will write but due to a lack of resources and opportunities, they end up not staging their work.
“This is a wonderful platform for people to have their work realised on stage and the Umtiza Arts Festival is such a perfect opportunity to take their work from the pen to seeing what it looks like on stage,” said Sakuba.
Entrants are invited to write a short 20-minute original play that incorporates the Umtiza tree into the theme.
The play can be in English, isiXhosa, or Afrikaans. There will be prizes available for the top play in each language group.
This will also be a learning opportunity as two top plays from each language group will be chosen and mentored for two weeks. The winning plays will be chosen from this group.
“We’re also going to do a session where we’re going to be looking for actors and performers that are keen to take part in the plays,” said Sakuba.
The competition is only open for non-school attending writers.
All typed scripts are to be submitted and uploaded to sonwasakuba.co.za by the closing date of April 1.
