Programme Director
Professor Keorapetse Kgositsile, our National Poet Laureate
Ms Jean September, Director of the British Council in South Africa
Mr Ashraf Johaardien, General Manager of the Wits Theatre
Mr Pervaiz Khan, from the Sustained Theatre
Professor Georges Freunder, Head of the Wits School of Arts
Ms Brenda Devar, Chairperson of the Arts and Culture Trust
Mr Pieter Jacobs, CEO of the Arts and Culture Trust
Mr Ola Animashawun, Creative Director of Euphoric Ink Ltd
Mr Christopher Rodriguez, Executive Producer of Talawa Theatre Company
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Writers, Actors and Theatre Directors present here today
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We have met here today to mark yet another milestone in our ongoing efforts to develop the arts in our country.
The South African New Plays Writing Programme is a partnership between the Department of Arts and Culture, Wits University, the British Council and Sustained Theatre.
Through this programme, we hope to discover new talent and open doors for many aspiring playwrights.
The programme will provide our playwrights with skills that will allow them to build sustainable livelihoods for themselves.
It will equip a new generation of South African playwrights with essential tools, to develop works of theatre that reflect the kind of society we are and the kind of society we seek to build.
We are confident that this programme will produce new writers of the caliber of seasoned playwrights such as Todd Matshikiza, Barney Simon, and John Kani, to name a few.
This programme will assist us to develop new playwrights, whose productions will feature on major world stages, ensuring that our stories are told to wider and larger audiences.
Programme Director, our country faces major challenges with regards to poverty, unemployment and skills development. These social ills affect largely our young people.
It is for this reason that the Department of Arts and Culture will continue to work with all stakeholders to unleash the potential of the creative and cultural industries to contribute to economic growth, job creation and skills development, especially among young people.
This year we will unveil a detailed plan on how to enhance the arts, culture and heritage sector's contribution to economic growth and job creation.
Furthermore, in order to address the skills development challenges of the sector and to contribute towards its sustainable development, we will also announce details for the establishment of the National Skills Academy for the Arts.
We reiterate that the academy is not aimed at replacing existing training initiatives, but rather to enhance them.
It will become a Center of Excellence where all those who would have gone through it, will become the best of the best that our country can offer and indeed the pride of our nation.
To achieve these and many of our objectives, we will continue to build mutually beneficial partnerships with our stakeholders.
The SA New Plays Writing Programme is one such partnership.
We are indeed delighted that our partners in this project cherish similar ideals as ours.
We look forward to working with all of you as we implement our plans.
Programme Director, playwriting is one of the areas that have been neglected in the arts sector.
We seem to be focusing more on performances, forgetting that for there to be a performance, there must be a script.
Plays were used as a vehicle to mobilise and raise political consciousness among our people during the liberation struggle.
During those dark days, many activists wrote and performed poetry and drama at their homes, in community halls, in schools and in churches.
These performances spoke of the sufferings of our people and made them realise that they are their own liberators.
In the 70s and 80s Township Theater became one of the avenues for our people to express themselves.
Today, almost 17 years into freedom and democracy, we must continue to use playwriting and theatre to promote social cohesion, nation-building and to heal the wounds of the past.
We must also use playwriting and theatre as part of our armory in our battle against the socio economic challenges of our country.
It is for this reason that we emphasise that initiatives such as the SA New Plays Writing Programme must create opportunities for sustainable livelihoods especially for our young people.
We are encouraged that this programme will include the sharing of new play development ideas and exchange programmes, between South African and United Kingdom (UK) playwrights.
This will go a long way in reviving the spirit of collaboration, sharing of experiences and interaction among artists.
Programme Director, this project follows on the footsteps of another successful initiative in which we collaborated with the British Council and Sustained Theatre.
In 2009, we sent a delegation of South African poets to the UK, led by our National Poet laureate, Professor Kgositsile.
The delegation included poets such as our legend Don Mattera, as well as young and dynamic poets such as Lebo Mashile and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers.
They performed and ran skills development workshops across the UK as part of the Beyond Words Tour.
The tour was followed by a visit to our shores by young UK poets who toured Johannesburg and Cape Town early last year, interacting and sharing experiences with their South African counterparts.
Today's launch is therefore yet another step in strengthening our relationship, which we believe will continue to grow from strength to strength.
Congratulations to all those selected to be part of the first phase of this programme.
You are pioneers of this important initiative.
We urge you to seize this moment and make the best of it.
I wish you the best of success in your all endeavours.
Thank you.
Source: Department of Arts and Culture
