Stage: 32 Lavender Close, directed and written by Andi Colombo, winner of the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary 2024

Andi Colombo, winner of the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary 2024, is presenting her much anticipated play, 32 Lavender Close at Theatre Arts in Observatory from June 5-9, 2024. The production is supported by Woordfees.  On Sunday June 9, there will be fundraiser performance accompanied by a market to raise funds for travel and accommodation costs for the team to travel to Makhanda to NAF – National Arts Festival. Read on for more. Info as supplied:

32 Lavender Close, written and directed by Andi Colombo, winner of the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary 2024, supported by WoordFees

Andi Colombo is the recipient of the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary for 2024 and as her award, she has selected to direct her very latest, hot off the press, script – 32 Lavender Close.

As a 2017 UCT Honours graduate, Andi has worked almost non-stop over the last seven years exploring almost every facet of theatre-making, from acting, directing and writing, to being a sought-after production and stage manager, and an innovative lighting designer. As a lighting designer she has worked most recently on Philip Rademeyer’s award-winning Goed wat Wag om te Gebeur and My Kroon se Krank directed by Tinarie van Wyk-Loots.

While she is not new to directing, this bursary has provided a range of new and important experiences for Andi. As a maker, she’s always self-funded the creation of her shows, working other jobs to fund her newest works, rehearsing in lounges and bedrooms and outdoor spaces, and getting by with a little help from talented friends, generous theatre spaces, and some really tight budgeting. The Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary will be the first time Andi has had the luxury of working in a rehearsal space for her own theatre work, and the first time she’s been funded to create her own show. This is an pivotal opportunity for her, and she’s revelling in the joy of having the space and time to really focus on the task at hand: making a play. She is not alone in this task. Her team includes set designer Ntobeko Ximba, co-sound designer Kanya Viljoen, and a cast comprising two wonderful upcoming performers, Grace Matetoa and Christie van Niekerk.

32 Lavender Close aims to centre the experiences of young women, and to explore the softness, the intimacy, the growth that women experience when they live with other women. It considers how we open up to each other and create safe space, and how that allows us to thrive, and find ourselves, and ask the questions we are afraid to ask. The piece is set entirely in a bathroom and corridor of an old flat in Cape Town, highlighting the vulnerability of the piece. For many women, the bathroom is the place we undress, not just physically, but also emotionally. The bathroom is the place we connect over lipsticks, share tampons and life advice, shower drunk friends and hold back their hair while they vomit, and do our nails over the sink. In the bathroom of 32 Lavender Close, Melo and Carly make sense of themselves and each other. This work explores the ways we grow to understand ourselves, and documents a time of uncertainty around our finances, our sexuality, our life paths, our own bodies. This work says: there is a place for you here, at 32 Lavender Close. You belong here, between toothbrushes and towels that don’t match. You will always have a place.

32 Lavender Close will run from the June 5-9, 2024 at Theatre Arts, Methodist Church Hall, cnr Milton Road and Wesley Street, Observatory.  Tickets are R120. All bookings can be made on www.theatrearts.co.za

You can follow the show at http://@submarineproductions and @theatrearts.obs

Andi Colombo completed her degree (honours equivalent) in Theatre Making at the University of Cape Town in 2017, with distinctions in Drama, Theatre Making and Performance. She is a writer, performer, theatre-maker, production-manager and lighting designer.

Andi’s 2017 Theatre Making final piece, PAN. was included in the New Voices Festival on UCT’s Hiddingh Campus in December 2017, and was presented as part of the Zabalaza festival at the Baxter Theatre in March 2018, where it won the categories for Best Script and Best Supporting Actor, and was nominated for Best Direction, Best Actress and Best Production. PAN. later formed part of the 2020 Woordfees Fringe. In 2018 she performed in two self-created body-focused exploration pieces called Fill, and Out To Dry, and wrote and performed in Like Hamlet, a play directed by Kanya Viljoen. Like Hamlet was later published in the Journal of African Youth Literature. In 2018, Andi’s work AMES ran at the Alexander Bar, Café and Theatre. In 2019, she co-created a live bodies/performance art piece called forgot/only with Naledi Majola, which was later developed into a short film that was screened on DSTV as part of Woordfees.tv. In 2022, she wrote and directed Double Star, which had successful runs at the Baxter Theatre’s Masambe Theatre and at Toneelhuis.  Her show i want to write you a submarine was performed at Toneelhuis and at Woordfees festival in 2023, and will travel to National Arts Festival this year for the first time, along with 32 Lavender Close.

Andi completed her text, Dying in the Now as part of the Woordfees Writing Lab 2020/1, which has since been read at Teksmark and as part of the STAND foundation Global South Playreading Programme.  As a lighting designer, she has worked on shows such as Opdrifsel and Goed Wat Wag Om Te Gebeur, directed by Philip Rademeyer, and My Kroon Se Krank, directed by Tinarie Van Wyk-Loots.

Grace Matetoa is an actress and performer from Johannesburg. She received her formal performance education at the University of Cape Town, studying Theatre and Performance specializing in Performance Making. Her passions lie in writing, production and performance art. She is currently working at a foundation that provides services to people who have been impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual abuse.

Christie van Niekerk is a 24 year old freelance actress, writer, director and stand-up comedian with a love for performance. She studied at Stellenbosch University and acquired degrees in BA Drama and Theatre Studies and BAHons in Directing. Her theatre acting background includes forming part of the ensembles of At Her Feet, The Tumble Inn, Sit With Us, ’n Gek vir jou and Pieces of Her.

About Theatre Arts

Built on the tenets of affordability, inclusivity and accessibility, Theatre Arts (formerly the Theatre Arts Admin Collective) is a vibrant home for local theatre practitioners – a place where they can create work, develop skills, perform, engage in dialogue and meet and work with theatre practitioners who come from diverse backgrounds, whether cultural, social, and economic or simply in skill and experience.  Described as the rehearsal space of choice, Theatre Arts is dedicated to creating the right environment for artists and theatre to flourish.  In an industry which is culturally divided, dominated by a few voices and vastly under-supported financially, both through patronage and funding, Theatre Arts strives to support, enable and provide opportunity for artists to continue developing skills, creating work and generating income.  Open to fresh ideas and up for experimentation based on current trends in economic thinking, Theatre Arts is an organic model and successful training ground for re-conceptualising what a theatre institution, in South Africa, can be and how it can sustain itself.

About the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary

Initiated in 2010, The Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary aims to support the many young and talented directors who are entering into the theatre industry, but with very little opportunity to practice their craft.  This bursary serves as an opportunity for young directors to continue to develop their skills, be mentored in the creation of a new piece of work, to have their work seen by a wider audience, particularly theatre producers and to help establish them in the profession of Directing.

The bursary, since 2010, has been open nationally to applicants who have 3 years of directing experience. A total of 25 directors from Cape Town, Johannesburg and Makhanda (out of hundreds of applications) have received the bursary.  Nicola Elliott, Amy Jephta, Thando Doni and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana went on to win the Standard Bank Young Artist Award. Kim Kerfoot in 2013 and then ten years later Carlo Daniels and Amee Lekas won a Fleur du Cap for Best Young Director, Kim for his production of Fugard’s Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act which went on to The Fugard, Carlo for his production of No Complaints, New Dawn, New Day and Amee for her production of Reza de Wet’s African Gothic. Qondiswa James, Thando Mangcu and Nwabisa Plaaitjie were nominated for the same award.  Lydia Marelic and Khayelihle Dom Gumede were both nominated for a Naledi Sophie Mcinga New Voices award in Johannesburg, what was then their home city. Dom won and his production of Crepuscule was commissioned for The Market Theatre.  Jason Jacobs was awarded the KKNK New Voices and was commissioned to present 3 works at the KKNK in 2017.  Tara Notcutt became an overnight sensation and a multi-award winner and Phala Ookeditse Phala went on to win numerous awards for his work on Kafka’s Ape which is still as of 2024, touring the world.  The works of Alan Parker, Thembela Madliki, Ameera Conrad, Wynne Bredenkamp, Bulelani Mabutyana and Dintshitile Mashile were all excellent and each have made waves in different ways as well as huge contributions to transforming the theatre industry.  In 2017 at the Cape Town Fringe, the gold, silver and bronze medals all went to past bursary winners.  Almost all have been engaged in teaching the younger generation theatre making.  This is a 15-year cohort of passionate theatre makers striving for and achieving excellence.

Featured image – Andi Colombo. Pic by