“Steeped in atmosphere and rich dialogue, it’s a play most of all about the human heart.”

This is a play set in the Karoo and is a story of undisclosed deeds. A story about secrets that burn to be told.
Steeped in atmosphere, rich dialogue and music from an old record player, it is a play most of all, about the human heart.

All the parts were cast at the recent audition, the characters & cast comprise:

• Stokkie -  a young man in his late teens – Played by Andre Kershaw
• Sprint – Stokkie’s older brother - Played by Gabriel Buys
• Charl -  their father – Played by Isaac Buys
• Ouma Hettie – their grandmother – Played by Molly Mohr
• Jessie – a young women in her early twenties – Played by Ahnestazia Borez
• Tannie Miems – early fifties – Played by Colette Dacre

About Daryn. 

From childhood Daryn was interested in the performing arts. Having attained a Nat. Dip. Drama from Pretoria Technikon and Drama Teacher’s Licentiate from Trinity College, Daryn has freelanced in the film and theatre world ever since.

During her colourful career she has done acting, set dressing on TV commercials, given acting classes and has worked as a writer. Early on she won the MNET New Directions award for her film script “Angel” which was then made into a film which won two Avanti awards. Daryn was also a script writer for the television SABC series Soul Buddyz for two years.

She has written and directed numerous plays and television scripts. One of her plays “Detention X” won “Best Original Script” at the “Hottentots Holland Youth Festival.”  The last play Daryn directed for the Playhouse was “Road to Mecca” which was very successful.

Daryn  says she is thrilled to be working with what she thinks is a very talented and capable cast.

SHOW DATES:

29th June 8pm
30th June 6:30pm

4th, 5th and 6th July 8pm
7th July 6:30pm

For more information call the Theatre office: 021 852 5182

Directed by Darryl Spijkers and written by Wim Vorster

Based on the time loved Afrikaans Dalene Mathee novel, retold for English and Afrikaans audiences to understand and enjoy. By special arrangement with DALRO.

God forgives many things, but God never forgives us the wrong we do to a child.

On the one side of the mountain, in the Long Kloof, there’s Fiela Komoetie, devoted to her foundling – the child God entrusted to her one night when she found the three-year-old boy crying on her doorstep – a castaway lamb. On the other side of the mountain, in the Forest, there are the Van Rooyens. Many years ago, the three-year-old son of Elias van Rooyen, a woodcutter, and his wife Barta disappeared …

The one child is Benjamin Komoetie, the other Lukas van Rooyen. Are they the same child? Was it possible for such a small child to walk that far – from the Forest to the Long Kloof? Nine years later, two census men, travelling through the Long Kloof and discovering the white child with the blue eyes among Coloured people, decided to take matters into their own hands.

And many years later, this is the question that Benjamin/Lukas is asking himself: Who am I? He had to know, otherwise the woman that he came to love would never belong to him. The answer was there, he knew. Somewhere deep inside himself, hidden in the past, but the answer remained evasive.

This fun and moving interpretation of South Africa’s most loved stories with be played for ENGLISH and AFRIKAANS audiences to understand and enjoy!

Time:

13, 14, 17, 20, 21 July at 19:30

14, 15, 21 July at 14:30

For more info:

Call: 082 497 4584

Visit: Facebook Event (coming soon)

Book: Computicket

Auditions are being held for a very powerful play called “Ginger Beer” by Daryn José, set in an old house in the Karoo.

We are looking for the following characters:

• Spike: Young man between 18 and 20yrs. Very strong character.
• Charl: His father. A truck driver in his late forties/early fifties.
• Ouma Hettie: Turning seventy. South African accent.
• Tannie Miems: A jovial lady in her late forties /early fifties

When & Where: Sunday 15th April at 6:30 for 7pm at the Playhouse Theatre

This play is premiering at the Playhouse, so this is a wonderful opportunity for all you budding Thespians out there!

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

What would you do if you picked up the wrong briefcase and arrived home to find you were holding over one million pounds in used banknotes?

It is obviously ‘dirty money’, so when this happens to Henry, who his wife Jean describes as “a bit of a wimp”, he grabs the opportunity to escape from their ordinary suburban lives. He buys two one-way airtickets to Barcelona: leaving that night.

But their friends Betty and Vic are coming round and Jean has cooked a lovely dinner for the four of them. She doesn’t want to leave and particularly not at such short notice.

And so the situation begins to get complicated.

Even allowing for the arrival of two very different policemen, it is difficult to explain why an excited Betty and a thoroughly confused Vic end up pretending to be Adelaide and Percy: Jean’s sister and Australian brother-in-law. And why Henry has to claim to be his own brother, “thoroughly reliable Freddie”, who is also Australian (sometimes).

No wonder Jean takes to the bottle and gets steadily drunker as the evening progresses and Bill, the taxi-driver, gets more and more bewildered.

The pace, and the panic, become frantic as they all realise that the thoroughly villainous – and now seriously angry – owner of the money will be paying them a visit at any moment.

How can it possibly all end happily?

Show Dates:

• Wed 11th, Thurs 12th & Fri 13th, April @ 8pm
• Saturday, 14th April @ 6:30pm
• Wed 18th, Thurs 19th & Fri 20th, April @ 8pm
• Saturday, 21st April @ 6:30pm

Book online now at Computicket 

Come, let’s dance together with the dancers of Vadhini Indian Arts Academy. 

Come and tap your feet to some of the most colourful, vibrant and energetic music and dance sequences from the Indian Film Industry.  ‘Aaja Nachale’ brings together some of the most capturing dance routines, both old and new, showcasing a variety of Indian Contemporary Dance, African – Indian Fusion and Spanish – Indian Collaborative work.

Ticket Prices:

10 March 2012

Saturday matinee 2:30 pm

• children up to 16  R40.00
• adults R80,00

Saturday evening 6:30 pm

• all seats  R80.00

Click here to BOOK AT COMPUTICKET

With English Subtitles!

Sketches of one of the most famous German comedian Vicco von Buelow aka “Loriot” are coming to the HHDS Director Bettina Horvath who, being Austrian, is German speaking, decided it’s time the Playhouse started catering to the large German speaking community in our area and so the idea of a first entertaining evening was born.

8 players have been found who are already busy learning the lines of the hilarious sketches full with finely nuanced humour. Three performances will be staged from Jan 12-14 and all of them include tapas prior to the show, which will last about an hour. Please pass the information on to your German speaking friends who will appreciate this initiative!

For more information please contact Bettina on 082 99 26 007 or “like” their Facebook page.

When writing anything about Alan Bennett, it is the law to talk about Alan Bennett, National Treasure ™; in much the same vain as Victoria Wood. Now, forgive me for I know this will rock middle England to its core, but I hate Victoria Wood…with a passion…OK, come back now, I know, I know, I’m sorry – that, dear reader is my own problem and rest assured, I am seeking out help. My point is; in my mind, Bennett and Wood are as entwined as Sunny D and scraping loopy children off the ceiling, and as such have had no desire to sit through anything that bears his name.

I had thought about this, and I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing. I went into the theatre very sceptical and with low expectations, and….well, we’ll come to that in a bit…what I will say is that when you take your seat and all around you the scent of lavender hangs in the air, you know you’re not seeing Rent.

Habeas Corpus, written way back in 1973 is essentially a cheeky play of sexual frustration and confusion.

The plot centres on lady loving Arthur Wicksteed and his wife Murial. He is a GP near Brighton, 53 years old and bored of married life. It’s mutual. Arthur had extended his surgery opening hours decades before Gordon Brown had suggested it….Murial is your typical WI wife, cake decorating, jam making, Daily Mail reading suppressed sexual dynamo. Oh yes, it’s the stuff of dreams!

Connie Wicksteed is Arthur’s spinster sister who is obsessed with having bigger boobs and orders some that come in a box with someone to fit them. She is engaged to Canon Throbbing, pervy vicar, though nothing as much of a fumble has occurred in their time together.

We also have Dennis Wicksteed, the hapless and general disappointment of a hypochondriac son of Arthur and Murial, who is convinced he has only three months to live; cue beautiful temptress Felicity Rumpers who has returned to Britain with her Maggie Thatcher-a-like mother, Lady Rumpers, bastion of all things British. Felicity is (gasp) pregnant and needs someone to pin it on (can anyone see where this is going?!)

In amongst all this madness it’s probably a good time to introduce Sir Percy Shorter, the vertically challenged head of the British Medical Association who has a score to settle with his old rival Arthur.

Guiding us through all of this is Mrs Swabb, working class cleaner to the Wicksteeds, gossip, and our narrator of the show.

The cast romp through the show (and each other) with confusion, double entendres and bare faced lies.

The skill in Bennett’s writing is in describing the detail of the mundane and the foibles of each character, something I hadn’t appreciated before now. He is a master of subverting Middle England, playing with its stereotypes. No-one comes out unscathed. Even the vicar, the final frontier of Middle England’s outpost of properness is thoroughly mauled.

What of the message that I mentioned earlier? Bennett cleverly and quite unashamedly poses contradictory messages set by Mrs Swabb and Arthur at the end – so, depending on your sex and moral stand point, they are: Sex isn’t everything – we all grow old and saggy OR Don’t regret the things you do, regret the things you don’t do; OR, if you like your moral neatly wrapped up in a little bow I suppose it could be that despite our crises, our neuroses, troubles and scandals – life goes on, we are inconsequential and unimportant, so enjoy the time we have.

I take back everything I said at the beginning of this piece. I was wrong. Habeas Corpus is hilarious, brilliant and not just for old people!

UNDER LICENSE FROM DALRO 

Dates:

FEB 2012

10,16,17 @ 8 PM

11,18 @ 6:30 PM

and 12 @ 2:30 PM

BOOKING NOW OPEN!

R60 per person at COMPUTICKET

With the recent surge in popularity of the Big Band bought on by artistes such as Robbie Williams, it’s a full diary for South Africa’s premier 19 piece Big Band, The Jonny Cooper Orchestra who have recently signed a major representation agreement with the Prestige-Elite Group in London to press and distribute their latest CD’s “Legends of Swing” and “Just Like That” Internationally, joining a roster of International stars.

Playing to Full Houses throughout South Africa, The Jonny Cooper Big Band recreates the Swing era of the 1940’s. Consisting of four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes and a rhythm section, the orchestra replicates the 1938 civilian orchestra of Glenn Miller. The visual appeal of the Big Band is pushed to the hilt with waving trombones and shining trumpets moving in well drilled unison to drive home the riffs of Miller favourites such as ‘In The Mood, String Of Pearls, Tuxedo Junction and Moonlight Serenade’. The Jonny Cooper Orchestra is recognised Internationally as one of the finest ‘copyists’ of the Glenn Miller Sound and has been referred to recently in the International Big Band magazine ‘Big Band Buddies’ as ‘One of the best Big Bands in the world’.

Moving away from the Miller Mood, Jonny introduces other Big Band favourites of the era, with tributes to Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Guest vocalist Beverley Scott-Brown, Amanda Tiffin, Timothy Moloi, Jeff Weiner and Donald Tshomela add a great deal with vocal tributes to Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, singing in the classic style of the Big Band singers of the 1940’s, a style which is beguiling today as it was when ‘Swing was King’.

The Jonny Cooper Big Band have recently performed on MNET’s Pop Idols, toured South Africa with the ‘Dunhill Swing’ event and performed at the prestigious ‘Presidents Cup’ for the Gala Ball. Swing is ‘Swinging’ here inSouth Africaas it has been introduced to a new generation of young listeners of all backgrounds and cultures. This is emphasised by the Jonny Cooper Big Band as it performs popular African songs re-arranged into the Big Band Swing idiom featuring popular African singers such as Sibongele Khumalo, Gloria Bosman, Donald Tshomela and Timothy Moloi.

Join The Jonny Cooper Big Band for their first appearance at The Playhouse Somerset West

• DATE: 24 & 25 February 2012
• TIME: Friday 8pm & Saturday 6:30pm
• COST: R180 per person
• BOOK AT COMPUTICKET
• For more info, contact Molly Möhr on 021 851 6144

Come and audition to join a star studded cast for the comedy – Funny Money we need actors for Four male parts:

• 2 police officers - Davenport  - Worldly-wise (and bent) police officer 40 – 55 - Big part.  Slater – Serious and sincere police officer.
• Any age - Big part. Bill: London taxi driver.
• Any age – Cockney-sharp or at a pinch foreign. Important character part. Mr Big – A gangster ( Large man - any age) who comes on right at the end.

Dates: Audition Sunday, 12 February @ 7 p.m.

Rehearsals: start 20 February.

Show dates: between 11 and 21 April.

Call Giles Scott for more info 082 6582935

Music & Me is a wonderful mix of the classical, classic songs and Christmas. From virtuoso piano performances of some of the great classical composers by Wesley Wolhuter, including an original sonata, and beautiful guitar classics by Keenan Stevens to stunning renditions of some of the most popular songs of music’s most magical era along with some of the world’s favourite Christmas songs performed by Janine Pick and Jean Fritz.

The programme includes songs like “At Last”, “Moon River”, “It came upon a midnight clear” and pieces from Debussy and Ravel.

Music & Me is presented by Angela Pratten Productions in partnership with Paul Bothner Music and Prestaprint.

The Performers

Wesley Wolhuter is an orchestral composer, western classical pianist and cellist, currently studying a BMus degree in composition, orchestration, piano and cello performance at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town. On the 4th of October 2009, Wesley’s concerto for solo cello and large orchestra received its world premiere by the Johannesburg Philharmonic Academy Orchestra in collaboration with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Z K Matthews Great Hall at UNISA in Pretoria, with the former CTSO Principal Cellist Wessel Beukes as soloist under the baton of Sonja Bass. Wesley has a diversity of composition styles that are not confined only to orchestral music, “I am glad to compose quality contemporary music rich with soul and funky sounds.” He was commissioned to compose the cello solo for the song “Not My Place” on the latest album entitled “The Bridge” of the Johannesburg based band, “Newtown”.

Jean Fritz is a singer, songwriter and sound engineer. Growing up in Cape Town, she was surrounded by a musical family and has sung in the church children’s choirs as well as other special choirs. In 2011, she resigned from her sound engineering position to fulfill her dream of becoming a professional singer and songwriter. Jean is currently working on her debut album to be released in 2012. “Music has changed and continues to change and as an artist I am constantly challenging myself to write better, to sound better vocally in order to stay relevant in today’s music industry.”

Keenan Stevens started playing recorder at the age of 11. At 16, he started to explore his musical passion through electronic music. After completing his schooling, he went on to study computer science but soon discovered that music was where his true passion lied. Keenan then chose the guitar to be the outlet for his musical expression. Since then he has studied at Stellenbosch University where he attended a 2 year musical training programme studying classical and jazz music. Keenan is currently a freelance musician and has worked with numerous bands and musicians in Cape Town. He also has ventured into theatre and took part in “The 48 Hour Festival”, sponsord by PANSA and “Shakespear in Prison”.

Janine Pick grew up singing in the church choir and later joined the adult and special choirs. She performs at various events including some at St Luke’s Hospice, an organization for which she feels a close affinity. Janine has performed with some of Cape Town’s talented tenors like Victor Siljeur and Eugene Jephta and loves bringing joy to others through her singing.

INFO

The Playhouse Theatre, Lourensford Rd, Somerset West

15 & 16 December @ 8pm

17 December @ 6:30pm

Bookings: Computicket

For more information visit our website at www.angelaprattenproductions.co.za

See you there!