DALRO is delighted to announce that we have both volumes of Short, Sharp and Snappy in stock.

These publications from Junkets Publisher contain no less than 33 short Southern African plays by a variety of authors and are perfect for performance by high school students. The plays cover many themes - there really is something for everybody - and we look forward to seeing them performed frequently!

Colleague and Theatrical Rights Administrator, Emile Hahn, attended the 2012 Absa Klein Karoo National Arts Festival this year. As part of our commitment to the performing arts, we attend festivals to engage with producers and authors, acquire new repertoire, and to support our local industry. According to Mr. Brett Pyper, head organiser of the festival, this year’s Festival had a more colossal crowd than in previous years, and was a huge success. Some production highlights included:

ROOILAND (written by Tertius Kapp, directed & produced by Jaco Bower)
MY NAAM/NAME IS ELLEN PAKKIES (written & directed by Lizz Meiring)
DOODSNIKKE adapted from Sam Shepard’s BURIED CHILD (directed by Janice Honeyman)
BODY LANGUAGE (by the ever hillarious Gaëtan Schmid)
OP EN TOP (with agile actors Richard Antrobus and Tristan Jacobs)
BABBEL (by award-winning writer/director Nicola Hanekom)

And that's only to name a few! Emile also attended music performances, children's theatre and several art exhibitions. Surely too many to mention. Keep a look-out for these and other exciting productions happening at other festivals, and around the country.

Woza Albert! is returning to the Market Theatre from 13 March to 22 April after a successful season earlier this year.

This is one of the plays for which South African theatre is best known internationally. Its physical style of storytelling was to inspire and influence theatre companies around the world – and it is one of the best examples that define South African theatre in all its vibrancy, innovation and humanity.

This celebrated and much-loved South African classic asks what would happen if Jesus Christ (Morena) came back to South Africa during apartheid. This lively satire of the absurdities of apartheid provides a showcase for the talents of two dextrous actors, who play a range of ordinary characters on the street.

Described as: "A great story that any South African can relate to... full of humour... compassionate... reminds one of the late Barney Simon's talent.' by the PANSA judges, THE BOY WHO WALKED INTO THE WORLD by Robin Malan was first performed at the Actors' Centre, Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Braamfontein on 25 November 2005.

A young man walks into the police station of a small country town.  Lucky has been brought up in a small rural black community.  But is he really black?  The others tease him because of his light brown eyes and blond hair.  He has vague notions of having been abducted from his white family, and there are remnants of Afrikaans words somewhere in his head.  So Lucky sets out on a quest to discover who he is.  When people find out about Lucky's dilemma, it touches a raw nerve in the national psyche, and the debate about identity and ethnic origin starts to swirl around the young man, confusing rather than clarifying, diffusing rather than focusing his search for himself.  What is it to be African?  What does a family mean to a growing child?  Does it matter what language you speak or think in?  What if you're not even sure of your name?  Issues of identity and belonging crowd Lucky, who is thrown off balance by the publicity surrounding him, yet enjoys the attention and sudden 'celebrity' this brings.  In the end, who is Lucky?  And can Lucky cope with being Lucky?

The play can be presented by as many actors as the director decides (there are 22 named roles), or as few as five actors - three male and two female - with doubling.

Copies of the published play are available to order from DALRO.

Catch THE LAST FIVE YEARS, on-stage from 16 March 2012, at Pieter Toerien’s Studio Theatre at Monte Casino

THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a multi award winning, emotionally powerful and intimate one-act musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. Written by Tony Award winning composer Jason Robert Brown, the show's unconventional structure consists of Cathy (played by Talia Kodesh), a vivacious struggling actress, telling her story backwards and Jamie (played by Niall Griffin), a hotshot up-and-coming novelist, tells his story chronologically.

The show has been produced at almost every major regional theatre in the US, and has been seen in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Germany, Italy, Canada, Spain, the UK, and now at the Pieter Toerien Studio Theatre at Montecasino in Johannesburg, South Africa.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS (South Africa) is directed by Gina Shmukler, star of Mamma Mia and Chess, and is joined by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder as Musical Director.

Book at Computicket. Tickets are going fast!

We have new stock of DALLIANCES, a full length play by Pieter Jacobs.

DALLIANCES won five awards and nominations at the fifth International Dublic Gay Theatre Festival in 2008. Janet is looking for love. Leo and Janet are friends. Ken is involved with Andy. When Ken meets Leo in a supermarket, the lives of these four characters intersect with extraordinary results. Dalliances is a complex moral tale reflecting a world in which everything is possible but ..