The Shakespeare Schools Festival South Africa (SSF-SA) is into its twelfth year! It will take place in three phases between May and September 2022. First up: the D6 Theatre (formerly the Fugard Theatre) in Cape Town, from 6-14 May.
The Festival will continue in Cape Town at the Baxter Theatre from 10-20 August. Following this, SSF-SA will run in Johannesburg at the Joburg Theatre from 6-11 September, at the Dotsure George Arts Theatre in George from 9-18 September, and at the Playhouse in Durban from 13-17 September.
Darul Arqam Islamic High School
The De La Bat School for the Deaf
Participating schools at the D6 Theatre include Parel Vallei High School, Parklands College, Fish Hoek Primary School, Wynberg Boys' Acting Association, Pioneer School for the visually impaired, Hermanus High School, Curro Century City High, South Peninsula High School, Westerford High School, Darul Arqam Islamic High School, Wynberg Boys' Junior School, Rhenish Girls' High School, Leiden Secondary School, Athlone High School, SACS High School, Vista Nova High School, Rustenburg Girls’ High and Oakley House.
. . . and there’s more!
On Friday 13 May at 10:00, theatre and arts education company Educasions will give a performance of its touring production of Macbeth, sponsored by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences.
Tickets can be booked through Quicket.
For the festival, schools are asked to present innovative, abridged versions of a Shakespeare play of their choice, approximately thirty minutes in duration. Casts are encouraged to re-imagine, to adapt and to ‘turn the play on its head’ by taking its themes and relating them to themselves and their peers.
Since 2009, the SSFSA has showcased over five hundred Shakespeare plays across the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, working with almost eleven thousand learners from six hundred schools, and bolstering hundreds of teachers in their capacity as drama and performing arts directors.