After Nines

After Nines is a 1998 musical play workshopped, written and lyrics by Robert Coleman, musical arrangement by Xoli Norman.

Subject
Called "A jazzy musical about our gay and lesbian history" in the programme of the première staging in Augut 1998. The production of After Nines was jointly supported by the Civic Theatre Development Programme, the National Arts Council and the Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA). Against the background of the constitutionally protected right to sexual preference in the new South Africa, the musical documented, in song-and-dance style, black gay history in South Africa. It was a history full of secrecy, pain, shame and often brutality. After Nines took its title from the concept in the black townships of the 1930s that a person could only be gay or lesbian after nine o’clock in the evening, mentioned in a song: Even when it was a crime, Everybody did it all the time, But only After Nine!

Performance history in South Africa
First staged as small community theatre performances raising funds for gay rights organisations at venues like the Harrison Reef Hotel in Hillbrow, the Yeoville Recreation Centre, the Sibikwa Centre in Benoni and others, its mainstream première was in August 1998 at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, directed by Robert Coleman, musical direction by Xoli Norman, choreography by Somizi Mhlongo, with Zodwa Shongwe, Paul Mokgethi, Zakhi Radebe, Mpumi Njinge and Wewe Ngidi.

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