Think Theatre Productions

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Also written ThinkTheatre, this is an independent theatre company, which specialises in performing set-work productions for learners and producing innovative, cutting edge original South African work. Our biggest annual production for the past 7 years has been to produce a fully staged performance of the Matric English language Shakespeare, as prescribed by the Department of Education. While at first blush the motivation was nothing more than to provide the true visual experience of a difficult text witnessed as it was intended, the growth in the sales of the production has made us keenly aware of the a more pressing need.

A vast number of Matric learners studying English as a first language do not have it as their mother tongue – in 2003 Margie Coppen (in her role as publicist and booking agent) captured some 2400 learners in the Durban region for the pilot project, in 2010 and after four years of collaboration with Clare Mortimer (director and co-producer) Coppen has grown the brand so that it performs to above 25 000 learners in KZN, Gauteng, Midlands, Northern KZN and the South Coast. There is a firm possibility of branching into the Western Cape, and therefore en route stops in the Eastern Cape, in 2012, prompted by the number of requests from those regions.

ThinkTheatre is a professional theatre company using award-winning professional actors, which may explain some of its success. The company tours across the country with a full set, costumes, lighting, sound, publicity and promotional material where a functional theatre space is available, but similarly performs in community halls or outdoors (minus the set and lighting rig) in areas of outreach or where there are no funds available for learners to travel. The budget runs understandably just below R1 million at present.

Part of ThinkTheatre’s mandate has been and will remain to reach as many learners as possible, whether it be by drawing them to other schools close to them (if they have not a suitable structure), or to try to provide the means for them to obtain busses in order to reach a theatre. A vast number of our seats each year are given as complimentary – this audience of indigent second language learners is where we are most needed and the response from them is as humbling as it is exhilarating. Aside from this, even within the plush spaces of the Playhouse Drama in Durban, Hilton College Theatre or the Art’s Complex at the University of Johannesburg, we keep our ticket prices at a minimum.

Contact

Big Creek Trading 51 CC T/A Think Theatre 5 Tividale Place Cowies Hill 3610 Margie Coppen (Producer) phone 083 2519142 fax 031 2667892 margie@thinktheatre.co.za Clare Mortimer (Producer) Phone 0731692733 fax 031 2014849 comort@webmail.co.za

Source: KZ/NATcasting/theatre - Title role ‘Othello’ auditions next week in Durban - 22/10/2013 - Artslink.co.za News

Think Theatre’s staging of Shakespeare’s Othello plays in the Playhouse Opera from 14 April to 7 May, presented in association with the Playhouse Company with support from PC Training and Business College. Geared mainly for secondary school learners studying Shakespeare’s stage tragedy as a set work, the production is directed by the multi-award-winning Durban actor, Clare Mortimer, herself a writer of note and an experienced English teacher. Schools performances are at 9am and 12pm daily, Mondays – Fridays, with two public performances on 15 and 30 April at 7pm. Bookings and information re out-of-town performances are through the show’s producer, Margie Coppen, on 083 251 9412.

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