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The Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT) is an open-access, online record of theatre, film, media and performance in South Africa — its history, forms, people and places.
Founding editor: Temple Hauptfleisch. A project of the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department.
This page last updated on 4 July 2026.
Start here
- Browse all entries — over 25,500 entries, grouped into sixteen categories.
- Search — use the search box at the top right of the page (or press Alt+F) to jump straight to a person, play, venue or company.
The encyclopaedia holds over 25,500 full entries. Since its launch in 2011 the main page has been viewed over 2.3 million times, and all its articles over 132 million times.
What's New?
June 2026 — New entries: people, plays, companies and venues
Fifty new entries have been added to ESAT this month, spanning four centuries of South African theatre history.
Among the new personality entries, Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal is a bilingual Afrikaans and English poet, playwright and educator whose multilingual drama Droomwerk won the 2021 ATKV-Woordveertjie and was nominated for the Hertzog Prize. Adrian van Wyk, who has also performed as "Diff", is a Cape Town–based performance poet, filmmaker and cultural historian, documented here for the first time. Two historical figures have also been added: Vivienne Adley, a Durban-born singer and actress who performed widely in the mid-twentieth century; and Thomas Barrow-Dowling (1861–1926), a British-born organist and choirmaster who made a significant contribution to musical life in South Africa.
On the plays side, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the 1903 adventure drama by Baroness Orczy, and The Prisoner of Zenda, Edward Rose's 1895 adaptation of Anthony Hope's novel, both have new entries documenting their South African performance histories. New SA work is represented by What the Water Remembers, a collaboratively created multilingual spoken-word production, and Droomwerk, noted above.
Two companies have been added. Wela Kapela Productions, founded in 2018 by Amanda Bothma, is a contemporary touring production company. At the other end of the timeline, Morgan and Wheatman's English Pantomime Company was a British touring company that brought pantomime to South African audiences in the late nineteenth century. The Carlton Theatre in Johannesburg, which opened in September 1912 in the same block as the original Carlton Hotel, has also been documented for the first time as a venue entry.
Browse all new additions via recent additions or explore the full encyclopaedia at The ESAT Entries.
May 2026 — New contributors
- Volunteers Martin Botha, Riaan Oppelt, Annel Pieterse and Kevin Turner have joined the editorial team. See Contributing to ESAT to find out how to help.
May 2025 — The ESAT archive finds a home
- ESAT's growing collection of programmes, posters, photographs and texts is now held in the Performing Arts Research Collection (PARC), established in 2025 at the Africa Open Institute, University of Stellenbosch, with the help of Prof Stephanus Muller. Esther Marie Pauw was appointed as its first administrator.
March 2025 — ESAT recognised at the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards
- At the 60th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, founding editor Temple Hauptfleisch received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his career documenting South African theatre and for establishing ESAT.
About ESAT
ESAT grew out of research by the Centre for South African Theatre Research between 1979 and 1987, continued at the University of Stellenbosch from 1988, and opened to the public online in 2011. It documents the evolution, history and forms of theatre, film, media and performance in South Africa.
It is built openly — edited by a team of research editors and written by contributors around the world — and is deliberately structured like a printed encyclopaedia, with an index of entries grouped into sixteen categories.
Please note that ESAT was founded in 2010 with its main focus then conceived to be on pre-21st-century theatre, film, media and performance. However, we are very aware that we are now well into the 21st century and that ESAT will always remain a work in progress. So, though the encyclopaedia will always be incomplete and subject to occasional error, it is the aim of the contyributors to keep it as up to date and relevant as we can make it, with the help of our readers.
For the full history and aims of the project, and list of editors, see About ESAT.
Finding your way around
- Search
- Type a name, title or keyword into the search box (top right, or Alt+F) and press Enter.
- Browse the index
- Go to The ESAT Entries for the full list of sixteen categories, each managed by a research editor.
- Follow the links
- Links shown in red mark entries not yet written. Click one, then choose "What links here" under Tools to find related mentions elsewhere in the encyclopaedia.
Good to know: ESAT focuses on pre-21st-century performance, is a work in progress, follows a policy on historical and offensive terminology, and is not itself an archival facility.
Contributing to ESAT
ESAT is always growing, and all researchers, artists and interested readers are welcome to help expand, correct and update it. To find out how, see Contributing to ESAT.
Copyright and referencing
ESAT is an open-access publication. Although its content is copyrighted to ESAT and the University of Stellenbosch, it may be freely used for academic and artistic purposes, provided the use is clearly referenced and attributed to the Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), including the URL of the entry used.
Contact the editors
- Postal
- The Editor: ESAT, Department of Drama, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa.
- satj@sun.ac.za
- Fax
- +27 21 882 9141
