Bantu People's Theatre (BPT)

A Johannesburg-based theatre group founded in 1936 by Dan Twala, Guy Routh, and other members of the Bantu Dramatic Society, for the “cultivation of Bantu Art and Drama” and to improve “the undiscovered talents of Bantu Art in Drama”. They modelled their constitution on that of the Unity Theatres in Britain. Their first production was Eugene O'Neill’s The Hairy Ape, with Dan Twala as Yank, directed by André van Gyseghem. It was performed at the Bantu Men's Social Centre (BMSC) in December 1936 and at the University of the Witwatersrand Great Hall in June 1937. In 1940 the company seemed to surface again, when their work became more explicitly socialist in intention, targeting urbanized and urbanizing workers and intellectuals. They hosted a BPT Drama Festival at the BMSC, and in 1941 they organised another festival which they called African National Theatre (ANT) at the Ghandi Hall, Fordsburg. This time the programme included Gaur Radebe’s The Rude Criminal and I. Pinchuk’s Tau, performed largely in Sesotho and starring Dan Twala. (Couzens, 1985; Kruger, 51ff, 74-5. According to Tucker, 1997, the Bantu People’s Theatre transformed into an organisation called the African National Theatre (ANT) circa 1940.

BPT Drama Festival, 1940

A one-off festival event in 1940, hosted by the Bantu People’s Theatre group at the Bantu Men's Social Centre (BMSC), the festival had Eugene O'Neill’s play The Dreamy Kid, plus two new locally written plays by Guy Routh: The Word and the Act and Patriot’s Pie.

The African National Theatre (ANT) festival, 1940

According to Kruger (1999) this was a one-off event in 1941, hosted by the Bantu People’s Theatre at the Ghandi Hall, Fordsburg. The programme included Gaur Radebe’s The Rude Criminal and I. Pinchuk’s Tau, performed largely in Sesotho and starring Dan Twala. However, according to Tucker, 1997, this was an organisation not a festival. See also African National Theatre (ANT)

Bantu People's Theatre (BPT)