Billy Langa

Billy Langa (19**-) is a South African actor, playwright, director, dancer and educator.

Biography

Raised in Hammanskraal[1], Gauteng, he is a graduate of the Trevor Huddleston Centre and the Market Theatre Laboratory, where he met Mahlatsi Mokgonyana. With Mokgonyana he co-founded the theatre collective The Movement RSA and the collaborative partnership Theatre Duo.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Langa's work is marked by a curiosity about the body, language and physicality in performance, and by oratory storytelling and physical poetry. He wrote and performed Tswalo, an epic performance poem in English and Sepedi that he debuted at the 2018 National Arts Festival, directed by Mahlatsi Mokgonyana; the text has since been published in two editions and is taught at Rhodes University. His other performing credits include Poet-O-Type, Waiting for Godot, Bapa, Thirst, Milk and Honey, Katanga: January 17 and SALT. As a director his credits include Khongolose Khommanding Khommissars, Rhinoceros, Just Antigone, A Place of Knowing and Mehlala. He is a long-time collaborator of The Centre for the Less Good Idea, and since 2019 has worked with Lara Foot and the Handspring Puppet Company in Life & Times of Michael K. He cites Monageng Vice Motshabi, Jefferson Tshabalala and Andrew Buckland among those who inspire him.

Awards, etc.

Langa was named the 2022 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre for Tswalo. He has received a Naledi Theatre Award for Best Production for Young Audiences, and was named one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans in 2024.