Michael Williams

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Michael Williams (1962-) is an arts administrator, and the authors of plays, musicals, operas and novels.

Biography

Training

Williams obtained a BA Drama and English degree and a Performer's Diploma at the University of Cape Town. After his studies he travelled from Israel to Kathmandu where he was appointed Director of Drama at the Lincoln International School in Nepal and directed a musical adaptation of Orwell's Animal Farm.

Career

Michael started his opera career working as an Assistant Director for New Sadler’s Wells Opera in London, touring productions throughout the UK. He returned to South Africa and worked for Cape Town Opera for the next twenty years as head of Outreach, opera director, General Manager and finally as Managing Director.

In November 1991, he joined the University of Pittsburg's Semester at Sea programme as Director of their Theatre Arts Department. This took him on a world tour from Tokyo, around Africa and South America and back to New York.

He moved to Buxton, England in 2018 and, asof 2024, is Chief Executive Officer of the Buxton International Festival.

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

As administrator

He worked as assistant producer for PACT Opera where he created programmes for the local communities and schools. One of these was The Milkbird, an opera for children in the townships. When he joined CAPAB Opera in 1990 he restaged a new version of The Milkbird. He has assisted on numerous productions in Cape Town, including Don Carlo, Hansel und Gretel, Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Boheme and Madama Butterfly.

He was Managing Director of Cape Town Opera.

As director

In February 1991, he directed Menotti's The Consul in the Nico Theatre, his third major prodution after the premiere of Hendrik Hofmeyr's The Fall of the House of Usher in the State Theatre for the Pretoria Technikon Opera School (1988) and Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos in Roodepoort (1990).

In April 1991, Williams assisted the international director Sonja Frisell in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Nico. He also directed Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Nico Opera House in August 1993.

As writer

Opera and Musicals

He has written the book and lyrics or libretti for the following musicals and operas:

  • The Seven-Headed Snake (1991) which was performed at schools in the southern and northern Cape Province and in townships in the Cape Peninsula. This opera was also performed at the Standard Bank Festival of Arts in Grahamstown, together with The Milkbird

He has written operas for young people based on African mythology (published by Heinemann Press in the anthology South African Operas for Young People), as well as the libretti for symphonic operas that have premiered around the world.

NorlandOperan in Sweden commissioned and produced two of his operas (Poet and Prophetess) and The Elephant Man (Unander-Scharin).

Plays

He began writing radio plays while studying at University of Cape Town. His plays include:

  • Water Carriers (performed in theatres in Indianapolis, Brooklyn and New York)

Other works

Williams had his first novel published when he was twenty-five years old. He is a prize-winning author of thirteen novels, including the highly praised young adult novel Crocodile Burning.

Awards

Sources

Buxton International Festival Website, https://buxtonfestival.co.uk/about-us/team

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4906950.Michael_Williams

Ivan Meredith. 2006. 'Opera in South Africa during the first democratic decade'. Unpublished Masters thesis. University of Cape Town.

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