Phyllis Klotz

Phyllis Klotz (19**-). Director, writer, educationist.

Training

Graduated from the University of Cape Town.

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

She worked with SAADYT and the Community Arts Project (CAP) in Cape Town. At CAP she developed, facilitated and directed the hugely influential workshop play Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo (You Strike the Woman, You Strike the Rock) in 1986, with Thobeka Macutyana, Nomvula Qosha and Poppy Tsira (calling themselves Vusisizwe Players). They performed at the Market Theatre in December 1986, and returned in early 1987 before touring Europe and North America.

Klotz started the now-defunct New Africa Theatre with Professor Mavis Taylor and the Young People’s Theatre Education Trust.

Klotz was Artistic Director and co-founder with Smal Ndaba of the Sibikwa Arts Centre in 1988. Phyllis has been involved in Developmental Theatre for many years.

She has toured extensively throughout southern Africa with plays that deal with topics from Shakespeare to the environment playing in schools, factories, day hospitals wherever people assemble.

As playwright

She has written and devised a number of plays (several of these with Smal Ndaba). The plays have garnered several awards for their contribution to South African theatre. A collection of plays published under the title Sibikwa Plays have toured internationally to great acclaim. Her works include:

• You Strike the Woman You Strike the Rock (with Thobeka Macutyana, Nomvula Qosha and Poppy Tsira ) (1986)

• So Where To? (with Smal Ndaba) (1989)

• Ubuntu Bomhlaba – The Humaneness of the World (workshopped with Smal Ndaba and the cast)(1993)

• Kwela Bafana (with Smal Ndaba) (1994)

• Uhambo (with Smal Ndaba) (1997)

• Maru (an adaptation of the novel by Bessie Head) (2006)

• Animal Farm (an adaptation of the George Orwell novel) (2009)

• Ma Lindi: Sex Strike (2009)

• Chapter 2 Section 9 (2016)

Awards, etc

Finalist Woman of the Year Award 2000, she has been active in formulating a new Arts Policy for South Africa and has worked extensively on Arts Education Policies with the Department of Arts and Culture.

She was named by The Star newspaper as one of the top ten cultural achievers in South Africa.

She won a Naledi Lifetime Achiever Award, February 2005.

Sources

D.E.T. Boys High programme, 1991.

Tucker, 1997.

The Star, 15 February 2005.

Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba (eds.) 2023. Strategies for Survival at SIBIKWA 1988 – 2021. Landmarks of South African Theatre History. Oxford and New York: Routledge.[1]

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