Natal Theatre Workshop Company

Natal Theatre Workshop Company (also referred to as the Durban Theatre Workshop Company and simply as the Theatre Workshop Company) was a Durban theatre company.

Founded by Elizabeth Sneddon in 1951 to perform classical and modern works, later joined by Pieter Scholtz.

Its first theatre, the Theatre Workshop, consisted of converted lecture rooms in the University of Natal’s City Buildings, Warwick Avenue, to perform classical and modern works (including Athol Fugard’s The Blood Knot (1961)). The Natal Theatre Workshop Company’s greatest success, Welcome Msomi’s Umabatha (1970), was presented in the University's Open Air Theatre and London (in 1972). Productions were also presented at the Theatre Royal, Criterion, Durban City Hall and on the University of Natal's Durban campus before the acquisition of City Centre as its home between 1973 and 1981.

Also presented works by i.a. Feydeau, Beckett, Pinter, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Douglas Livingstone and Geraldine Aron (e.g. Along Came a Spider, Hotel Paradiso), by such directors as Pieter Scholtz, Ann Wakefield, Norman Marshall, John Rogers and Ian Steadman. The Company also presented a varied educational programme for schools throughout KwaZulu-Natal, including a version of The Story of an African Farm. They were the first to stage The Sea my Winding Sheet by Douglas Livingstone.

Spotlight Children's Theatre Company was an off-shoot of the Theatre Workshop Company.

Productions

Productions staged them include:

1961: The Blood Knot

1964: A Man for All Seasons

1970: Umabatha

1970: Twelfth Night

1971: The Sea my Winding Sheet

1972: Thurkaari, Demon of the Curry Powders, Umabatha (in London)

1973: The Royal Cricket of Japan, The Circus Adventure

1974: The Owl and the Pussycat Went to See...

1976: Much Ado About Nothing, Candida, Rattle of a Simple Man

1977: Robinson Crusoe, Hotel Paradiso, A Thousand Clowns

1978: School for Clowns, One Season's King

1979: Along Came a Spider

Sources

Sydney Paul Gosher, 1988[JH]

Greyvenstein, Walter 1988. The history and development of children's theatre in English in South Africa. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Johannesburg: Rand Afrikaans University.

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