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This page was last modified on 7 April 2025

ESAT News

ESAT recognized at the 2025 Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards

During the 60th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards held in Cape Town in March 2025, founder and general editor Professor Temple Hauptfleisch was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for dedicating his career to researching and documenting theatre in South Africa, and for establishing the open access, online, Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), "... which is now considered an essential aid to theatre studies and research, and for the theatre industry."

Current user statistics

The site's main page has been accessed over 1,641,000 times, and by April 2025, the various other articles combined totaled over 80 million hits.

Go directly to the listing of contents

NOTE: To skip the introductory notes and instructions for using the encyclopaedia and go directly to the listing of contents, simply click in the link below:

INDEX TO ESAT ENTRIES

About ESAT and how to use it

Introduction to the ESAT project

The project

The ESAT encyclopaedia-project was conceived as an interactive resource for researchers interested in the evolution, history and forms of performance and media in South Africa, and it is based on research originally undertaken by the Centre for South African Theatre Research under the auspices of, and with the support of, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) between 1979 and 1987. In 1988 the research was transferred to, and continued at, the University of Stellenbosch by the Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies, with the support of the University's Division for Research Development, the former Centre for Science Development (CSD) and the National Research Foundation (NRF). The website was opened for public use in 2011.

Please note that any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the particular author(s) and that none of the sponsors of the project accept any liability in this regard.

The project is currently headed by Temple Hauptfleisch (original founder, editor-in-chief and project director of the undertaking), with the assistance of Freddy Ogterop, Ivor Markman, Karina Hauptfleisch, Darryl Nel and Christo Snyman as assistant editors, while numerous contributors across the globe have helped in collating and writing the information since its first inception. It uses the standard Wiki programme and is published on the web with the assistance of the Drama Department (http://www.sun.ac.za/drama) and its former Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies, the IT staff of the J.S. Gericke Library and the division for Information Technology at the University of Stellenbosch (http://www.sun.ac.za/index.asp).

For more detailed information on the nature of the project, including the history and aims of the encyclopaedia and the names of all the editors, researchers and supporting staff involved - go to their entry on the encyclopaedia by clicking on the link below:

• About ESAT

Contacting the ESAT editors

You can contact ESAT at the following addresses:

Postal address: The Editor: ESAT, Department of Drama, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, MATIELAND 7602, South Africa.

E-mail address: satj@sun.ac.za

Fax number: (+ 27) 21 882 9141

How to use ESAT

While ESAT uses the Wiki programme, which makes provision for a very useful search function, the database has avoided contemporary multi-screen web-design, and has been constructed rather more traditionally, like a printed encyclopaedia, with an Index to the various entries (also called The ESAT Entries). The entries in the Index have been grouped in sixteen distinct categories, each one managed and edited by one of the research editors.

Four important notes for everyone using ESAT

1. The main focus is on pre-21st-century theatre, film, media and performance
2. It is work in progress and thus subject to error on occasion
3. Policy regarding offensive language and terminology
4. ESAT is not an archival facility

To find out more about these matters, click on the relevant item(s) listed above.

Accessing the database of entries

To access database material on the relevant category, the reader has three options:

Using the "Search" function

Go to the "Search" block at the top right of this page (or type: Alt+F), type in the search word/phrase and click on the search icon there (the magnifying glass) or press the Enter button on your keyboard.

Using the "Index" function

Simply click on The ESAT Entries at the start of this main page (or HERE) , to go to the list of 16 categories into which the material has been divided. On the list provided, click on the appropriate one, then follow instructions on the landing page.

Using the "What links here" function

While searching for information you will notice many links are highlighted in red and a notice reading "[name] (page does not exist)" pops up. Do not give up your search at this stage. All this means is, due to the tremendous amount of work involved, a specific page on that subject/person has not yet been created. However, if you first click on the red notice, this will take you to a blank page. Next, look near the top left-hand side of the page and under "Tools" you will notice a link reading "What links here". Click on this link and it will generate a complete list of links which contain the name you're looking for. Try it, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Photographs and illustrations

Photographs and illustrations in the entries are usually posted in a small format, however, the reader can see a larger version by clicking on the relevant photograph.

NB: Copyright and referencing of material used

ESAT is an open access publication, which means that even though the material contained in the encyclopaedia is copyrighted to ESAT and the University of Stellenbosch, it may be freely used for academic and artistic purposes as long as such use is clearly referenced and the material used is attributed to The Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), the reference also including the URL for the particular entry in ESAT.

Contributing to ESAT

All researchers, artists and other interested parties are invited to help us to expand, improve, update and correct ESAT since, by its very nature, the database will always be incomplete and prone to error on occasion.

To find how you can contribute, click on the HEADING above.