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ESAT: The Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance

An open-access, online record of theatre, film, media and performance in South Africa — its history, forms, people and places.

Founding editor: Temple Hauptfleisch. A project of the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department.

Current editors Temple Hauptfleisch and Annel Pieterse

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This page last updated on 18 August 2026.

Start here

• Browse all entries — over 25,500 entries, grouped into sixteen categories.
• Search — use the search box at the top right of the page (or press Alt+F) to jump straight to a person, play, venue or company.

The encyclopaedia holds over 25,500 full entries. Since its launch in 2011 the main page has been viewed over 2.5 million times, and all its articles over 140 million times.

What's New?

August 2026

Staff news: On 17 August, 2026, ESAT contributor Dr Annel Pieterse Roux joined the management team as co-project-leader and co-editor of the encyclopaedia.

New entries:

Namaqualand on stage, the radio drama of Lee Doubell, and the 1970s touring repertoire

More than fifty new entries have been added since mid-July, alongside substantial expansions to several existing articles. The period's work falls into three large clusters — a contemporary Afrikaans playwright documented with her full oeuvre, a body of Afrikaans radio drama, and the reconstruction of a 1970s touring company — with further additions in dance history, cinema history and screen biography.

The largest single body of new material documents Dianne du Toit Albertze (19**-), a playwright, novelist, actress, director and arts journalist whose Afrikaans work draws on her native Namaqualand and on trans and queer material. Eight of her works now have entries: bottelnek breek bek, which she adapted from her own novel of the same title; Klip Kween, about a young transgender woman who returns to her birthplace; Huis van sand, set in a caravan park outside Springbok; Kaap, which engages the sound, colour and colonial history of Cape Town; the one-performer tragicomedy Katrina Kakkerlak; the twenty-minute one-woman drama Die meermin-kompleks; Kommapunt, a devised piece on depression assembled from poems and prose; and ’n Kraai song. The cluster is anchored by a substantial new contextual entry on Namaqualand — the Afrikaans Namakwaland, historically also Little Namaqualand or Klein-Namakwaland, as distinguished from Great Namaqualand north of the Orange River — the longest addition of the period, and a rare instance of a geographical entry created to serve a body of dramatic work.

ESAT's coverage of Afrikaans radio drama has been significantly strengthened following the death of the writer Lee Doubell (1958*-2026). Six of his radio works now have entries: the serials Tien Dae and Sestig Dae, and the dramas Krag, Koue Kaiings, Sou die Sterre Luister and Wild en Woeker.

A third cluster reconstructs Theatre Roundabout through its people and its repertoire. Nine plays from the company's mid-1970s touring seasons have been added, most of them by Brian Darnley — When the World Was Very Young, The Lost Laugh, The Music Makers, Grinappy, The Carton of Oon, The 1820 Settlers, STOP! and Oodles — together with The Baron Returns by Roger Holt. Company members Lea Hodgekinson, Ann Larson, Julius Exter, Walter Tamsen, David Chambers, Stephen Scott and Christopher Voysey have been documented for the first time.

Further Afrikaans stage work has been added: Diva, the solo cabaret-theatre piece written and performed by Amanda Strydom; Oupa en Ouma by Leon Kruger, on a couple married more than forty years; Seks in die suburbs by Francois Toerien; Die dinges is 'n watsem – Jan Spies kom tot verhaal by Johan Engelbrecht; the Afrikaans Dinsdae by Morrie, from the play by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom; and Duiwelsbrood by Annelie Botes, staged in 2026 by ATKV-tak PEAAT at the Isithatha Theatre. The singer, director, producer and arts manager Niël Rademan (19**-), who works across cabaret, art song, folk music and music theatre, has also been documented.

South African dance history gains an institutional lineage: Joburg Ballet, formed by the 2012 merger of South African Ballet Theatre and Mzansi Productions (2006-2012), the latter founded by Dirk Badenhorst, who now has his own entry; and the South African Academy of Drama and Ballet, formerly affiliated to the University of Natal.

Venue and cinema history is represented by two East London (now KuGompo City) houses — the 20th Century Cinema Theatre in Fleet Street, which seated 800 on a single air-conditioned floor, and the Springbok Cinema, established before the Second World War by the Layden brothers — while Apollo Theatre now disambiguates venues in Germiston and Victoria West. New personality entries include the singer-songwriter Jonathan Butler (1961-), born in Athlone; the singer Ronald Joyce (?-2013), known initially as Little Ronnie Joyce and also raised in Athlone; the actress, director and teacher Gladys Lazarus; and the costumier, stage and publicity manager and performer Michael de Beer (1951-). On the screen side, Lied in My Hart, the Afrikaans musical film by Ivan Hall also known as Song in My Heart, has been documented.

Among expansions, the Makhanda material has been substantially reworked. The entry on Andrew Buckland has been enlarged across its actor, playwright, solo performer and director sections, with linked updates to The Well Being, Feedback, the Rhodes University Drama Department and the Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company. Anton Calitz has been expanded and his cabaret Dead Slugs and Strawberries added. My Plaas se Naam is Vergenoeg has been considerably enlarged, with a corresponding update to Vergenoeg. Finally, the Andre Huguenet Memorial Lecture, started by the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival, now has an entry listing its guest lecturers.

July 2026 — New entries: contemporary performance-makers and the Woordfees drama archive

More than 70 new entries have been added to ESAT over recent weeks, with a strong focus on contemporary South African performance.

A group of entries documents the Johannesburg live-arts world of Jefferson Tshabalala ("J. Bobs") — his production house Kiri Pink Nob Arts and his works Khongolose Khommanding Khommissars, Ekasi Lam and the game-show series J.Bobs Live — alongside the collaborative duo Theatre Duo (Billy Langa and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana) and the award-winning Afrikaans production house Polony. The poet-performer Kgafela oa Magogodi has also been documented for the first time.

New play and company entries include the dark comedy Amper, Vrystaat by Nico Scheepers, the one-man music-theatre piece Ek is nie Danie by Danie Marais, the Cape Town company Spark in the Dark, and a run of Afrikaans works and translations such as Skeer op Richmond (Saartjie Botha), Bullets over Bishop Lavis (Christo Davids and Jody Abrahams), Skop, Grieta kry geleerdheid, 'n Lewe in die Teater and Voor ek vergeet.

On the festival side, the Sanlam Dramafees — the former sponsor-branded name of the US Woordfees drama programme in Stellenbosch, used in the early 2010s and later renamed the Toneelfees — now has an entry, together with the first production write-ups from the 2010 festival: Maskermaan by Cecilia du Toit, Suurgat II by Leon Kruger, Daan de Wet hou sy oog op die bal by Gaerin Hauptfleisch, and 'n Koeksister vir Zuma, Pieter-Dirk Uys's satirical solo turn as Evita Bezuidenhout. A new overview entry on South African sketch comedy traces the form's local history.

New reference and screen-history entries include the documentary filmmaker Michael Duffett (1956–2021) and the film The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980); the bilingual essay collection Die Breytie-Boek/The Breytie Book, dedicated to P.P.B. Breytenbach; the cabaret Die Siel van Eugene Marais by Amanda Bothma; and J.M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Browse all new additions via recent additions or explore the full encyclopaedia at The ESAT Entries.

June 2026 — New entries: people, plays, companies and venues

Fifty new entries have been added to ESAT this month, spanning four centuries of South African theatre history.

Among the new personality entries, Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal is a bilingual Afrikaans and English poet, playwright and educator whose multilingual drama Droomwerk won the 2021 ATKV-Woordveertjie and was nominated for the Hertzog Prize. Adrian van Wyk, who has also performed as "Diff", is a Cape Town–based performance poet, filmmaker and cultural historian, documented here for the first time. Two historical figures have also been added: Vivienne Adley, a Durban-born singer and actress who performed widely in the mid-twentieth century; and Thomas Barrow-Dowling (1861–1926), a British-born organist and choirmaster who made a significant contribution to musical life in South Africa.

On the plays side, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the 1903 adventure drama by Baroness Orczy, and The Prisoner of Zenda, Edward Rose's 1895 adaptation of Anthony Hope's novel, both have new entries documenting their South African performance histories. New SA work is represented by What the Water Remembers, a collaboratively created multilingual spoken-word production, and Droomwerk, noted above.

Two companies have been added. Wela Kapela Productions, founded in 2018 by Amanda Bothma, is a contemporary touring production company. At the other end of the timeline, Morgan and Wheatman's English Pantomime Company was a British touring company that brought pantomime to South African audiences in the late nineteenth century. The Carlton Theatre in Johannesburg, which opened in September 1912 in the same block as the original Carlton Hotel, has also been documented for the first time as a venue entry.

Browse all new additions via recent additions or explore the full encyclopaedia at The ESAT Entries.

May 2026 — New contributors

Volunteers Martin Botha, Riaan Oppelt, Annel Pieterse and Kevin Turner have joined the editorial team. See Contributing to ESAT to find out how to help.

May 2025 — The ESAT archive finds a home

ESAT's growing collection of programmes, posters, photographs and texts is now held in the Performing Arts Research Collection (PARC), established in 2025 at the Africa Open Institute, University of Stellenbosch, with the help of Prof Stephanus Muller. Esther Marie Pauw was appointed as its first administrator.

March 2025 — ESAT recognised at the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards

At the 60th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, founding editor Temple Hauptfleisch received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his career documenting South African theatre and for establishing ESAT.

About the encyclopaedia

ESAT documents the evolution, history and forms of theatre, film, media and performance in South Africa, and originated from historical research undertaken by the Centre for South African Theatre Research at the Human Sciences Research Council between 1979 and 1987 and continued at the University of Stellenbosch from 1988 to 2010. The website finally opened to the public online in 2011.

An open access project, it is edited by a team of research editors and written by contributors around the world. Though using the Wiki programme for the website, it has, from the start, deliberately been conceived and structured like a printed encyclopaedia, with an index of entries grouped into sixteen categories to facilitate its role as a basic research tool.

Please note that ESAT was founded in 2010 with its main focus then conceived to be on pre-21st-century theatre, film, media and performance. However, we are very aware that we are now well into the 21st century and that ESAT will always remain a work in progress. So, though the encyclopaedia will always be incomplete and subject to occasional error, it is the aim of the contyributors to keep it as up to date and relevant as we can make it, with the help of our readers.

For the full history and aims of the project, and list of editors, see About ESAT.

Finding your way around

Search

Type a name, title or keyword into the search box (top right, or Alt+F) and press Enter.

Browse the index

Go to The ESAT Entries for the full list of sixteen categories, each managed by a research editor.

Follow the links

Links shown in red mark entries not yet written. Click one, then choose "What links here" under Tools to find related mentions elsewhere in the encyclopaedia.

Good to know: ESAT focuses on pre-21st-century performance, is a work in progress, follows a policy on historical and offensive terminology, and is not itself an archival facility.

Contributing to ESAT

ESAT is always growing, and all researchers, artists and interested readers are welcome to help expand, correct and update it. To find out how, see Contributing to ESAT.

Copyright and referencing

ESAT is an open-access publication. Although its content is copyrighted to ESAT and the University of Stellenbosch, it may be freely used for academic and artistic purposes, provided the use is clearly referenced and attributed to the Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), including the URL of the entry used.

Contact the editors

Postal: The Editors: ESAT, Department of Drama, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa.

E-mail: satj@sun.ac.za (Temple Hauptfleisch) or annelp@sun.ac.za (Annel Pieterse Roux)

Fax: +27 21 882 9141