Percy Mtwa

(1953-) Actor, director and playwright.

Biography

Mtwa was born and grew up in Wattville, Benoni.

His contribution to South African theatre

In 1979 he joined Gibson Kente’s company as actor, with a role as singer/dancer in Mama and the Load, which toured South Africa, playing most townships and later also at the Market Theatre and the Baxter Theatre.

In May 1980 he and co-actor Mbongeni Ngema broke away to found the company Earth Players. Their first production was Woza Albert!, which they devised in 1981 and showed to the Market Theatre. There Barney Simon joined them as director and the company then took it on tour over a number of years.

Mtwa then wrote and directed Bopha! as a Market Theatre and Earth Players collaboration (The Laager, 1985-1986) and became a resident director at the Market Theatre.***

Bopha! was filmed by Arsenio Hall Communications in 1993, with a screenplay by Brian Bird and John Wierick, directed by Morgan Freeman, and starring inter alia Danny Glover, Malcolm McDonald and Marius Weyers.

Sources

http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/percy-mtwa#sthash.Sl6bssdr.dpuf.

Tucker, 1997

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