Christo Snyman

Christo Snyman (1975-) is an actor, writer, translator, publicist, and administrator.

Biography

Christo Snyman was born in Klerksdorp, South Africa in April 1969 and attended school in Orkney and Klerksdorp from 1975 to 1986. After two years in the erstwhile South African Defence Force he attended the University of the Witwatersrand, completing BA degree in languages (1989 to 1992) and a BA Hons degree in Translation (2000 to 2001). As an undergraduate student, one of his favourite courses was Drama & Film at the Wits School of Dramatic Art, headed at the time by Ian Steadman.

He did a short stint as translator and copy writer for programmes at the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal (PACT) in Pretoria (1994-1996), and then worked for Batseta – Council of Retirement Funds for South Africa, Discovery Holdings and Alexander Forbes – all in Johannesburg.

In 2008 his short story “Bone Meal” made it into the Highly Commendable category of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Later, he had two short stories published: “Savings and Discount” in New Contrast (Vol. 39 No. 1 in 2011) and “The life and times of Joseph K” (Vol. 41 No. 4 in 2013).

Living in the USA since, he currently works in employee benefits insurance, looking after the global benefit plans of multinational companies.

Contribution to theatre, film, media and performance in South Africa

He had a brief flirtation with professional theatre in 1993 with PACT Opera, playing the non-singing role of "Herr Zeller" in The Sound of Music (directed by George Kok) and was a member of the chorus (the bass) for Don Carlo (directed by Neels Hansen).

He then joined PACT as a translator and editor of programme notes for opera, ballet, drama and music (1994 to 1996).

In 2020 he joined the research team of ESAT as a freelance collaborator.