Yvonne Silbert
Yvonne Silbert (1926-1975)
Contents
Biography
Born in Krugersdorp In 1926.
In 1950 she married Rupert Abrahams, an attorney. Two weeks later she contracted poliomyelitis and was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Though she could no longe rplay the piano and compose, she continued to write plays and short stories, and much of her time was taken up with teaching speech and drama.
She died in 1975.
Contribution to South African theatre, film, media and performance
As a playwright
Before she was twenty she wrote a musical play called Take It or Leave It!, produced in Johannesburg by Norah Taylor in 3 - 7 August 1948.
She went on to write numerous plays, musicals and other performance works for stage and radio under the name Yvonne Abrahams.
Her other plays, include:
Look Before You Leap! (also known as The Dress Rehearsal), Look before you leap
As a teacher
She travelled around the reef teaching Speech and Drama, and - among other projects - produced a number of Shakespearean plays at Afrikaans high schools.
Sources
"Biography of Yvonne Silbert", contained in ZA HPRA A2054: Papers of Yvonne Abrahams (Copyright Historical Papers Research Archive, The Library, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa).
http://historicalpapers-atom.wits.ac.za/abrahams-yvonne
http://historicalpapers-atom.wits.ac.za/writings-of-yvonne-silbert
