Greig Coetzee

COETZEE, Greig (11 March 1967-) Actor, director and playwright.

Biography

Training

Trained at the University of Natal and obtained a B.A. (Zulu and Drama) and Higher Education Diploma (1985-89), during which time he was involved with amateur township theatre and student protest theatre.

Career

After a year in the army (1990) became a teacher of drama at Pietermaritzburg Girls High School (1991-1995), where he directed 6 plays. Then he began a free-lance career as actor, director and writer, leaving teaching at the end of 1995.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

He was involved in a total of thirteen productions in the period 1995-2002, eleven of which he wrote or co-wrote. His plays include the enormously successful White Men with Weapons (winning more than 21 international and national awards), The Blue Period of Milton van der Spuy (1998), Solomon's Pride (1998, co-written with Bheki Mkhwane), An Outpost of Progress (2000, a commissioned work for the Internationale Nieuwe Scène in Antwerp, based on a story by Joseph Conrad), Breasts (2001) and Seeing Red (2001), Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny, Happy Natives. The plays have been performed widely abroad, including award-winning performances at the Edinburgh Festival, and Co-wrote and directed , with Greig Morris, Blood Orange (2006)'

Awards, etc

Coetzee has received numerous local and international awards for writing, directing and acting. His play White Men with Weapons alone won more than 21 international and national awards.

Sources

The Leader 20 February 1998.

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