Nicholas Ellenbogen (19**-) is an actor, director, manager, author and playwright.

Biography

He was born in Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),

He is married to Liz Ellenbogen (néé Liz Szymczak), an actress and teacher. They have three children, including theatre-maker Luke Ellenbogen.

He studied at the University of Cape Town Drama Department.

Career

He joined NAPAC, where he founded the Loft Theatre Company in 1985 and began exploring the specific style of improvisatory and mimetic theatre with Ellis Pearson, Brendan Grealy and others. In 1989 he founded Theatre for Africa, to use improvisational and mimetic principles in a theatre aimed at eco-issues. They travelled extensively with productions focused on conservation, inter alia giving private performances for the British Royal Family in Balmoral Castle and for the US State Department.

In 19* he moved to Cape Town to open a series of theatre venues. He first set up a tiny bucket-seat theatre at the Olympia Café in Cape Town, followed by the Kalk Bay Theatre, which he created by transforming an old church building into a two-level restaurant and performance venue. His third venture was to convert the old Muizenberg post office near Cape Town into an 84-seat amphitheatre which he called the Post Box Theatre. The most recent is The Rosebank in Cape Town, opened in 2013 and funded by his life-long friend, Alexander McCall- Smith.

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

One of the leading exponents of the improvisational method in South Africa, Ellenbogen has over the years developed a specific style of improvisatory and mimetic theatre and became a driving figure behind the establishment of the Fringe at the Grahamstown Festival.

His environmental work with plays such as Elephant of Africa, Horn of Sorrow and Guardians of Eden has had a particularly significant impact on the international regulation of the ivory trade.

In addition to this, he has simultaneously managed to capitalize on the popular success of his entertaining physical style of satiric comedy, particularly in the series of Raiders plays, which he performed at the Grahamstown Festival for a record breaking 30 years and more.

As performer

He was an active formal actor in the 1970s and early 1980s, appearing in works such as Pygmalion (CAPAB 1975), The Playboy of the Western World (CAPAB, 1976), Tom Stoppard’s Travesties (1978), A Murder is Announced (1978), Michael Frayn’s Clouds (1979), The Unvarnished Truth (1979), Jumpers (1980), Jimmy Righteous (1981), Zeyda, or A Pedlar's Progress (1981), Precious Remnants (1983).

He gradually also developed a knack for improvisational theatremaking, inter alia helping to devise and perform A Touch of 1900s (The Space ,197*) and An Arabian Night (Market Theatre 197*), before founding and beginning his renowned work with the Loft Theatre Company (1985) and Theatre for Africa (1989).

As actor he appeared in many of the works, and most notably performed leading roles in most of his Raiders plays (see below).

He returned to formal acting with a role in Twelfth Night (Maynardville, in 2006.

As director

He tended to direct most of his own plays himself. However, as well as those plays, he also directed works by other authors for various companies. Among them are Aggie's Pitch (NAPAC 1986), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1988), Richard III (1988), Cinderella for Theatre for Africa at the Wits University Theatre in 1991.

As playwright

He is an incredibly prolific playwright and playmaker, often working with others or improvising work with the cast.

A number of the influential plays written/developed by Nicholas Ellenbogen and Theatre for Africa were published by Theatre for Africa as The Complete Works of Nicholas Ellenbogen and Theatre for Africa (a collection in in four volumes, collated by Ellenbogen and his wife Liz Szymczak). Also contains information on his theories about theatre and his working process. (See the entry on the collection for a listing of the plays.)

Another collection of two plays published by Theatre for Africa, Nicholas Ellenbogen's Horn of Sorrow and Elephant of Africa, also contains a biography of Ellenbogen, a history of Theatre for Africa, a full listing of his plays up to 2003, commentaries by colleagues and diverse other educational notes and tools. (See the entry.)

Some of his works have also been included in volumes of South African plays, e.g. Drama for a New South Africa, edited by David Graver (1999).

The plays

Ellenbogen and various colleagues and casts actually created far more works than those listed in the "Complete Works" publication. In 2003 schools collection Ellenbogen and Szymczak provide a more comprehensive listing, grouping the work into five broad categories and then listing them there alphabetically within each category.

We use approximately the same categorization below.

For details about the individual works, the author(s)/theatremakers and production record, click on the title to see the individual entry

Other writing

In 2022 Footprint Press published Ellenbogen's first novel, A Vet, Three Mares and a hound called Max (Footprint Press), the story of the harrowing journey and dramatic relocation of pure-bred Arab mares from war-torn Poland to a safe haven, in what was then Rhodesia. The story describes the experiences of the vet who leads the operation and his bush encounters while training the horses and their offspring for their eventual return to participate in events in Europe.

Awards, etc

1990: He received an AA Vita Award for Horn of Sorrow

1991: His A Nativity nominated for the Dawie Malan Award for best South African Play and Horn of Sorrow and Kloof Eagle were awarded the Edinburgh Scotsman Fringe First Award. Ellenbogen also received the World Wide Fund for Nature Award (for his exceptional contribution to Environmental Conservation)

2006: Fleur du Cap Award for best supporting actor, Twelfth Night at Maynardville.

2014: Honoured with the Fleur de Cap Lifetime Achievement Award.