Gisele Turner

Gisele Turner (1950-) is a teacher, performer, director and playwright.

Apparently also found credited as Gisele Therese Turner or Gisèle Thérèse Turner in some sources.

Biography

Born in England to French parents in 1950, Giselle was only 2 when she arrived in Africa. Brought up and educated in Zimbabwe, she moved to Durban in 1973 and immediately became involved with performance, teaching and creating.

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

She started working as a performer in schools; first in the pre-schools and then, after 1990, in all phases of education, working with Wendy Nell. Together they created more than 25 original productions and spent 17 years performing their work.

As performer she appeared in plays like How the Other Half Loves, Franky and Raggett, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the 1980s, and directed I Have No! in 1984.

As an author she started writing original play scripts in 1983 when she was part of a two-member company called Handy Spandy Players geared to pre schoolers. From 1990 to 2007 she and her partner Wendy Nell wrote, directed and performed in over 30 original productions in schools in Kwa Zulu Natal. As senior script writer and director for NPO Arley's Workshop from 2002 to 2011 she was responsible for plays such as amagama amathathu, Rain, The Green Revolution'

In 2010 she created a play for 6-11 year olds entitled Lucky Strike. This was followed by Woof Woof (2011), Lucky Strike (2011), Si Right!, eLimboland (2011), stage adaptations of Valentin’s famous lazzi titled Valentin in Africa (2013).

A number of her plays have been nominated for and/or won writing awards, been prescribed for schools and published (inter alia by Junkets Publisher in Cape Town).

Besides her theatrical output, she also writes short stories, children’s stories and arts journalism, covering a variety of artistic endeavours in Durban.

She also began a drama studio called Gisele Turner’s Drama Studio in Escombe, KwaZulu-Natal, where she focuses on speech, drama and creative play, offering morning classes for home school learners, afternoon classes and individual lessons.