Jason Potgieter
Jason Potgieter (1980-2021?). Actor, playwright, director, puppet theatre practitioner, teacher.
Contents
Biography
Jason attended Camps Bay High School in Cape Town. In 1998, his last year at school, his aim was to go to Cornerstone Christian College the next year to study theology and psychology and at the same time pursuing acting, and hopefully at the end of it all, combine them.
Jason was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was in grade 9 and was confined to an isolation ward for a long period.
He studied theatre and performance in Cape Town, and trained as a puppeteer with Handspring Puppet Company.
Jason taught puppetry and facilitated object workshops around the world, including at Western Michigan University in 2012, in 2014 (as puppet director for their production of The King Stag), and again in 2017 (as puppet director for their production of Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher).
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
He was creative exchange manager/curator of Iqonga/Platform at Out The Box Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance in 2010.
He was one of the founder members of The Mechanicals Collective. He also performed with Puppetry South Africa and Hearts and Eyes Theatre Collective.
He created several performance installations and public art pieces, including:
- Calling Frank (or Frank Caller) (Performativity, 2010)
- In the Deadwood Rain (France, 2010)
- Flown (Infecting the City, 2013)
- various local street/event performances (Balkanology; Design Indaba)
As actor and playwright
Acting work includes:
- Andrew in House of Shadows (2004)
- Kostya in The Seagull, (Little Theatre, March 2006)
- The Life and Work of Petrovic Petar (Intimate Theatre, 2007)
- the drug-addicted son in Wrestlers (2008)
- George in Glengarry Glen Ross (2008)
- Bradley in Buried Child (2008)
- The Things You Left Behind (also writer, 2010)
- The Highway Crossing or, The Tale of a Golden Fish (2010)
- Two Fold (with Sanjin Muftic and Jon Keevy, Tabula Rasa, 2010)
- Suburbanalia (Magnet Theatre, 2012)
- Sex, Lies and Gaffer Tape (also writer with Kim Kerfoot, Hiddingh Hall, 2012)
- Get Kraken (Intimate Theatre, 2013)
- Time Off For Bad Behaviour (Alexander Upstairs, 2013)
- Gone Camping (also writer, Alexander Upstairs, 2015)
- In My Dreams I Am Ok (The Bindery Lab, 2015)
As director
Jason directed:
- The American Dream (2012)
- Dirty Words (2014)
- Dani and the Lion (2015)
- Crossing the Line (2018)
As puppet theatre practitioner
For Handspring Puppet Company:
- Il Ritorno d'Ulisse (The Return of Ulysses)
- Ouroboros (Janni Younge in association with Handspring Puppet Company, 2011)
- I Love You When You're Breathing (director, 2012)
He also manipulated puppets for the satirical puppetry series ZA News
Awards
In 1998, he won the floating trophy at the annual Dalro national acting competition, organised by the drama department of the Pretoria Technikon.
Sources
Interview with Bianca Coleman, Cape Argus, 25 August 1998.
Cape Times, 25 November 2004.
Cape Argus, 21 March 2006.
'Let's hear it for more of the same', IOL, 19 August 2008
Cape Times, 4 November 2008.
'Directors and Directing: Playwrights', Symposium programme, 2012 https://humanities.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/humanities_uct_ac_za/1401/files/GIPCA-2012-DIRECTORS-AND-DIRECTING-PROGRAMME.pdf
ThinkFest programme, 2012.
'Time Off for Bad Behaviour', Alexander Bar and Cafe, https://alex.lateforlunch.life/show/TimeOff/
'WMU University Theatre's 'King Stag' a fable made fun by men, beasts, puppets and comedic actors (review)', mlive, 4 April 2014
Intermission Facebook Page, 4 November 2014
'WMU Theatre produces world premiere for family audiences', WMU News, 20 February 2017
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