Peter Ngwenya

Peter Ngwenya (1956-2009). Playwright, director.

Biography

He was born in Soweto and lived and worked there. He died, aged 53, in May 2009.

Training

He dropped out of school after 16 June 1976 and joined Sam Mhangwane's People's Theatre Association.

His theatre mentors included James Mthoba, Corney Mabaso, David Phetoe and Benjy Francis.

A scholarship at the Yale Repertory Theatre in the US, in 1988, reinforced his belief in the power of drama to develop the mind of a child.

Career

He was a selfmotivated playwright, who started out writing for radio.

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

Peter Ngwenya was active in children’s theatre in the township from the 1970s. Ngwenya believed that children’s theatre was integral to developing culture in the Soweto community. He produced plays at various venues in Soweto from 1984 to 1991. Ngwenya used performances to raise funds for organisations working with vulnerable children in Soweto.

Ngwenya formed the Student Youth Drama Society (SYDS) in 1987. The aim of the organisation was to foster drama and music at black schools and to give young people an opportunity to express themselves creatively.

Plays

• Who’ll Regret, which he wrote for a church youth guild.

• Save the Child, which toured nationally. This play, performed by children, launched his Soweto Youth Drama Society (SYDS), in 1987, That same year it was presented at the Culture in Another South Africa (Casa) festival in Amsterdam, Holland. In 1988(?) his play Save the child toured Germany and Holland where it was received with critical acclaim. In 1989, the play was taken to Canada to tour Toronto, taking part in an international children’s festival.

• Qinisela was intended to highlight the plight of underprivileged children.

• Have Strength was directly aimed at children as an audience.

• Where is my son?, about children in detention, was performed at the National Arts Festival, 1991 under his direction.

• The Toilet (2002)

• The Telephone (1986), a play “about a community councillor who lives in fear because of death threats” when his son is enrolled in a multiracial school. The play was performed at the Jabavu Community Hall.

• Vendetta

• Darkness and then Light

• Mother-in-Law

• Heita daar bra Spinks (1991) (a youth drama about unruly behaviours in township schools).

• Moments (devised with Doreen Mazibuko, aimed at voter education, 1994)

• Take Me Home

Radio plays

Ngwenya’s productions include two plays written for Radio Zulu:

• Hamba Juba Bokucutha Phambili

• Logotshwa Lisemanzi

Awards, etc

Winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, 1991.

Soweto’s first theatre complex was named after him.

Sources

National Arts Festival programme, 1991. p. 53.

Tribute by Adrienne Sichel published in The Star, 26 May 2009.

Andile Xaba. 2021. 'Collective memory and the construction of a historical narrative, analysis and interpretation of selected Soweto-based community plays (1984–1994)'. Unpublished PhD thesis.

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