Greg Homann

(19**-) theatre director, actor, academic and occasional writer.

He has a BA Dramatic Arts degree from Wits University and an MA (with distinction) in Text and Performance Studies from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and King’s College London.

Academic career

Lectured at Wits School of Arts in South African theatre, directing, acting, and writing (2005-2012) and in 2012 joined AFDA (Johannesburg) as head of the Writing and Directing programs in the division of Dramatic Arts, where he teaches courses in South African theatre, directing, comedy in performance, representational performance and playwriting. On behalf of the Wits School of Arts Homann continued to manage the Tisch (New York University) Study Abroad Program.

As an academic, his primary area of research is in contemporary South African theatre with an emphasis on post-apartheid plays. He is the editor of a collection of plays entitled At This Stage: Plays from post-apartheid South Africa (Wits University Press, 2009).

As director

In 2002, while still a student at Wits, he directed the new South African musical Sauer Street which was nominated for a Naledi Award for Best Musical of the Year. In 2004, he co-produced (with the Theatre on the Square) Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. This production was nominated for three theatre awards including Best Production. He has directed the South African adaptation of Lord of the Flies at The Market Theatre; the new South African comedy Chatter; Mike van Graans’ Brothers in Blood (The Market Theatre – 2009; Artscape – 2012) which won the 2009 Naledi Award for Best New South African Play Produced; the highly lauded dark comedy, Pterodactyls, which was nominated for six Naledi Awards including Best Director and Best Play; the box-office hit, Tomfoolery at The Old Mutual Theatre on the Square; a five man version of The Pirates of Penzance which was nominated for nine Naledi awards including Best Director and Best Production of a Musical, and which won three, including Best Cutting Edge Production; and Imagine at the Joburg Theatre which he created for illusionist Ilan Smith.

for the past seven and a half years, he has directed A Clockwork Orange, The Crucible, Translations, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Paul Slabolepszy’s Saturday Night at the Palace, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In May his production of the musical revue, Forbidden Broadway, was presented with students from the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

he directed two productions both of which won Standard Bank Ovation Awards; Brothers in Blood (Ovation Award for directing) and

As a writer/director

In 2009 wrote and directed Previously Owned, which premiered to sold-out-houses at the Setkani/Encounter Festival in Brno (Czech Republic) and was followed by a short season at the Wits Downstairs Theatre and a tour to Grahamstown.

In 2012 co-wrote One-Woman Farce, in collaboration with actress Louise Saint-Claire, whom he directed in the work, winning a Standard Bank Encore Ovation Award.

As actor.

Roles for Pieter Toerien in Around the World in 80 Days ( playing eighteen different characters, and nominated for Best Break-through Performance) and It’s a Dad Thing ( Montecasino Theatre and the Theatre on the Bay, 2007). He also works as a voiceover artist.