Donaldson Orlando Community Centre

This has also been referred to as the Donaldson Orlando Cultural Club by a number of speakers and writers about theatre, but this is most proably an error deriving from a misreading of the acronym. Among those using the alternative name are Ian Steadman, Ramolao Makhene (cited by Geoffrey V. Davis and Anne Fuchs) and Loren Kruger. However the officla name appears in most other documents, including the Donaldson Trust website and SA History Online.

A community centre and community hall in Soweto, originally funded by the Donaldson Trust, later by different organisations and trusts and run by people who live in Soweto. Mandla Dube was in charge in the early 1980s. Uncomfortably squeezed into a corner of one of Soweto's busiest streets, the DOCC had no dedicated theatre space , just a fairly big room called "the hall" which offered little more than an all-purpose space with no theatrical facilities. Productions there include Maishe Maponya’s The Hungry Earth (1979), Pula (1982) ***

For more information

Kruger, 1999: 141, 164; Wakashe, 1986

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