Dianne du Toit Albertze

Dianne du Toit Albertze (19**-)

Playwright, novelist, actress, director and arts journalist, whose work in Afrikaans draws on her native Namaqualand and on trans and working-class lives. Her name also appears as Dianne Du Toit Albertze, Dianne Albertze and Dianne Albertze du Toit, and in early festival programmes simply as Du Toit Albertze.

Biography

Born and raised in Springbok in Namaqualand, Northern Cape. She was encouraged to write from her school years by the playwright Malan Steyn, in whose Bos she made her first professional appearance as a performer. She studied drama at Stellenbosch University and took an honours degree in directing in 2018, writing her first one-woman piece, Die meermin-kompleks, in Steyn's creative writing class in her final undergraduate year. After her studies she returned to Namaqualand, and later settled in Cape Town.

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

2015: Appeared in Vaselinetjie, adapted from the novel by Anoeschka von Meck and directed by Shirley Ellis, at the US Woordfees.

2017: Kommapunt, written jointly with eight fellow drama students, debuted at the US Woordfees.

2018: Die meermin-kompleks, selected by Teksmark, was performed as a twenty-minute solo drama at the KKNK Uitkampteater. She also received a Teksmark writing bursary. From this year she published poetry and prose on the online platform Klyntji.

2019: Klip Kween, on a young transgender woman who returns to her birthplace to confront her past, was staged at the US Woordfees, directed by Jason Jacobs. She took part in the first writers' residency of the NATi Jong Sterre programme and the Jakes Gerwel Foundation at Paulet House in the Eastern Cape, where she completed the text Kaap under the mentorship of Amy Jephta.

2020: Kaap was presented as a staged reading in the NATi Jong Sterre programme at the Suidoosterfees, 21-22 November.

2022: Her debut novel, bottelnek breek bek, was published by Human & Rousseau, Cape Town (ISBN 9780798182669). Narrated by eight characters, it follows Daantjie Boonzaier of the Northern Cape, who becomes Dora, and is written substantially in Gayle, with Kaaps, Sabela and Northern Cape Afrikaans. It has been described as the first Afrikaans novel written in Gayle and as the first Afrikaans trans novel.

2025: Katrina Kakkerlak, which she wrote and performed, was staged at the Kaapstad Toneelhuis in Cape Town, directed and designed by Eddie Newman; it marked her return to the stage after four years. Huis van sand, on a mother and daughter in a caravan park outside Springbok, was staged at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees in October, directed by Wolf Britz, with Tinarie van Wyk Loots, René Cloete, Kristen Raath and Jefferson J. Dirks-Korkee, and published by Human & Rousseau. She also began writing festival reviews and impressions for LitNet.

2026: Huis van sand transferred to the Suidoosterfees in the kykNET Teater, 30 April and 1 May. Extracts from bottelnek breek bek were staged at Artscape, Cape Town, 6-9 August, as part of the twentieth Artscape Women's Humanity Festival, commissioned and produced by Marlene le Roux, directed by Basil Appollis and performed by Du Toit Albertze with Riaan Visman, each performance followed by an audience discussion. In July she took up the L.W. Hiemstra Trust writers' residency in the Banhoek valley outside Stellenbosch. She has spoken of a projected Namaqualand trilogy, of which Huis van sand forms part.

She has also written on music and theatre for Klyntji, Texx and the City and LitNet.

Awards, etc.

2017: Woordtrofee for best newcomers, awarded to the company of Kommapunt.

2018: Kanna for best emerging artist; Die meermin-kompleks was nominated for the Kanna for best text and best Uitkampteater production.

2019: Nominated for the Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for most promising student.

2020: A NATi Jong Sterre award for Kaap*.

2023: bottelnek breek bek was shortlisted for the Jan Rabie-Rapport Prize and for the UJ Debut Prize.

2024: Second place in the Diana Ferrus Prize for the poem "Die kjeent".

2025: Winner of the inaugural Reinet Nagtegaal Text Prize for Huis van sand, receiving prize money, mentorship and a performance run at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees. The text was subsequently nominated for a kykNET Fiësta for best newly created Afrikaans or South African text.

2026: Third place in the Reinet Nagtegaal Text Prize for ’n Kraai song.