Aart de Villiers
Aart de Villiers (1931-1999) was a South African academic, theatre critic, stage director and translator.
Born on 5 March 1931 and grew up in Bethal in die Eastern Transvaal. He studied drama at Rhodes Univeresity and obtained his M.A.-degree from them in 1957 with a study of the poetry of N.P. van Wyk Louw. He later obtained a doctorate from the University of Pretoria, with a thesis based a director's script for Germanicus by N.P. van Wyk Louw.
He was a founding member of the Drama Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, and taught there for many years. He directed many plays and operas over the years, wrote a number of books and articles on the theory and practice of theatre, and was a reviewer of performances and texts for a number of publications.
His two most relevant books on drama are Dirigent van die Woord ("conductor of the word", a manual on directing, 1976) and Die Sawel van jou Stilsit (essays on Germanicus, 1977)
