Ben Masinga

Ben Masinga (19*-). Musician and playwright.

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

Writer and producer of the first all-Zulu jazz musical Back in Your Own Backyard, produced under the auspices of Union Artists which only residents of Soweto got to see in 1962.

He appeared as "Popcorn" in King Kong: An All-African Jazz Opera in 1960 and starred in the JODS production of George Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess together with Betty Mthombeni. It was directed by Taubie Kushlick and staged at the Alhambra Theatre in November 1978. It re-opened, just to close again by the end of January 1979.

Ben had a role in the 1961 film Tremor [1] (also known as As die Aarde Skeur) directed by Denis Scully.

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

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