Celeste Litkie

Celeste Litkie (19*-2010) was an actress and academic.

She studied at the Department of Speech and Drama of the University of Natal (now UKZN), obtaining a B.A. Hons in 1984, followed by an M.A., and, finally in 2003, a D.Phil in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Stellenbosch with a thesis on Selected Black African Dramatists South of the Zambesi, supervised by Temple Hauptfleisch and Dennis Schauffer.

Married to Paul Zaloumis and had two children, Stephanie and Thomas. Later married Andreas **.

She was among the five performers who started the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre Company. Also comprising Melanie Bowles, Mark Faith, Brenda Radloff and Themi Venturas, the company was created at the same time as NAPAC's Loft Theatre Company.

After this company had ceased to exist , she married, but continued as working as a freelance performing artist.

They moved to Johannesburg briefly, where she worked as a freelance performer both on stage and on television.

The family then emigrated to Australia for a while, where Celeste began writing, inter alia for the global brand experience agency VWV [1]. Thus, on returning to South Africa, she joined VWV to specialize in Corporate Theatre work, working her way to the position of Artistic Director for VWV and later also of the experiential communications company O’Mage [2]. In this period she handled some of the biggest launches in the country.

Despite a constant fight with disabling illness, she and her second husband Andreas founded the Corporate Theatre company [[Brown Paper Bag] in 200*, and made a success of it.

As an actress, she appeared in Fugard's People Are Living There (as Sissy); Tom Lehrer’s Tom Foolery at the André Huguenet Theatre in 1989.