2015 and beyond

Welcome to new Associate Artist Leah Moyo

Back in the autumn it became clear that we had put together an amazing team for our rehearsed readings at Afrovibes. Travelling to 5 cities performing staged readings of two plays with extremely limited rehearsal time concentrated the mind wonderfully. One of our actresses, Leah Moyo, stood out as a committed, talented, intelligent artist and we are very, very pleased to be able to announce that she has joined Bilimankhwe as Associate Artist.

Leah graduated last year from The Drama Studio following a career change; she moved out of International Development into Theatre. She was born in Zambia and speaks both chitumbuka and chichewa (Nyanja), two of the main bantu languages spoken in Malawi so is the perfect fit for us. Amy, George and Kate couldn't be more delighted to have her on our team.

Three Shows in Development

This year is going to be a busy one, as we have 3 plays in development for production in 2016 and 2017. 

Brothers in Blood

After a very successful tour of the Mike Van Graan play readings at Afrovibes, we are working with Jan Ryan of UK Arts International to produce a tour of Brothers in Blood as the audience response to the readings was so positive. The play investigates frictions and relationships between Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities in South Africa; with the recent events in Paris and the Jewish Community in London now shockingly saying they don't feel safe here it seems the perfect time to re-visit this award-winning play. 

Shakespeare - The Tempest and Romeo & Juliet

The other two projects being developed at the moment are an inter-cultural production of The Tempest which will tour Malawi and the UK, and a chichewa language version of Romeo and Juliet, developed in association with the Universities of Malawi and Leeds. 

Throughout June our two Artistic Directors, designer Hazel Albarn and actress Leah Moyo will be in Malawi working on the R&D phase of both Shakespeares; Amy will be in Zomba at the University working with Professor Mufunanje Magalasi and the students there on Romeo and Juliet, and Kate, Hazel and Leah will be in Blantyre working with the artists of Nanzikambe, our partners.

The Globe in Africa

As well as all that, Amy and Kate will be in Malawi at Easter for the Globe-to-Globe touring production of Hamlet. Nanzikambe are hosting the show which gets to Malawi on 8 April.  For more information about the Globe production have a look at the Globe-to-Globe website.