Sponsored by Investec, the five-day workshop will take place from today to February 26 at the Oasis Motel. Writers will work with actors to write, develop and rehearse a one-act play based on prominent female figures in Botswana’s history. The ultimate aim is to produce a complete manuscript of one-act plays for possible publication. Emphasis will be on writing and performance on stage.The workshop will be facilitated by Cape Town-based actress, writer and director Mbali Kgosidintsi, and Johannesburg-based Jessica Lejowa. They will use the five-day period to teach the participants the basic skills required to create, write, direct and act in a one-act, one-woman play.
Kgosidintsi began facilitating and conducting workshops in 2005. Her self-written one-woman show Tseleng: The Baggage of Bags was nominated for a Standard Bank Ovation award at the National Arts Festival 2010. At the end of 2008, she was awarded a writing residency on Sylt Island in North Germany where she worked on her auto-biographical novel with the working title Ntokozo: Happines is... Lejowa is a writer and actress. She wrote the play Century’s Black Apex in 2001. In 2008 she was awarded the Creative Research in Dramatic Art Prize from the University of the Witwatersrand (Joburg) in South Africa. She was also involved in various projects, such as the Global Partnership for Activism and Cross-Cultural Training and the One-In-Nine anti-rape campaign in 2007.
