FAROOUZ: When the wind comes in a certain direction, just brushing off the docks, the smell of it can stir a person up inside, hey. It wakes you up, that saltiness. That’s what I loved most about the District, it’s like you smelling the whole of the world right here on your stoep. The whole of Cape Town, all its faults and how difficult it is and how full of joy. We all came over that water at some time or other, Mies Nadira. We all had to get here by way of that sea. But now that we’re here, it’s where we are, it’s home. We are from this place and we belong here, they can’t take that from us. No matter where they put us, we belong, the same as that smell, the same as that wind...
- Extract from All Who Pass
Amy Jephta is a bilingual Cape Town based playwright, director and columnist who completed her MA in Playwriting at the University of Cape Town. As a director, she was the first national recipient of the Baxter Theatre/TAAC Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary and is an alumni of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York. She has worked as a mentor to community theatre groups based in Kwazulu-Natal as part of the Twist Theatre project, has been part of the South African New Plays Writing Programme at Wits University, and has been a voice and acting lecturer at CityVarsity in Cape Town and the Woodward School for Contemporary Art in Vancouver.
As a playwright, her work has been published in South Africa, performed at the Riksteatern in Stockholm and read at the Bush Theatre in London. Amy is currently completing her first Afrikaans feature film, as well as working on a commission from the Out In Africa Film Festival and developing several other short films. In 2013, she was on the Mail & Guardian’s list of 200 Top Young South Africans. Amy currently teaches Afrikaans acting to theatre and performance students at the University of Cape Town and is a conference director for the 2015 Women Playwrights International Conference.
Contact Amy
Photo: Helen Murray
As a playwright, her work has been published in South Africa, performed at the Riksteatern in Stockholm and read at the Bush Theatre in London. Amy is currently completing her first Afrikaans feature film, as well as working on a commission from the Out In Africa Film Festival and developing several other short films. In 2013, she was on the Mail & Guardian’s list of 200 Top Young South Africans. Amy currently teaches Afrikaans acting to theatre and performance students at the University of Cape Town and is a conference director for the 2015 Women Playwrights International Conference.
Contact Amy
Photo: Helen Murray