A Dream in Waiting …

A Dream in Waiting …. Blog 126 by Ms Paige Turner.

Last sunny Monday I ran though the lines of my fifth play ‘A President in Waiting …’ with the actress who performed the one woman show last November 2014 at the Desmond Tutu HIV Youth Foundation Centre in Cape Town. It was important that we met that day as Mister Justin Case and I were due to fly back to UK last Tuesday.
Khuls had an audition lined up last Friday at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. The Zabalaza Festival is taking place at the Baxter in March and the theatre is on the lookout for one or two handed plays which is saying something new and innovating about South Africa. We feel we are saying something about the future of female black domestic workers. It seemed an ideal opportunity.
However, since performing the play in November 2014, Khuls had left her home township of Masiphumelele in Cape Town to seek work in Johannesburg some 1400 kilometres away.
Once her audition slot was confirmed Khuls travelled by minibus taxi from Johannesburg to Cape Town on a Sunday. It took her eighteen hours. She texted me from Cape Town and said due to Monday morning traffic she might be a little late for rehearsal and could she get back to her home township for a shower first.
Khuls arrived at my home in Fish Hoek and she was pretty well line perfect. She was pretty well tired. She got to that audition at the Baxter Theatre last Friday and the upshot is, we are through to the next round.
Khuls will be performing A President in Waiting … on February 2nd in the township of Nyanga. We will have to see if we arrive at her dream: a performance at the Baxter Theatre in March.
It’s good to have dreams.

There’s one place left on Creative Ink’s Tuesday ‘Get Inspired’ course starting January 12th for five weeks and a few more places left on the Thursday ‘Get that Book Out of You’ course starting January 14th for five weeks. Email me for a syllabus.

‘A President in Waiting …’ was broadcast on Cape Town TV on Monday 9th November with more broadcasts due.