FLAGSHIP PROJECT: Magnet’s Full Time Training and Job Creation Programme

In 2008, after working for 7 years supporting various drama groups in Khayelitsha, Magnet Theatre initiated a sustained 2-year full time training programme, based in Cape Town.

The Full time  Training and Job Creation Programme caters for youth who for one reason or another struggle to be absorbed into the training at the University. Some have educational disadvantages from their schooling and don’t make the University entrance grade. Others struggle with funding or with simply feeling out of place in the strange environment of a higher education institution.

The programme offers a carefully structured programme to 20 talented performers in each 2 year cycle. There are classes in play, imagination, physical theatre, voice, dance, singing, improvisation and play making. Training takes place Monday to Friday between 09h00 and 16h30. There are organised visits to the theatre to expose the groups to mainstream and community performance. They are placed in work shadow in various aspects of the theatre industry. The participants are encouraged to maintain their connection with their communities and with their groups. The programme was originally designed by Jennie Reznek, Mandla Mbothwe and Mark Fleishman, and the classes are taught by highly experienced theatre practitioners and teachers. As always with Magnet Theatre’s work the focus of the training is on the body as a universal language that can communicate across cultures and verbal language while  understanding that the teaching of physical theatre  is one of the responses to violence and the violated body. The programme focuses on the development of skills and on the ability to generate new work. Each trainee receives a ‘bursary’ (stipend) to ensure that they have transport and food to attend the training.

Our goal, where possible, is to bridge the divide between the community and the University. Where this is not possible, it is to provide skills, expertise and a sense of direction to talented marginalised young people so that  that they might become employable in the creative industries. The broad intention  is of transforming the theatre industry from one that is white dominated to one that is more inclusive.

Currently we are busy with a the  6th cohort of trainees who began their training at the start of 2020. We have 73 graduates, have facilitated the entrance of 32 first generation university entrants, 16 have graduated and 11 are still studying,  with 3 at post graduate level. 96% of the remainder are employed in the theatre industry, traveling internationally and in leaderships positions in the industry.

Please see below the latest detailed  tracking data for our graduates in 2019.

Graduate Tracking 2019 infographic[2]

And in 2018:

Magnet Infographic Tracking 2018 latest for mailing

THEATRE MAKING MENTORSHIP

We also have a theatre making mentoring programme attached to the  Full Time Training and Job Creation Programme. So far we have mentored 4 theatre makers:  Lwanda Sindaphi (Magnet Theatre graduate), Nwabisa Plaatjie (UCT graduate), Siphenati Mayekiso ( Magnet Theatre graduate), Sivuyile Dunjwa (Magnet Theatre graduate) and one designer: Asiphe Lili ( Magnet Theatre graduate). They  have receive mentoring in enterprise development, proposal writing, fundraising, teaching as well as and developing new works over the course of the years internship.

For the most wonderful coverage of the impact of Magnet Theatre’s Youth Development work Click here

Click for Children’s Radio Workshop: Interview with Magnet Trainees

2016 Trainees in Rehearsal In The City Of Paradise directed by Mark Fleishman

Rand Merchant Bank features Magnet Theatre:

2020 Trainees featured in Beautiful News in production in Mark Fleishman’s Antigone (not quite/quiet):