Projects

Since 2014, Magnet Theatre has engaged in developing new exciting age appropriate African theatre for under seven year olds.  Thanks to input from Roberto Frabetti  (La Barracca, Bologna, Italy) within the context of the Full Time Training and Job Creation programme Magnet Theatre was able to develop the award winning TREE/BOOM/UMTHI which has subsequently had 4 international tours. They were also able  to skill a whole cohort of young theatre makers in the art of developing work for young audiences. Magnet Theatre was fortunate to be the successful recipient of a 2015 National Arts Council Flagship grant for the establishment of a small youth company charged with developing 3 new performance pieces for the 0 – 7 age group. During this year 3 new works were created:  Ekhaya, KNOCK! (also with the support of the Goethe Institute and Helios Theatre Company, Germany) and SCOOP: Kitchen play for Carers and Babes (with the support of SA/UK Seasons and Anna Newall from Replay Theatre Company in Ireland). Scoop was the first ever South African work for moms and babes under the age of 12 months and performed in hospitals and clinics in and around Cape Town. Since then and again thanks to the Goethe Institute and Helios, Magnet Theatre has incubated a further 4 works  within the context of the training program at Magnet: AHA! directed by Nwabisa Plaaitjie; Paired, Directed by Lwanda Sindaphi; Woodways ( with trainee particaipants from Cameroon and Kenya) Sandscapes ( From Zimbabwe and Nigeria). KNOCK! has toured to Italy, USA adn Canada and along with Sandscape has performed in the Rocking the Cradle Main Festival at the Assitej World Congress in Cape Town in 2017. AHA! and Paired have toured to Hellwach in Germany (2017/2018) and AHA! has also performed at the Assitej Artistic gathering in China 2018.

In 2018 thanks again to the Goethe Institut in Johanesburg, Magnet Theatre partnered with Helios Theater  from Germany to incubate 6 new works with the 2017/2018 cohort of trainees. Invited also were 6 participants from Uganda, Botswana and Mozmbique. Productions created were derived from differnet materials- UBIZO (stones), SH! (newspaper), Rockin’ Mbokodo (stones), Reshape (newspaper), Play alone – curtain raiser (paper), Transform (Clay and wood) and Plastika (plastic). All works premiered at the Magnet Family Festival in  August 2018.

Plastika and Transform were handed over to the creators to product themselves and both shows have toured internationally with Plastika winning the Playful Theatre Acces to the Development of Environmental Awareness for Children Award at the Naj, Naj, Naj international festival in Zagreb, Croatia. Sh! and Rockin’ Mbokodo performed at the Baxter Theatre as part of the Assitej Rocking the Cradle Festival in 2018. Rockin’ Mbokodo has also performed in Nigeria at the Kift Festival in 2019 and SH! at the Sharjah International Fringe Festival in the UAE in 2020.

Magnet Theatre has continued to develop a unique repertoire of new work for under seven year olds. STONE PLAY was created at the beginning of 2020 and was due to premier at the Visioni 2020 festival in Bologna Italy but the invitation was been postponed we finally performed in 2023. STONE PLAY also performed to packed houses in the 600 seat concert hall in the Baxter Theatre as part of the annual Zabalza festival.

The 6th cohort of the Full Time Training and Job Creation Programme saw the development of 3 new works: Ripped, Bounced and Ekwindla. All toured to ECD centres in Cape Town and Cape Town townships in 2022 with Bounced being invited to perform at Zabalaza 2023 and Assitej’s Cradle of Creativity 2023 in Johannesburg, KKNK in 2024 and to represent South Africa in Havana, Cuba at the Assitej World Congress.

An Early Years Incubation in 2023 also saw 8 new youth practitioners trained in the creation of making work and performing for young audiences. They reworked TREE/BOOM/UMTHI – Magnet’s first production for Early Years audiences and in 2024, 3 of them created a new work Min Thina directed by Jennie Reznek

To find out more  about this extraodinary project – look at this site: