Start The New Year With Us! Support Gifted African Artists Today!
The yearning to tell a story, to have it heard, to give voice to an experience that has never been exposed can be all-consuming. Especially when you are not able to access resources, artistic education or opportunities.
That’s what Almasi has always been about. We seek to make sure no African voice in the arts is left behind. I cannot tell you how thrilling it has been to witness the strides we have made this year. From our annual playwrights conference to witnessing our Walter Mparutsa Fellow graduate from an MFA program in the US, to the successful completion of numerous educational and professional programming, we are meeting our goal. But all we have done and all we still have to do to help African artists actualize their talent, can’t be accomplished without your support.
This new year, consider supporting our efforts. African voices and stories must be heard. There are so many more artists whose abilities we must facilitate in order to develop their considerable talents. Be a part of making their aspirations a reality.
Happy New Year,
Co-Founder and Executive Artistic Director
On the 22nd of November 2019, 6pm Almasi Collaborative Arts presented a staged reading of Schoolgirls; or, the African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh at Old Mutual Theatre, Alliance Francaise. Directed by Sandra Chidawanyika- Goliath the staged reading had the participation of new and experienced actresses.
Schoolgirls or; the African Mean Girls Play is a winner of the 2018 Lortel Award for best play. Paulina’s reign as the haughty ‘queen bee’ at Ghana’s most exclusive boarding school may be over when Ericka, the daughter of a local cocoa tycoon, transfers in from Ohio for her senior year. Throwing unsparing light on questions of ambition, deceit, and the ultimate value of a fair-skinned complexion, this biting comedy by Jocelyn Bioh reinvents the American ‘Mean Girl’ genre to explore the universal similarities (and glaring differences) facing teenage women across the globe.
Directed by Almasi Associate Artistic Director, Zaza Muchemwa, Last of the Suns is Alice Tuan’s play about a Chinese family in America, juggling issues of assimilation, coming of age and the role of women. At its centre is the assertion that the act of leaving one culture behind and settling in another is often a violent change with warping emotional consequences. The central character is General Sun, once a Nationalist officer who opposed Mao Zedong. The play takes place on his 100th birthday in Southern California, where he lives with his weary, penurious son , severe daughter-in-law and their combatively selfish, thoroughly American teenage sonand where he is called Yeh Yeh and treated with impatience, ridicule and some remnant of reverence. The plot is catalyzed by the surprise return home of Twila , Yeh Yeh’s 24-year-old granddaughter, who was a rising figure skater but vanished five years earlier after a famous humiliation.
Beyond the Story of General Sun
By Zaza Muchemwa
I was quite excited when the staged reading of The Last of the Suns by Alice Tuan was given the green light. Alice and I had been engaged in conversation on each other’s work since she came to Zimbabwe in January 2018 to facilitate the Almasi African Playwrights Conference. One of the things we kept on talking about was looking at possibilities of collaborating on a piece of work or doing a staged reading of one of her plays beyond the scope of the Almasi African Playwrights Conference. Immediately after the conclusion of this year’s conference she sent me her plays to read. One play is sadly yet to get to me via the slow Zimbabwean Post. I was not surprised by the intense, bold yet sensitive lens with which Ms Tuan lends to her work. She writes as she is. From the plays I chose Last of the Suns to do a staged reading of. Or perhaps the play chose me. I was quite curious to see how it would be received by Zimbabwean audiences.
Directing Familiar
By Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi
Familiar By Danai Gurira is a masterpiece. A gem, A masterclass in writing and storytelling in general. It is deep. It is FUNNY! It is indicting. It is very very FAMILIAR!! I relate a LOT to the characters, the story, the mask and the world of this play. The first time I read it, I had a real gutsy visceral response. Real great things happened to my soul, my mind and my body when I was reading it. It is a very exciting world to be in. It is indeed, a huge honor and privilege to be a provocateur in this process of bringing this masterpiece to life in Zimbabwe for the first time.
The masterpiece has a very specific world. A world that is full of different shapes, colors, contours, and paths. It has its own specific demands in terms of how it wants to be channeled through and experienced. Some of these demands include: that it needs to be real, as real as life itself, no caricature and playing at. It needs no anecdotal playing, it hates playing to the gallery and hates to be pushed too much in its channeling and invocation.
From the 3rd to the 12th of January 2019, Almasi held the Almasi African Playwrights Conference at Reps Theatre, Harare. Led by Alice Tuan the conference had the participation of two Zimbabwean playwrights Thandiwe Mawungwa, Virginia Jekanyika and, South African Playwright Sfundo Sosibo. Almasi Water Muparutsa Fellow Gideon Jeph Wabvuta served as Dramaturge. Over the course of ten days the playwrights, led by Alice Tuan, further developed their plays in a collaborative process with local actors and directors. The process culminated in free public staged readings of the new African Plays at Reps Theatre.
Almasi presented:
A public staged reading of Ruvajena-White Flower by Virginia Jekanyika. Directed by Eyahra Mathazia the play deals with love, family relationships, and albinism.
A public staged reading of 33 Cents by Thandiwe Mawungwa. Directed by Sandra Chidawanyika-Goliath the play deals with power, corruption, intersectionality and the interconnectedness of human existence.
A public staged reading of #BlackGodsMatter by Sfundo Sosibo. Directed by Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi the play deals with sexuality, identity, and African spirituality.
A public staged reading of Gideon Jeph Wabvuta’s thesis play, The Colour of Blood. Set in late 1970s Zimbabwe, the female-centered narrative featured the talents of Yandani Mlilo, Musa Saruro, Michael Kudakwashe, Chipo Chikara, Lloyd Nyikadzino, and Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi.
The Almasi African Playwrights Conference 2019 was the third edition of the Almasi African Playwrights Conference. The conference is designed to identify new African dramatic writing talent and facilitate the further development of new African dramatic pieces.
The intricacies of writing are such that the fool, who dares to call themselves a writer, must endure the ordeal of pursuing reality in its transcendent state. Such a voyage is precarious and unforgiving. It is complex and demanding. It is meaning uncompromised. It is to be a playwright at the Almasi African Playwrights Conference. My participation at the conference was due to the faith that invaluable friends may have on a budding artist. I was motivated to apply by a fellow playwright. I applied. Was selected. What followed then was an entire adventure not unlike the one Zelie experiences in Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone. It was taxing yet fruitful. Strenuous yet liberating. Sore yet necessary.
Having been part of the first Almasi African Playwrights Conference, I was really looking forward to being part of the 2019 one because I knew, from experience, the value of having a play read and critiqued by directors, actors and other playwrights under the supervision of a dramaturg. This year I submitted a play called Thirty Three Cents and I was blown away by the transformation of the play. Initially, the play was two and a half hours long and I distinctly remember that during the feedback session with actors, one actor said it was long. Upon being pressed if there was anything other than the length of the play that she would like to comment on, she said no!
My experience with the Almasi Playwrights Conference is one I will never forget. The play had started off as an aftermath of an albinism awareness campaign that I had been part of. The stories of my interviewees were still fresh in my heart. Their faces, their struggles – all culminating into voices and characters in my head. I had toyed with the idea of writing the play for weeks but hadn’t quite gotten around to it. When the call from Almasi came, there were a hundred and one reasons why I couldn’t do it; living out of town at a time when fuel was scarce – how would I get there? Having a child in school beginning of a new term, being a freelance writer with prior commitments and here’s my favorite: I still hadn’t written the play.
This May our Walter Mparutsa fellow Gideon Wabvuta graduated from the University of Southern California with a Masters of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing. We are proud to have our second Fellow graduate with a masters in the U.S.
Three years, they pass like a dream...
but it’s the last day you remember as you walk across that stage dressed in a cap and gown plus a smile. It did hit me whilst I stood there waiting to receive my diploma that the most important thing I had walked out of grad school with was conviction. I was finally sure of where I stood in the world and what my work would fight for. I had walked in with questions and the need to find something to write to but here I was walking across the stage knowing my work will actually strive to do and mean something to someone out there. Now the work begins or rather it continues.
ABOUT THE WALTER MUPARUTSA FELLOWSHIP
The Walter Muparutsa Fellowship is an initiative of Almasi in honor of the late Veteran Zimbabwean Actor, Director, and Producer, Walter Lambert Muparutsa. The fellowship is administered through Almasi Arts Alliance, the sister organization to Almasi Collaborative Arts. The fellowship's purpose is to facilitate African Dramatic Artists of exceptional ability and promise who have economic need with their professional and educational development. This grant provides the artists with an opportunity to focus exclusively on their artistic development and experience relief from everyday expenses over the course of educational and professional programs.
$250 Donation
Will help cover artists’ transportation and meals during participation in staged readings or workshops in Africa. Will help fund Writer’s Dialogue Series which presents African playwrights in the process of developing their plays a platform to receive feedback on their works in progress.
$500 Donation
Will help fund Almasi’s high school outreach program, which allows younger generations of African students to be exposed to the possibility of a career in the arts through training and collaboration with Almasi fellows and artists.
$1,000 Donation
Will help fund an Almasi staged reading in Africa. Artists are able to collaborate and gain knowledge from community experts and receive compensation for their work, thus, professionalizing the African arts sector.
$2,500 Donation
Will help fund part of the Almasi Walter Muparutsa Artist of Excellence Fellowship awarded to exceptional Zimbabwean artists to help them develop their craft in the dramatic arts. The fellowship allows African artists who have a financial need to take advantage of an educational opportunity in the United States. This year, the fellowship made it possible for ZIM artist Gideon Wabvuta to attend the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts in pursuit of his MFA in Dramatic Writing.
$5,000 Donation
Will help fund a Cultural Exchange Program Facilitator Grant, which is awarded to American artists traveling to Africa to conduct educational artistic exchanges. African artists have the chance to network and connect with dramatic arts leaders from different communities.
The Gift of Giving
Honor your family, friends and loved ones this holiday season by making a donation to Almasi in their name. If you would like to make a donation of someone's behalf, please email info@almasiarts.org with your donation amount and the recipient's contact information and we will send them a personalized card letting them know about the generous gift.