The 2016 Almasi Walter Muparutsa Artist Of Excellence Fellowship
ALMASI GRANTS THE 2016 ALMASI WALTER MUPARUTSA FELLOWSHIP FOR ARTISTS OF EXCELLENCE TO GIDEON WABVUTA
We at Almasi are deeply pleased to announce Gideon Jeph Wabvuta as our second recipient of the Walter Muparutsa Fellowship for Artist of Excellence Award. His talent, hard work and excellence made this selection an obvious one. We truly believe in his future and that at heart he deeply exemplifies the commitment, pioneering spirit of the late Mr Muparutsa. This fellowship allows Gideon to travel to the US and undertake studies for an MFA in Playwriting Program at the University of Southern California, where he has already received a partial scholarship. USC has a very competitive program and we congratulate Mr Wabvuta for being offered a spot. We are thrilled that he will now be enabled to undertake his studies and further his professional growth.
Gideon Jeph Wabvuta is a playwright and actor based in Harare Zimbabwe. He studied B.A Honors in Theatre Arts at the University of Zimbabwe. He has featured in a number of professional productions as an actor that include The Father, The Convert, No Cause, and many other local Zimbabwean productions. He has been part of the Almasi Collaborative Arts reading series in Zimbabwe in plays like A Raisin in the Sun, No Good Friday, The Elephant man. He also featured in a reading of The Year of the Bicycle at the Cell theater in New York. As a director, he directed two reading, Fences by August Wilson and Nongogo by Athol Fugard. In the realm of playwriting, he developed Master’s Shoe at the Almasi African Playwrights festival which saw him being invited to the Ojai Playwrights Conference by the Artistic Director Robert Egan.
At Ojai 2015 he developed and performed a one-man show Mbare Dreams which he again performed an excerpt of at the 2016 TCG pre-conference. He has also written Remorse is Forever which was performed at the Youth Cultural Arts Festival, Dzimbabwedande an adaptation of a novel which he turned into a three-hour production and Men Vs Women at the Harare International Festival of the arts (HIFA). He has featured at the premium festivals in Zimbabwe as a writer and actor. For television, he co-wrote and directed a T.V series YOU OWE ME which was flighted on national television. As of 2014, he was partly engaged with an organization that does theatre for development in marginalized communities. They dealt with various issues that include gender-based violence, human rights, and poverty alleviation. Gideon’s ultimate artistic goal is to write plays that will speak of and about his people to the world.
ABOUT WALTER MUPARUTSA
Walter Muparutsa was a guru in Zimbabwe's theater industry; a founding father. Over the years and for many years he was involved in numerous theater related activities imbued with social awareness. He fearlessly battled societal issues through his craft. He worked with countless institutions and festivals such as the Zimbabwe International Film Festival, Harare International Festival of the Arts – HIFA, Chimanimani Arts Festival, Manica Arts Fest, UNDP Artists Against Poverty Programme, Global Arts Trust, Pamberi Trust, Media for Development International Inc (Colorado, USA), to name a few.
ABOUT THE 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.