ThinkTheatre is an independent theatre company, which specialises in performing set-work productions for learners and producing innovative, cutting edge original South African work. Our biggest annual production for the past 7 years has been to produce a fully staged performance of the Matric English language Shakespeare, as prescribed by the Department of Education. While at first blush the motivation was nothing more than to provide the true visual experience of a difficult text witnessed as it was intended, the growth in the sales of the production has made us keenly aware of the a more pressing need.
A vast number of Matric learners studying English as a first language do not have it as their mother tongue – in 2003 Margie Coppen (in her role as publicist and booking agent) captured some 2400 learners in the Durban region for the pilot project, in 2010 and after four years of collaboration with Clare Mortimer (director and co-producer) Coppen has grown the brand so that it performs to above 25 000 learners in KZN, Gauteng, Midlands, Northern KZN and the South Coast. There is a firm possibility of branching into the Western Cape, and therefore en route stops in the Eastern Cape, in 2012, prompted by the number of requests from those regions.
ThinkTheatre is a professional theatre company using award-winning professional actors, which may explain some of its success. The company tours across the country with a full set, costumes, lighting, sound, publicity and promotional material where a functional theatre space is available, but similarly performs in community halls or outdoors (minus the set and lighting rig) in areas of outreach or where there are no funds available for learners to travel. The budget runs understandably just below R1 million at present.
Part of ThinkTheatre’s mandate has been and will remain to reach as many learners as possible, whether it be by drawing them to other schools close to them (if they have not a suitable structure), or to try to provide the means for them to obtain busses in order to reach a theatre. A vast number of our seats each year are given as complimentary – this audience of indigent second language learners is where we are most needed and the response from them is as humbling as it is exhilarating. Aside from this, even within the plush spaces of the Playhouse Drama in Durban, Hilton College Theatre or the Art’s Complex at the University of Johannesburg, we keep our ticket prices at a minimum.