SA: Zwakala Festival appoints MoMo Matsunyane as new director

Every year, the MTF appoints a director who is attached to the festival to help with fieldwork. The director will work with a panel of judges to help find a winner for the year.

Matsunyane has been a professional actor since 2004. She obtained an honours degree in dramatic arts from Wits University in 2012, majoring in performance as well as film and television.

“I hope to give an opportunity to plays and performers who will thrive and grow in an opportunity like this. It’s one thing to want to be on a stage like the Market Theatre’s but it’s another to be hungry for it,” she said.

“I also wish to have a variety of plays that represent a multitude of voices particularly those from communities people consider marginalised, forgotten or unworthy.”

Matsunyane has performed in numerous plays, films and TV shows and won several awards including Best Actress in a Leading Role (Have You Seen Zandile? Naledi Theatre Awards 2014), Best Supporting Actress (Ankobia, SA Theatre Magazine Awards 2017), Best Ensemble (Animal Farm ,Naledi Theatre Awards 2015) and Best Supporting Role (Tsotsi The Musical, Fleur Du Cap Awards 2018), among many others. In 2016 and 2017, she co-directed multi-award winning play TAU, which enjoyed a highly successful run at The Market Theatre.

Sponsored by the Department of Sports Arts and Culture incubation programme, Zwakala Festival seeks to improve the skills of musical directors, writers, directors, designers and actors. The event continues to be one of South Africa’s most dynamic theatre festivals aimed specifically at community-based theatremakers.

“The revamped model of the festival has a much clearer mission and vision of the festival, which is to develop, nurture and promote new writing talent, a platform for connecting communities and to support new writers and directors to connect with larger audiences,” the MTF said.