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Robyn Sassen

A freelance arts writer since 1998, I fell in love with the theatre as a toddler, proved rubbish as a ballerina: my starring role was as Mrs Pussy in Noddy as a seven-year-old, and earned my stripes as an academic in Fine Arts and Art History, in subsequent years. I write for a range of online and print publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian and artslink.co.za and was formerly the arts editor of the SA Jewish Report, a weekly newspaper with which I was associated for 16 years. I am currently a Research Associate at Wits University. This blog promises you new stories every week, be they reviews, profiles, news stories or features.

He only had himself to blame…

FOUR LITTLE WORDS from one of the best showtune lyrics out there will turn into a delicious ear worm if you give them a chance: If you’ve watched a musical or two, He Had it Coming will get you jiving with the crimes of passion of the notorious […]

Forever young

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like celebrating your birthday with a lovely friend. This is what the central character in The Red Balloon, played by Craig Morris, discovers, as he takes you on a magical madcap journey through a whole gamut of emotions, armed with simple tools and complex skills. […]

Lunch tin blues

HE’S BIG, HE’S bold and he’s got his quill-covered head on sensibly. This is Noko (Lebotho Moshoeshoe) the porcupine, a character you will love for his overriding sense of justice in a world of bullying and misunderstanding. This week, you can get to meet him and his night […]

Of Schubert and the guts to hang in there

“SHE’S A HARD taskmaster,” says career performer Andrew Warburton (60), with a half a smile, of his piano. He started playing as a three-year-old and has a long, varied and wonderful trajectory of playing, learning and teaching arguably the king of musical instruments. Above all, he’s an affable […]

No bread? Eat cake!

VERY OCCASIONALLY, YOU feel that sense of privilege in the presence of an artwork that brings tears and goosebumps. From the very first roll of the snare drum with the thunder of a jembe and a dun-dun behind it, Sibikwa’s 1789 will have you transfixed. It’s immersion theatre […]

Laugh: Things could be kakker

WITH HIS DISTINCTIVE white streak down the middle of his verdant Afro, his rubbery smile and his straight talk and complicated yarns, Marc Lottering is truly one of South Africa’s greatest treasures. His show, So I wrote that musical is performing at the Hilton Arts Festival in Pietermaritzburg, […]

Things to make Yia-Yia gasp

COSTA CARASTRAVRAKIS HAS everything. From a name that gets the tongues of non-Greeks in knots before they even try to say it, to a sexual identity that gets the gossipy tables of flashy Greek mommies waiting for school to be out fiercely aflutter, to a mother with legendary […]

Ladies who bounce back

THE VETERAN BRITISH actress Miriam Margolyes describes the idea of doing a one-woman show as “lonely and frightening”, in her autobiography, This Much is True. When you see Serena Steinhauer emerge on stage in a flurry of words and wrap herself in the identity of three iconic women […]

Clothes shopping for a 300-year-old

YOU KNOW SOMETHING enormous has happened when your body kicks in, and when after experiencing this thing, you wake up lying on the floor with someone giving you sips of sugar water. This is where we find Belinda (Annette Havenga) in the opening sequences of episode nine of […]