MoMo Matsunyane appointed the Zwakala Festival Director!
The Market Theatre Foundation is delighted to announce the appointment of MoMo Matsunyane as the new Festival Director of the Zwakala Festival that will take place from the 4th February 2023.
The Zwakala Festival is the most established and well-respected theatre festival in Gauteng. 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/directors to connect with larger audiences.
MoMo 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.
She has performed in numerous plays, films and television shows and has subsequently been nominated for 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), Best Supporting Role (Tsotsi The Musical; Fleur Du Cap Awards 2018) amongst many others. In 2016/17 she co-directed multi-award Naledi winning play TAU which enjoyed a highly successful run at The Market Theatre.
MoMo started on the 1st of October 2022. “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. 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” said the newly appointed resident director, MoMo Matsunyane.
The Zwakala Festival continues to remain one of South Africa’s most dynamic theatre festivals aimed specifically at community-based theatre-makers. Established three years after the Market Theatre Laboratory was founded in 1989 by Barney Simon and John Kani with funding from the Rockerfeller Foundation.
The Zwakala Festival is proudly sponsored by the Department of Sports Arts and Culture incubation programme.