Tuesday night resident TheatreSports, continue fresh from their success of Cape Town's first Improv Festival. No two performances are ever the same as the award-winning team improvise their way through a high-octane, laugh-a-minute show that's fun for all the family. Use the Kalk Bay Theatre Loyalty Card to see four shows and get the fifth free.
February is a month of magnificent music, with UK blues singer and guitarist Matt Woosey kicking off his South African tour from 13 to 17 February. This is followed by The Godfrey Johnson Showcase from 20 to 23 February, in which this South African music and cabaret legend performs a selection from his repertoire of shows and some new songs.
Keeping with the musical theme, there's a cocktail of contemporary musical theatre in I Am What I Am from 6 to 16 March. Featuring the talented trio of Angela Inglis, Bethany Dickson Mahnke and Natasha Dryden, and directed by Garth Tavares, this is a thigh-slapping, fist-pumping ride through popular songs from Wicked, Disenchanted, Edges, I Love You Because, Chorus Line and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, among others.
Pedro the Music Man returns to enchant children young and old with a new show for the school holidays. In Cowbells and Tortoise Shells this captivating story-teller takes us on a series of African adventures, in which greedy hunters, tyrannical chiefs, tortoise tears, and other problems are overcome - with music! From 29 March to 7 April at 11am.
Husband and wife team Ash Searle and Vanessa Harris, the dynamic duo behind the award-winning Follow Spot Productions, expose their personal truths about working in the performance industry as a married couple in their new show, Ash and Van Exposed from 3 to 20 April. Using their trademark high-energy, slick choreography, comedic banter and close harmonies, they deliver their personal rendition of the Cell Block Tango, and an expert mash-up of songs inspired the series Glee.
Isn't a Hamburger a person? And a crayfish not a fish? And a hot dog definitively not a hot dog? In The Dog's Bollocks Gaëtan Schmid (Body Language -Rumpsteak) is an Eastern European professor who rants about the history and propagation of the English language, its idiosyncrasies and etymological quirks. Don't mind the prof's lack of vocabulary, ill-fitted costume and small suitcase. His exuberance will blow your socks off. Directed by Rob Murray, it will be performed from 21 to 27 April.
KBT Productions presents the première of Megan Furniss' new comedy, Song and Dance from 1 to 19 May. Directed by Ntombi Makhutshi, the play is a contemporary South African comedy. When two burglars break into the wrong stylish apartment things go from unexpected to dangerous faster than a bad audition. Local theatre at its most satirical, Song and Dance is dark, delinquent and deliciously funny.
Also presented by KBT Productions, Same Time Next Year, from 22 May to 23 June, features the team of Keren Tahor and Paul du Toit. To misquote the song, some enchanted evening across a not so crowded room, two people meet. They know they'll see each other again, in fact at the same time next year. The poignantly funny story of two ordinary people each married to others, but the love of each other's lives.
July brings the Cape Town première of a new South African a capella comedy musical. A Town Called Fokol-Lutho comes hot off the National Arts Festival Fringe to the Kalk Bay Theatre from 11 July to 10 August. Five men, a small Karoo town where nothing ever happens and no one is good at anything except singing and not falling in love. Or is there more? Dig a little and you'll find the story of the first heart transplant, the scrum-half standing pass and love-so-amazing in a pitcher of cactus shoot juice. Written by Jervis Pennington, directed by Tara Notcutt and presented by KBT Productions.
From 14 August to 8 September, Cape Town audiences have the chance to see Tin Bucket Drum, by 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist, Neil Coppen. The production has received great acclaim nationally and internationally, touring to New York, presented by the Imbewu Trust. Directed by Karen Logan, and performed by Mpume Mthombeni, Wake Mahlobo and Nosipho Bophela, Tin Bucket Drum follows the story of Nomvula, a spirited child with a revolutionary heart born into a country with a cruel and silent dictatorship. It weaves together elements of magical realism, shadow puppetry, Kabuki theatre and live percussion while offering a fresh twist to the traditional conventions of African storytelling.
"Other highlights for the rest of the year include Roos van Jou Mond, a celebration of Ingrid Jonker's poetry; a new show from the master of illusion, Stuart Lightbody; the witty, poignant and intriguing peek behind the theatre curtain in Tonight Neither Hamlet and Big Boys Don't Dance 2 to wind up 2013 in true festive season spirit," said Cooper.
"In addition, we have a series of great local musicians performing one-off and Sunday night concerts - join our mailing list to keep updated."
For further information and all bookings, go to www.kbt.co.za.
