Litnet

Ashraf Johaardien is a creative producer, playwright and performer. In a career spanning two decades, he has produced and presented over 500 local and international plays and presided over arts festivals for the University of the Witwatersrand (WALE 4.0: The Wits Arts and Literature Experience 2011) and the University of Johannesburg (Reading Gay 2011, ThatSoGay International 2012/2013, Veesfier Afrikaans Plays Festival 2013 and ThatSoQueer International 2014). He was appointed as executive producer of the National Arts Festival in 2016.

As a playwright, he has had his best known play, “Salaam stories” (2002), awarded the inaugural Spier-Pansa Jury Award and performed between 2002 and 2014 to over 100 000 people on three continents. His other plays include “Coloured son X” (1998), “Happy endings are extra” (2003), “Miracle” (2004), “Stripped” (2005) and “Clora” (2011). He has also written stage adaptations of K Sello Duiker’s “The quiet violence of dreams” (2008) and “Ecce homo” (2006), based on the work of performance artist Tim Miller.

As a performer, he originated the role of Boy in the award-winning play “Suip!” (1993), which was workshopped with a group of students during his first year of study at the University of Cape Town. Shortly after graduating, he was cast in the title role of “Sando to Samantha”, an independent South African film directed by Jack Lewis, which went on to be screened at film festivals in Cape Town, Johannesburg, New York, Toronto, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, Turin, Adelaide, Bologna, Brussels, Melbourne and Lisbon. Other highlights as an actor include the roles of Lucas in “Hard copy” Season 4 on SABC 3 (Quizzical Pictures), Lawrence in “The myth of Andrew and Jo” by Gideon van Eerden in Ireland and South Africa, Rachel Tension in “Clora” and Hamlet in “iHamlet” by Robin Malan.

• Photo: Robyn Davie