TREE BOY

Playhouse Company presents cutting edge new theatre piece by Neil Coppen

As the first of its 2009 New Stages productions, The Playhouse Company presents Tree Boy, a cutting edge new theatre piece by award-winning Durban actor-writer, Neil Coppen (Tin Bucket Drum) in the Loft Theatre from March 12 to 14.

Tree Boy follows the relationship of a father and son in the early 1960s South Africa. After the untimely death of his mother, ten-year-old Benjamin Sprout and his father, Arthur, a postman, are forced to relocate from their rural farm property in the mountains to a burgeoning mining town in the Transvaal.

The town, 'Rykdom' is a dystopian industrial wasteland-- a far cry from the world young Ben has previously relied on to fuel his wild imaginings. As Arthur, paralysed by grief and clinging to the memory of his late wife, consoles himself with drinking, Ben seeks solace in an over-grown forest on the fringes of the town.

It is here that Ben meets an enigmatic old-man named Pappus Drupe. With Drupe as his guide, Ben discovers a world of possibility: stories and thoughts which sow revolutionary seeds of change in the young boy. A change that will have a profound effect on the corrupt town and its people and, more crucially, on the relationship between young Ben and his estranged father.

Starring talented ten-year old Durban actor Daniel Botha in the title role, with Durban's award-winning Michael Gritten playing his father, Tree Boy employs a seamless mixture of stop-motion animation and shadow puppetry, and promises to be a moving theatrical journey not to be missed.

It is a play about remembering and forgetting, hope and hopelessness, Billie Holiday and barflies, B-Grade Sci-Fi and fireflies, trees and tragedies.

Written and designed by Coppen, directed by Libby Allen and Coppen, with musical direction by Karen Van Pletsen and Guy Buttery, this groundbreaking piece includes special visual effects by Cape Town-based animation company IAMINAWE.

Neil Coppen began his career as an actor - performing in productions of Twelfth Night (Masque Theatre), Compleat Wks of William Shakespeare (Catalina), Oedipus Rex (Artscape), Dangerous Liaisons (KickstArt), and King Lear (Diplomatic Corps).

He has won awards for his performances in Hamlet (Actor's Co-op), Proof (KickstArt) and Dracula (Kickstart). Amongst some of the other random yet enlightening jobs Neil has undertaken over the last eight years are as a teacher at a performing arts school in New York, Hippo attack survivor in a gory discovery channel re-enactment, body double to actor Joseph Fiennes and South African dialect coach to actor Pete Poselwaithe on the film Ghost Son.

Neil now works as a playwright and free lance journalist for various South African publications including the Sunday Times Lifestyle and Sunday Independent. His recent travel writing adventures saw him tracking the life and work of Noble prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Colombia, South America. Neil's first play Suicidal Pigeons, premiered at the Red Eye Art exhibition (2005) and in 2007 he completed seasons of two award-winning new works: Two ...The Beginning of the End (co -written and performed alongside Clare Mortimer) as well as Tin Bucket Drum featuring Ntando Cele in the lead role.

Neil currently runs an independent film initiative (alongside Karen Logan) called 'The Kwa-Cinema' and has just had his short story The Accordion Man published by Penguin. He is currently in pre-production for a documentary film project based on Durban's Grey Street cinemas and later in the year will return to the stage in KickstArt's production of Wit.

Libby Allen graduated Cum Laude with a double Honours Degree (Drama and Performance, English Studies) in 2005 and a Masters Degree in Creative Writing in 2007, both through the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has performed locally and internationally, and directed productions for the Grahamstown National Arts Festivals, the Playhouse Company’s New Stages Festival, the Uplands and Cape Town Festivals, school tours and Educators’ Training Days around the country. Her major collaboration is her work with Iain Ewok Robinson, whose award-winning One Mind, One Mouth, One Mic performed to schools around South Africa and Botswana. In the same year, Libby joined Ewok onstage in Sweden, performing at the Uppsala International Poetry Festival.

Spitfire, the second production created in this collaboration, was awarded the Audience Choice and ‘Best of the Festival’ trophy at PANSA’s Musho! Festival and has been performed locally and abroad. Libby is currently based in Johannesburg, where she has worked as an editor, syllabus developer, freelance writer and teacher.

Michael Gritten trained at the University of Natal under Professor Pieter Scholtz. He has worked as an actor for the past 19 years throughout the country, in film, TV and stage. Highlights in this award-winning actor’s career include working with the late Barney Simon at the Market Theatre; and performing in numerous KickstArt productions, including Popcorn, Dracula, Art and Irma Vep. He explored musical theatre, playing roles in My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls and The Wizard of Oz. Michael also enjoys children’s theatre, having played the Monkey King in Jungle Book and Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. His 2008 agenda included working on the movie, My Secret Sky, playing Claudius in Hamlet at The Playhouse, and performing in Sheer Madness at the Catalina Theatre.

Daniel Botha is 11 years old and a Grade 6 pupil at Malvern Primary School in Durban. He enjoys acting, reading, writing, playing cricket and tennis, and singing in his school choir. With his Maths teacher, Mr Galvin, Daniel wrote his first book, Doggy Doo Does New Zealand, and he is currently working on his second work, Brought By A Storm. For KickstArt, Daniel has performed as Christopher Robin in Winnie The Pooh (2006), as baby Abanazer in Aladdin (2007) and most recently as a Munchkin in last year’s production of The Wizard of OzA. At the time of his casting for Tree Boy, Daniel’s mother and siblings emigrated to New Zealand and Daniel chose to remain behind to work on this production.

Performances March 12 and 13 at 19h00 and on March 14 at 15h00 and 19h00. Tickets R45. Booking through Computicket (083 915 8000) or Playhouse Box Office during office hours on (031-369 9540/369 9596).