FORMER Durban Gen actress Mpume Mthombeni has finally won her first Naledi Theatre Award.
Mpume’s popular one-woman show, Isidlamlilo/The Fire Eaters walked away with four awards at the Joburg Theatre on Monday, 20 May.
They won Best Performance in a Solo Production, Best Lighting Design, Best Director of a Play and Best Production of a Play.
Mpume said the win for Best Performance in a Solo Production was a dream come true.
“I've been dreaming about the Naledi Theatre Awards for years. It’s every actor’s dream to be recognised by these awards, so thank you very much for this opportunity to be recognised in the theatre space. Thank you to the Market Theatre for giving us space. Thank you to the National Arts Festival and the people I worked with,” she said.
Mpume, along with her directors and producers, said they dedicated the awards to the women who were called The Fire Eaters.
“We would like to dedicate this award to the women of Thokoza Hostel who inspired this story. There was specifically one woman, sis’Thenji, who started believing that she wouldn’t die because she was one of the women who were The Fire Eaters.
“She had gone through so much she believed she was immortal. However, two weeks before the premiere of the show, she passed on,” they said.
Other winners of the night included Zaza Cala (Imixinwa), who won Best Supporting Actress in a Play.
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Kganya (Light) won the award for Best Production: Dance, Physical Theatre and Ballet.
The award for Best Performance in an Independent-/Fringe Theatre Production was Qondiswa James, while Tebogo Molepo won Best Performance in a Production for Young Audiences.
Jefferson “J Bobs” Tshabalala won the award for Best New South African Script.
Lihan Pretorius, CEO of the awards, said theatre keeps getting better and better.
“The year 2023 provided us with truly innovative work that engages the audience and makes us appreciate really superb theatre. In fact, the bar has definitely been raised.
“What's really exciting is the standard of tertiary- and school productions, which are proving to be instrumental in producing the next generation of performers, which is becoming evident in the calibre of the artists we see entering the industry,” he said.
