Benjy Francis

• Matriculated with exemption Sastri College, Durban SA 1965
• 1 Year Pre-Medicine Bandra National College, Bombay (Mumbai) India1966
• BA degree *(incomplete) Salisbury Island University College, Durban SA
• 1967 Co-founded Natal Drama Foundation jointly with artist friends. I was appointed artistic director of Festival of One-Act Plays for 1968, 1969, 1970.
• 1969 I acted in Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot.
• I produced the World premiere of The Family, a trilogy of work by Athol Fugard, comprising of Blood Knot [Durban], Hello and Goodbye [Cape Town] and Boesman and Lena [Port Elizabeth] with Athol and Yvonne Bryceland.
• Beginning of continuing political persecution under apartheid of my creative work 1969 -1989.
• Three years later after serious encounters with the apartheid regime of harassment, intimidation, censorship and banning of artistic work and production that I was associated with, I left South Africa, on voluntary exile to study theatre directing in London,UK.
• 1970-1971 I co-produced, choreographed, acted and sang in the original musical, The Mad Show: It’s a Colourful World, satirising apartheid. Text was banned by the Censorship Board of the Apartheid State.
• -Challenged Apartheid Censorship Board by taking up legal action against the banning- We lost that battle in mid 1971
• Melt One- an experimental exploration of restriction and freedom based on current political issues. My directorial and writing debut.
• 1972-1974 Diploma in Directing : Drama Centre, London
• 1974-1975 Returned to South Africa.
• Produced, directed, designed and acted in The Blood Knot by Athol Fugard- first production aborted after State Police interrogation, and co-actor has mental break down.
• 2^nd production of Blood Knot with Fats Bookholane, harassed by apartheid police nightly for playing before mixed audiences. Played for one month, even though threatened with repeated detention.
• Venues in Durban closed to my work under police pressure. Forced to leave Durban, went to Johannesburg.
• Joined Phoenix Players at Dorkay House as artistic director.
• Directed first mixed cast (forbidden during apartheid) Celebrity Concert at Temple Emmanuel, Parktown with top South African artists, both black and white e.g. Judy Page, Allen Kwela, Abigail Khubeka and many others.
• Directed first all black cast of Fugard’s Boesman and Lena- national tour.
• Awarded grant to study arts administration and funding in USA- Multi Regional tour with participants from all over the world.
• Met with leading activists in American Black Theatre and Civil Rights Movement, Bread and Puppet Theatre, Chicano Theatre, Native American art/culture and mainstream American Theatre.
• 1976 Joined Market Theatre as first Black resident artistic director working alongside Barney Simon and Mannie Manim.
• Awarded Best Actor for performance as Morris in Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot. First such award made to a black person during apartheid.
• Directed Fugard's Blood Knot and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot for Market Theatre.
• Production of James Saunders’ Neighbours banned from performance at National Festival of One-act Plays in Bloemfontein because of racial content of the play and my participation as director working with White (Afrikaner) actors. That was not permissible under apartheid.
• 1977 Directed Me Nobody Knows, a Broadway youth musical adapted for South Africa. It was the first musical and first mixed cast production at the Market Theatre.
• Performed in The Comedians, directed by Leonard Sach for the Market Theatre.
• Resigned as full time resident director but continued as freelance director at the Market Theatre.
• Resigned to work in Black Theatre in townships as a result of the atrocities of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings.
• 1978 Founded the Alternate Theatre Company.
• Directed The Last Street Gang by American playwright, Richard Wesley for the Market Theatre.
• Directed The Crunch by Melville Segal at the Nunnery, Wits University
• National tour of Fugard’s The Blood Knot.
• One of the founder’s of Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA).
• In 1978, designed the Soyinka Theatre School and Arts Centre (taking its name from Wole Soyinka, the outspoken Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate ) for the Federated Union of Black Arts (FUBA), predicated on the discourse on Black Consciousness and Africanism.
• 1979 Directed We Shall Sing for the Fatherland and Dead End by Zakes Mda for FUBA.
• Founding artistic director, administrator and education co-ordinator at FUBA. Developed the Drama and Dance departments and co-ordinated all training programmes.
• Edited Sket’sh Magazine for the arts
• First Pan African Film festival in Johannesburg (perhaps in South Africa)
• 1980 Directed No Sugar Left by Natalie Knight.

email: benjyfrancis.acc@gmail.com Mobile: +27.84 753 5381 WhatsApp: +27.61 535 9912