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Jonathan Mbiriyamveka Entertainment Reporter
New Zealand-based Zimbabwean playwright Stanley Makuwe has been short-listed for the 2014 Adam NZ Play Award for his new play titled “Footprints on Ika’s Heart”.
“I am humbled to have been picked as one of the frontrunners for the award. This is an important recognition and an honour,” Makuwe said.
Supported by the Adam Foundation and the Play Press, the award is presented annually by New Zealand’s Playmarket.
Formerly called the Playmarket New Play Award, the award is now in its sixth year and is the only one of its kind for new writing. It encourages writers to banish all self censorship, all worries about what theatre wants, what is affordable and what they think audiences want to see.
The winner, to be announced later this month, will walk away with $5000.
Makuwe is not new to Zimbabwean theatre. His previous play “Wusiku” premièred at the University of Zimbabwe’s Beit Hall where it received a standing ovation and at Theatre In The Park in Harare.
“Wusiku” was directed by veteran theatre actor Charles Matare who also featured on the cast as well as Chipo Bizure, Nothando Nobhengula and Teddy Mangawa.
“It is important to raise a voice when the one who is supposed to implement the change is present,” said Matare once said about the play.
The play tells a vivid realist story of a young soldier and his wife who both face sexual challenges because of their desperation and dire need for wealth and uplifting from poverty.
When Wusiku finds out about his wife’s infidelity, he kills her before killing himself because the good doctor had misled him in her experiment and he ends up being HIV positive.
It is a sea of emotional and psychological interplay in which power and social status play a major role.
Online Reporter