PRESS: Powerful young playwrights named as the National Playwright Competition's 2025 finalists

Rabbit In A Hat Communications

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The National Playwright Competition, supported by HEINEKEN Beverages, has selected four dynamic finalists, now on the road to being selected as the overall winner and having their play staged at the 2025 National Arts Festival.

Photos Supplied.

The competition was created to give a voice and platform to emerging playwrights, while also providing invaluable mentorship and support to polish and perfect a play ready for the stage. 

One of the key facets of the competition is that entrants are encouraged to write in their choice of language. This is the fourth iteration of the competition whose previous winners include Amy-Louse Wilson, Koleka Putuma and Sibongakonke Mama. 

The finalists each receive R 5000 and are assigned a mentor to work with towards the completion of their play. The overall winner will not only have their work produced and staged at the 2025 National Arts Festival but will also win a further R 20 000. 

The four 2025 National Playwright Competition finalists are:

Thozama Busakwe

Johannesburg, Gauteng

for Sasikhe Sabhabha (IsiXhosa/ English)

A creative producer, filmmaker, writer and theatre practitioner,. Thozama's cultural work includes participation in Tshwane University of Technology's creative research-laboratory to interrogate scriptwriting and directing for gender performance and they are a youth art ambassador for the Presidential Climate Commission. They have worked for renowned institutions like The Market Theatre as a copywriter and most recently a communications officer at ASSITEJ. Thozama's work is inspired by life as they perceive it. They draw inspiration from African culture and indigenous knowledge systems to create a delicate visual language that interrogates and explores existential questions as it pertains to queerness.

Lwando Sindaphi

Cape Town, Western Cape 

for I Will Teach You How to Share the Milk

Award-winning theatre director, teacher (University of Cape Town) and poet, Lwando Sindaphi has an Honours degree in script writing from the University of Cape Town and Certificate in Physical Theatre from Magnet Theatre. With over ten years of experience in the South African theatre industry, Lwando is well-versed in adopting contemporary performance techniques and avant-garde theatre methodology to produce ground-breaking, award-worthy productions.  He's also delivered poetry performances on stages such as Grounding Sessions, Naked Word Festival and Badilisha Poetry. Lwando is currently serving as Creative Director of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.

Naledi Malotana

Makhanda, Eastern Cape 

for The Glass Ceiling

Naledi Malotana is a BFA student (Bachelor of Fine Arts) at Rhodes University. Her interest is in exploring themes and concepts that centre around personal identity, the degradation of the environment and social feminism. She has a love of writing which includes crafting short stories and poetry that draws on her experiences and observations of the world around her. As she continues her studies in the arts, she is eager to develop her writing further and contribute to the landscape of contemporary literature. With a commitment to exploring diverse narratives, she looks forward to sharing her voice and writing with a growing audience.

Campbell Meas

Johannesburg, Gauteng

for The Mechanics of Play

Campbell Meas is an actress, writer, director, facilitator, experimental film enthusiast and theatre maker. Graduating from Wits University with a BADA Honours in Performance and Directing, as well as receiving performance training from Indigo View Academy, she has been a part of theatre groups The Movement RSA and Jittery Citizens, performing in a variety of award winning shows, most notably the Naledi winning Just Antigone. Moving into the teaching space, she has lectured and taught at both Wits university as well as the Market Theatre Lab, recently being part of the FicSci cohort which saw her writing being published within their annual anthology of work. Her own projects deal with intimate stories that also push mediums to new creative spaces.

Says the National Arts Festival's CEO, Monica Newton, “It all starts with a script and if it's a South African script, even better! When we tell our own stories in our own languages, we capture the essence of what it is to be South African; good or bad, tragic or triumphant, funny or sad. The finalists that have been selected are a group of highly creative people who are all challenging norms and doing incredible work in the cultural space. I would like to express our gratitude to our 15 strong adjudication panel, the team of mentors who will now guide these playwrights into the final phase of script development, and thanks to our partner HEINEKEN Beverages who is helping us bring fresh voices to the stage.” 

HEINENKEN Beverages' Corporate Affairs Director, Millicent Maroga, joined Newton in congratulating the finalists, “Your dedication to your passion is paying off as your hard work and talent has been noticed. We wish you all the best on this next leg of the journey and look forward to seeing the final play lighting up the South African stage.”