Associate Professor 

Degree | D Litt | University of Pretoria

^{PERSONAL DETAILS} 

Email address: a.krueger@ru.ac.za

Telephone (direct): +27 (0)46 603 8976

Associate Professor Anton Krueger is a writer and scholar specialising in South African performance modalities. He is an NRF rated researcher and has published numerous articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from indigenous dance to Zef. His book Experiments in Freedom: Issues of Identity in New South African Drama (2010) won the Rhodes Vice-Chancellor’s Book Award and Magnet Theatre: Three Decades of Making Space (2016, co-edited with Megan Lewis) won the Hiddingh-Currie Award.

Anton’s latest scholarly interests include research into mindfulness and spirituality in performance. He is on the editorial board for the Methuen / Bloomsbury series Agitations: Texts, Politics and Performance and in 2021 he’s the Guest Editor of a Special Issue on Improvisation for the Performance and Mindfulness Journal.

He’s also reviewed theatre and literature for a number of media outlets, including the Mail and Guardian, Sunday Independent, Business Day and The Sunday Times. Anton’s reviews were awarded a Silver Medal from BASA for Arts Journalism in 2017. In 2019 he was invited to be an Associate Curator for the Theatre and Live Art selection for the main programme of the National Arts Festival.

Anton teaches Creative Writing for Performance from undergrad up to MA level. He teaches on the Performance Studies program, with a focus on contemporary South African theatre. He also teaches on trauma, mindfulness and spirituality in performance.

 

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS 

DLitt (University of Pretoria)
MA (Philosophy of Literature, University of South Africa)
HONS (University of Pretoria, with distinction)
BA (University of Pretoria)

 

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS (CREATIVE WRITING) 

Anton has published in a wide range of literary genres, including poetry, memoir, short fiction and drama. His plays have been performed in many different countries and he’s been awarded numerous prizes in different fields, including a nomination for an FNB Vita and runner up for the Olive Schreiner Drama award for Living in Strange Lands: The Testimony of Tsafendas (2001, 2009). Mediocrity was the winner of the SANCTA festival and the play was chosen to represent South Africa at the Mondial du Teater in Monaco in 2001. In 2007, Chatter won the PANSA Gauteng Festival of Staged Reading.

He was invited to participate in Poetry Africa in 2008, and was the runner up for the Dalro Poetry prize, for “Nine Notes on Lisbon” (2011). An Afrikaans radio Drama, Altyd was shortlisted for the RSG Sanlam award and broadcast in 2013. Old Dogs was awarded two staged readings in separate contests: the PANSA Festival of Staged Readings, at the Catalina theatre in Durban in 2012, and the Theatre Arts Admin in Cape Town in 2013.

In 2016, the comedy story “Jim Goes to Durban” (co-written with Pravasan Pillay) was shortlisted for Short, Sharp Stories and received a “Highly Commended” by the judges. His radio drama Easter Island was shortlisted out of 1000 entries for the BBC World Drama award and was broadcast on SAFM in 2018.

Strange Land (a reworking of Living in Strange Lands) played at the Market Theatre in 2019 was nominated for a Naledi Award for Best Script. In 2020, Anton presented his solo show The Voice in Your Head  on the Main Programme of the Virtual National Arts Festival.

 

BOOKS (ACADEMIC/CRITICISM)

2016   Magnet Theatre: Thirty Years of Making Space. London: Intellect & Pretoria: Unisa Press. (Co-editor with Megan Lewis) [WINNER OF THE HIDDINGH-CURIE AWARD, 2017]

2010   Experiments in Freedom: Explorations of Identity in New South African Drama. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. [WINNER OF THE RHODES VICE CHANCELLOR’S BOOK AWARD, 2011]

2000   Perspectives on “The Great Gatsby” (Successful Gestures Study Guide Series). Pretoria: Poet’s Press. (A study guide for high-school learners.)

 

BOOKS (FICTION)

2019 Die Oog, with Eben Viktor. Cape Town: Naledi. (Novel, Afrikaans)

2012 Chatter. Lombardy East: Off the Wall. (Drama)

2011 Everyday Anomalies. Grahamstown: Aerial. (Poetry).

2011 Shaggy.  Pretoria: BK Publishing. Reprinted 2013. (Short Stories, with Pravasan Pillay).

2010 Sunnyside Sal. Grahamstown: Deep South. (Memoir)

2007 Axis. London: Stagescripts. (Drama)

2003 Living in Strange Lands: The Testimony of Tsafendas. New York: Playscripts. (Docu-Drama)

2002 Mediocrity. London: UK Plays & Musicals. (Drama – 1 Act)

2002 Vanessa & the Vanguard. London: UK Plays & Musicals. (Drama – 1 Act)

2002 The Velvet City. London: UK Plays & Musicals. (Drama – 1 Act)

2001 In the Blue Beaker – a Comedy about Suicide. New York: Playscripts. (Drama – 1 Act)

 

BOOK CHAPTERS (ACADEMIC/CRITICISM)

2020   [FORTHCOMING] All Wounds Speak: Performing Trauma / Witnessing Grief IN Uthekwane. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

2019   Revolutionary Trends at the South African National Arts Festival, IN The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, (Edited by Helena Grehan and Peter Eckersall). New York: Routledge.

2016   (with Megan Lewis) Introduction. IN Magnet Theatre: Thirty Years of Making Space. (Edited by Anton Krueger and Megan Lewis). London: Intellect / Pretoria: Unisa

2016   The Implacable Grandeur of the Stranger: Ruminations on Fear and Familiarity in Magnet Theatre's Die Vreemdeling [The Stranger]. IN Magnet Theatre: Thirty Years of making Space. London & Pretoria: Intellect & Unisa Press.^[1]

2015/2016 Reza de Wet. IN Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Drama. Edited by Greg Homann. London: Methuen.

2015   Spectacles of Participation, Performing amaXhosa Authenticity at the National Arts Festival of South Africa. IN New Territories: Theatre, Drama and Performance in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Edited by Greg Homann and Mark Maufort. Brussels: Peter Lang.

2014   “It’s Just Changed Color?”: Clowning with Parodies of Religion, Race and

Nation in Woza Albert! and Woza Andries?” IN Theatre and National identity Ed. Nadine Holdsworth. London: Routledge.

2014   A Heritage of Violence: Paradoxes of Freedom and Memory in Recent South

African Play Texts, IN Syncretic Arenas: Essays on Postcolonial Drama and Theatre for Esiaba Irobi. Ed. Isidore Diala. Rodopi: Amsterdam.

2013   Zef / Poor White Kitsch Chique: South African Comedies of Degradation. In: Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 1: Innovation, Creativity & Social Change. Editors: Kene Igweonu & Osita Okagbue. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.^[2]

2010   Celebrations of the Spirit of Tragedy – The Dionysian Theatre of Brett Bailey. In Positionen. (Edited by Matthew Krouse, Published in English (Johannesburg: Jacana) and German (Hamburg: Steidl).

 

JOURNAL ARTICLES

2019   Betty, Zorg and Me – Sex, Freedom, Art.  English Studies in Africa. 62 (1): 81-89.

2018   Revolutionary Trends at the National Arts Festival 2017 (an overview). South African Theatre Journal. 31 (2-3): 202-210.

2017   Performing Mindful Creativity: Three South African Case Studies in Performance and Mindfulness Journal (1).

2015   Whose Voice is it Anyway? Implications of Free Writing. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa. Special Issue on Creative Writing 27(2):103-110.

2013   The Implacable Grandeur of the Stranger: Ruminations on Fear and Familiarity in Die Vreemdeling. South African Theatre Journal. 26 (3): 303-310.

2012   Die Moderne Self as Toneelpop in Woyzeck on the Highveld” Literator. 32 (2)

2012   Zef / Poor White Kitsch Chique: Die Antwoord’s Comedy of Degradation. In: Safuni 13 (3-4): 399-408.

2011   The Failure of Masculinity in Fugard’s Recent Work. South African Theatre Journal 25 (2).

2010   Keeping it in the Family: Incest, Repression and the Fear of the Hybrid in Reza de Wet's English Plays Literator 31 (3).

2010   Fashionably Ethnic: Individuality and Heritage in Greig Coetzee's Happy Natives. Current Writing 22 (1).

2007   Performing Transformations of Identity – ‘Ethnic’ Nationalisms and Syncretic Theatre in Post-Apartheid South Africa. The English Academy Review. vol. 24 (1). (51-60).

2006   (with Clare Stopford). Intuition / Intellect – Sex / Sensibility South African Theatre Journal. vol. 20. (233-251).

2004   Three Men, Three Manifestoes: Comparing Criteria Demanded by Wilde, Hemingway and Kerouac in light of Lyotard's Critique of Legitimation. Proceedings of the 14th International English Academy Conference: "Mother tongue, Other tongue? Law Learning and Literature. Pretoria: University of Pretoria Press.

2003   The Drama of Hunting and Healing: Interpreting the Rituals of the San. South African Theatre Journal. vol. 17. (65-78).

2003   Cultures of Change: Challenges in Mapping Revolutionary Literary Eras. In Modern Perspectives and Views on European Literature. Beijing: Chinese Ethnic Press.

2000   Imprisoned by Conviction. Scrutiny 2, vol. 5 (2). (59-62).

 

REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS

2019 Woza Albert! (student editions). South African Theatre Journal, 32 (3):342-344.

2017   Reader in Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism, South African Theatre Journal. 30 (1-3).

2015   Interweaving Performance Cultures, South African Theatre Journal 28(1). 

2013   Gazing at Exhibit A: An interview with Brett Bailey. Liminalities 9 (1).

2012   The Pump Room. In South African Theatre Journal.  26 (1).

2010   What is a Puppet? A review of Handspring Puppet, published by David Krut. in De Artes.

2010   Identity and Failure: An Interview between Ashraf Jamal and Anton Krueger. Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies. (2).

2006   On the Wild, Essential Energies of the Forest: An Interview with Brett Bailey South African Theatre Journal. vol. 20. (323-332).

2006   On Being Bad: a Review of Laduma by A.K. Thembeka. Scrutiny 2:  vol. 11 (1). (143-144).

2003   Theatre in South Africa – ‘an endangered species’: interview with Anthony Akerman. Scrutiny 2, vol. 8 (2). (60-65).

 

REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS IN POPULAR MEDIA (SINCE 2008)

2019 So much deliciousness: an overview of the 2019 National Arts Festival Business Day,  28 June.

2019 Behind the stand-up comedians at the National Arts Festival Business Day, 5 July.

2019 The best of the swarm at the National Arts Festival Business Day, 12 July.

2018 “Syncretism? Arts fest says no to all that 1990s nonsense”, Sunday Times Live, 13 July.

2018   “Fringe stalwarts go to great lengths to deliver cutting-edge theatre”. Business Day, 29 June.

2018   “Art, tech and creativity converge in a new world.” Business Day, 3 July.

2018   “Word and visual artists fly together”. Business Day, 3 July.

2018   “The lasting value of a literary contributor.” Business Day, 4 July.

2018   “Outrageous reflections of the vulnerability of letting yourself fail.” Business Day, 5 July.

2018   “Fringe Festival’s soul-filling and skeleton-shaking sounds.” Business Day, 6 July.

2018   “Working with young children in performance art earns recognition”. Business Day, 9 July.

2016   “Fusion and Fission at the Very Big Comedy Show.” Cue.

2016   “Writing the Presence of the Past.” Cue.

2016   “To Name the Unnameable.” Cue.

2016   “The Blood that Build Monuments.” Cue.

2016   “Rich Redemption”. Cue

2016   “Random Selection: How watching accidental shows can change your point of view.” Cue.

2016   “Masterclass in Voice, Text, Light”. Cue.

2016   “A Recurring Nightmare of the Past”. Cue.

2013   “The tragic death of an articulate activist: Review – Rachel Corrie,” Cue, Friday 28 June: 2.

2013   “The voiceless are on the streets, not in theatre: Interview with Mike van Graan,” Cue, Sunday, 30 June: 3.

2013   “Both mirror and retrospective telescope: Review – Asinamali,” Cue, Tuesday, 2 July:5.

2013   “Scenes from a private world: Review – The Unexpected Man,” Cue, Wednesday 3 July:5.

2013   “Blue sweat and tears. Review – Bleu Remix”, Cue, Thursday 4 July, 2013: 7.

2013   “Laughing in the face of death: Review – Vigil,” Cue, Saturday, 6 July: 4.

2013   “Play Failure and Inspiration,” Cue, Sunday 7 July 2013: 6.

2013   “Zen Dust – Coming Home”. In Wordstock. 3 July.

2010   “Like a Puppet on a String” Mail and Guardian. March 26, 2010.

2009   “Review of At This Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa, Wits University Press Edited and introduced by Greg Homann” Mail and Guardian. 5 June.

2009   “Recovering from the Future: A review of At this stage””. Wordstock. Grahamstown.

2009   “Not so Glum - A review of Glumlazi by Pravasan Pillay”. New Coin. 45 (1).

2009   “Mindfulness, Individuality and the Buddhist Path: An interview with Rob Nairn” Odyssey, December

2009   “Festival Wrap up”, Alookaway, September, 2009.

2009   “Musicophilia tales of music and the brain”. Mail & Guardian, 8 February: 7

2008   “Recording a petulant soul: review of In the manure by Ronnie Govender”. Mail and Guardian. 6 June: 5

 

 

[1] An expanded version of the journal article listed with the same name.

[2] An expanded version of the journal article listed with the similar title.

Last Modified: Wed, 12 May 2021 10:54:05 SAST