New General Manager for the Fugard Theatre

Daniel (Stix) Galloway has been appointed as the new General Manager of the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town’s District Six, with immediate effect.

He will report to Founding Producer Eric Abraham.

“I’m incredibly excited about the Fugard Theatre's potential to be one of the most significant theatres in South Africa, and indeed the Southern Hemisphere,” says Galloway. “It is an enormous challenge and a little scary. We are determined to make this a theatre that Cape Town and the whole country can feel proud of,” he added.

Galloway says that he fell in love with theatre by “mistake”. While he was coaching and playing cricket abroad in 1998 (he is a keen sportsman and has some impressive sporting accolades to his name), he found himself learning the gentle art of theatre craft when he, in a fine twist of providence, substituted for a drama teacher. A few years later he graduated from The Drama Department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

In 2003 Galloway joined The University of Cape Town as the Production Manager and Resident Lighting Designer at the university’s Little Theatre Complex, where he has been ever since. He has been production manager for a number of South African productions which have transferred to London, including one for David Kramer. Galloway was also the Production Manager of Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver at the Fugard Theatre in March this year.

“I would love to see the diverse cultural and creative energies of Cape Town find a place in the Fugard Theatre in the years to come. We are determined that it shall be a theatre for all and will make special efforts to honour its link with the history of District 6,” he added. “I am determined to build a strong constituency of support for the Fugard Theatre and make it self-sustaining within three years. The only guarantee of creative autonomy is financial independence. The theatre complex is available for corporate and commercial hire.”

The first production that Galloway will be overseeing at the Fugard Theatre is Die Kaptein se Tier, Antjie Krog’s Afrikaans translation of Athol Fugard’s The Captain’s Tiger, as part of the 2011 Suidoosterfees programme line-up. The play will be directed by Janice Honeyman, runs from 19 to 29 January 2011, and is sponsored by Naspers. The run will then be extended at the Fugard Theatre until 5 February.

A slate of productions will be confirmed early in the New Year.

Some of Galloway’s recent lighting design credits include: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead (Directed by Chris Weare), Antigone (Directed by Shaun Mathias), Cosi & Mephisto (for The Mechanicals) and The Kramer Petersen Songbook, Three Wise(r) Men and Die Ballade van Koos Sas (Directed by David Kramer). 

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