Award-winning actor and director Zane Lucas was recently appointed as director of productions for The Repertory Players (Reps), the first person to hold this post since the late Adrian Stanley who undertook the role for more than 40 years.
Lucas who was born in Zimbabwe, obtained a BA honours degree in theatre through Middlesex University in the United Kingdom and on his return to Zimbabwe, he started working with the countrys first multi-racial theatre company, Over the Edge.
Between 1999 and 2004 he toured extensively with the company as a performer in productions including Twelfth Night (ART, Boston; Bath Shakespeare Festival; The Sheffield Crucible, UK; Neuss Shakespeare Festival, Germany; Edinburgh Festival, UK; Harvard University and Macalaster University, US) and the Taming of the Shrew (Edinburgh Festival; Neuss Shakespeare Festival, Germany; Bath Shakespeare Festival, UK).
He was director of Over The Edges successful devised piece Born African, which toured for over two years at various places including Hamburg, Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Boston, New York, UK, Belfast, Dublin, Cape Town (Baxter Theatre), Grahamstown Festival and the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), said the Repertory Players chairman, Stan Higgins.
He said Lucas had also worked as director in several theatres in Zimbabwe, with credits including Artbeat (official Hifa opening 2004), Much Ado About Nothing (2006), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2007), Hay Fever (2010), Yours Abundantly From Zimbabwe (2010), Rent (2011), Shirley Valentine (2011) and Boeing Boeing (2011-2012) among others.
Higgins said between 2005 and 2011 Lucas was the director of Theatre at Theory X, an innovative company dedicated to building the next generation of Zimbabwean artists and he has also been creative co-ordinator of Hifa-Direct, the new writing and directing arm of Hifa, in partnership with the British Council.
In 2009 Lucas was selected as cultural ambassador for the Young Directors programme at the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts on behalf of the US State Department and a year later he returned to the US to speak at a Global Conference for Theatre without Borders, he said.
Higgins said in his new role for the Repertory Players, Lucas would direct a specified number of productions on both stages at Reps Theatre in Harare, as well as oversee all productions staged by other directors from within the Repertory Players and he would also provide input in areas such as quality control, training and development and marketing.
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Lucas is one of the most highly respected personalities in Zimbabwean theatre and has a wealth of talent and experience to offer Reps, said Higgins.
We look forward to many years of exciting and innovative theatrical activity under his guidance, further enhancing a dramatic society that has more than 80 years of tradition and history behind it.
